Do you really own your forum?

[Randy]

For those of you who have a free hosted forum (proboards, forumotion, etc), do you really own your forum? Are the people who are in charge of that free hosting service are the true owners? Are you able to make a backup and take your forum somewhere else?

 

[Moonface]

When my board was on ZetaBoards I didn't own squat of it when it came to the data because there were no backups or exports that I could have possession of. When that service closed down and merged into TT back in 2018 I had to leave all of it behind when I moved to self hosting.

So no, unless you can take a copy of your database with you to another host you don't own it. If TT died tomorrow they would take every single forum they host down with them and that data would be gone forever.

 

[Cory]

Jcink allows you to download a database backup file, so in a way, I suppose I truly own it. But, John owns the overall service, and if he wanted to close my board for no reason or even have it deleted, I imagine that's his obligation. It's the risk you take with free forum software, but thankfully with Jcink, John has been faithful towards his service for a very long time now.

 

[Nebulous]

For those of you who have a free hosted forum (proboards, forumotion, etc), do you really own your forum? Are the people who are in charge of that free hosting service are the true owners? Are you able to make a backup and take your forum somewhere else?

If your forum uses a domain name (.com, .net, etc) that you control elsewhere (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc) and you can make a backup of your forum whenever you want... then you really do own your forum. Its up to you to make regular backups because if your host suddenly pulls the plug, you can simply get hosting elsewhere / restore your forum and point your domain name to your new host. You'll be back online in a day or two with your forum in tact.

When I first started with forums I was on a free phpBB host that doesn't exist any more. You couldn't make backups at will. You had to buy it from the host. They also partnered with a paid host (pretty sure it was called lunar pages) and they'd transfer your forum to that host and set up your forum for you. Since I was a novice I paid a little more to have them set me up on that host. Once I got familiar with the cPanel, FTP software and all that good stuff I moved my forum to a different host of my choice. LunarPages was lame, they'd always have a reason to cut the service off your hosting plan because you used too many resources or whatever. Always trying to get you to upgrade to a more expensive plan when you didn't need it.

When my board was on ZetaBoards I didn't own squat of it when it came to the data because there were no backups or exports that I could have possession of. When that service closed down and merged into TT back in 2018 I had to leave all of it behind when I moved to self hosting.

So no, unless you can take a copy of your database with you to another host you don't own it. If TT died tomorrow they would take every single forum they host down with them and that data would be gone forever.

That sucks. How many members and posts did your forum have when you were with Zeta?

Jcink allows you to download a database backup file, so in a way, I suppose I truly own it. But, John owns the overall service, and if he wanted to close my board for no reason or even have it deleted, I imagine that's his obligation. It's the risk you take with free forum software, but thankfully with Jcink, John has been faithful towards his service for a very long time now.

Jcink is the only free host I've heard of that does that, which is very nice of the owner to allow. Most free hosts don't want to give you that option because they need the ad revenue money from your free hosted forum and don't want to lose you. If you did take your jcink backup to paid hosting, how would you restore the forum? Is the version of IPB they use still available to download out there anywhere?

 

[Cory]

Jcink is the only free host I've heard of that does that, which is very nice of the owner to allow. Most free hosts don't want to give you that option because they need the ad revenue money from your free hosted forum and don't want to lose you. If you did take your jcink backup to paid hosting, how would you restore the forum? Is the version of IPB they use still available to download out there anywhere?

Yeah, Jcink and its owner are pretty chill. Not sure if the IPB version is available anywhere at this point. Since my board is specifically Jcink-related, it'd be a bit pointless to move it to a paid software.

 

[Moonface]

That sucks. How many members and posts did your forum have when you were with Zeta?

We ended on 88.1k posts, 3.3k threads, and 219 members.

 

[Kale]

When my board was on ZetaBoards I didn't own squat of it when it came to the data because there were no backups or exports that I could have possession of. When that service closed down and merged into TT back in 2018 I had to leave all of it behind when I moved to self hosting.

Yup, same. My Harvest Moon forum was on ZetaBoards and have it on TT. I sometimes go back to view the topics and stuff out of nostalgia.

 

[passenger]

RIP Zetaboards

Dammit!

 

[Nebulous]

We ended on 88.1k posts, 3.3k threads, and 219 members.

Pretty good run!

Yup, same. My Harvest Moon forum was on ZetaBoards and have it on TT. I sometimes go back to view the topics and stuff out of nostalgia.

Did you have a lot of members and posts?

RIP Zetaboards

Dammit!

 

[Kale]

Did you have a lot of members and posts?

64 members, 6.0k posts, and 611 topics/threads. One of my more successful forums back in 2009-2010 and sadly shut it down due to IRL circumstances and felt interest was lost in the series at the time.

 

[Dan The Man]

For those of you who have a free hosted forum (proboards, forumotion, etc), do you really own your forum? Are the people who are in charge of that free hosting service are the true owners? Are you able to make a backup and take your forum somewhere else?

No.

When my board was on ZetaBoards I didn't own squat of it when it came to the data because there were no backups or exports that I could have possession of. When that service closed down and merged into TT back in 2018 I had to leave all of it behind when I moved to self hosting.

So no, unless you can take a copy of your database with you to another host you don't own it. If TT died tomorrow they would take every single forum they host down with them and that data would be gone forever.

I recall this and sorry to see it happen to your community and many others.

 

[Nebulous]

I recall this and sorry to see it happen to your community and many others.

Unfortunately that will be the outcome for all forums using a free host eventually. You need to be able to take your database else where if your host goes down. Nothing lasts forever.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I miss Zetaboards, TT is a complete joke. :\ I feel bad for those who had to start from scratch because they couldn't get access to their database. That's also why Jcink is my favorite free forum host, you get access to your database at any point in time. As for the other services, you don't own your board. You can't gain access to the database, the companies own them.

 

[Nebulous]

I've heard of these scripts that will scrape a board of all its data (usernames, threads, posts, whatever is visible to the public) and copy them to an empty forum installation. I suppose thats one way to move your free forum to its own hosting.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I've heard of these scripts that will scrape a board of all its data (usernames, threads, posts, whatever is visible to the public) and copy them to an empty forum installation. I suppose thats one way to move your free forum to its own hosting.

I remember there was someone making one back before Zetaboards was completely taken down. I know some people ended up using this tool to get their data from Zetaboards. You have to be careful doing so though, the server could get overloaded and may not be able to scrape all data.

 

[Nebulous]

I remember there was someone making one back before Zetaboards was completely taken down. I know some people ended up using this tool to get their data from Zetaboards. You have to be careful doing so though, the server could get overloaded and may not be able to scrape all data.

Wonder if there is one that can scrape tapatalk. All the data on those zetaboards forum still exists there.

 

[Kale]

Wonder if there is one that can scrape tapatalk. All the data on those zetaboards forum still exists there.

Yes, wonder too. I'd love to just get all the stuff on my old forum and move it to a self hosted solution.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I believe someone on the Zetaboards discord server was making one for Tapatalk, but that server is dead. (I mean most of us are on forums. xD) Perhaps posting in the discord will maybe bring that person back? I don't know, if you want me to send a invite link I can post one.