IMPORTANT: PP FORUM *NOT* GOING AWAY

[bedraggled]

Money may not be an issue but $50 or $60 per year may be a target amount. One hundred subscribers @ $50 per buys a lot of beer for the new administrator.

Also, I signed up for the Google group, I think. I may need help as I often have trouble merely logging in. Where would I be without those PMs to TPG? (I envy the posters in the "Apple Sucks" thread- and we are Apple with Apple TV)!

[dutchtraffic]

For 20-30 $ /month you can run this board on a dedicated server which is 10 -20 times more powerful than it needs to be.
Throw some adsense ads on it and you make multiples of that back.

I really have no idea how this forum is even running into limits, the traffic is very low

[distefam]

While I'm a late arriver to this community, I agree with most in this thread that this eclectic group of people should have a place to congregate and discuss investing as it relates to the Permanent Portfolio.

I am a software engineer and comfortable running servers. I find discourse (made by the people who make Stack Overflow) to be the best forum out there. There are import options out there too if we wanted to preserve some of the history of this forum, though it might be nice to start fresh.

Discourse offers hosting for $100-200/mo (depending on traffic. I would set up a Patreon or similar to help pay for the upkeep. Alternatively, I could host it on a VPS, which would probably be cheaper, albeit with a bit more maintenance.

Update: Looks like a VPS hosted version could be as cheap as $10/mo, though that would depend on traffic.

Please reply to this message so I can gauge interest. I can set up a new Discourse forum today with the trial and we can figure out the demand for paying for upkeep based on interest on this thread. Craig, if this sounds like a good idea to you let's discuss migration options. Everyone, how important would migration be rather than starting over?

[stpeter]

Ive posted before, but maybe it is worth another try for a Slack group.

https://permanentportfolio.slack.com

You can signup here:

https://permanentportfolioslack.herokuapp.com/

Not a forum style with threads but can have a room for gold/bonds/etc

+1 to Slack. Once you go Slack, you never go back! ;-)

[dutchtraffic]

Everyone, how important would migration be rather than starting over?

The best thing would be to keep the setup as it is right now, same forum, same everything.
That way organic traffic is not affected. Google won't like it when all your content is suddenly gone.

There's not really any reason for donations or any funding, like i said before, 20-30 $ will get you a dedicated server that's WAY better than needed.

http://www.serverbidding.com/?country=US
48 GB ram and 2 x 2TB enterprise disks, for a few 100 unique visits/day.... that's 31 euro. Just 1 example.
Some adsense thrown on here will earn that back easily.

[stpeter]

Update: Looks like a VPS hosted version could be as cheap as $10/mo, though that would depend on traffic.

I have my own VPS, too. Easy enough to run such things. :-)

Please reply to this message so I can gauge interest. I can set up a new Discourse forum today with the trial and we can figure out the demand for paying for upkeep based on interest on this thread. Craig, if this sounds like a good idea to you let's discuss migration options. Everyone, how important would migration be rather than starting over?

Migration is very important - there is a *lot* of historical information here and we're always pointing newcomers to older threads.

I'm sure that many folks here would be happy to contribute small sums now and then to keep things running smoothly.

[distefam]

The self-hosted version of Discourse has a docker container so installs are pretty easy. They have a special install tutorial for Digital Ocean but most VPSs will be pretty trivial to do an install. $10/mo isn't bad at all. I'd want others to moderate if I run the servers though.

As for migration. I wonder if simply hosting an archived version of this phbBB would be a good idea so links could be referenced but still using a clean forum. Thoughts?

[dutchtraffic]

Why does everybody want to reinvent the wheel? Why use another platform and lose all organic traffic...? Doesn't make any sense whatsoever

[distefam]

Why does everybody want to reinvent the wheel? Why use another platform and lose all organic traffic...? Doesn't make any sense whatsoever

That's fair. I just offered to run Discourse because I find it to be superior to a traditional forum and I'd feel more comfortable running it than a traditional bulletin board. Others on here have offered to re-host the same phbBB version, which would work too.

[Xan]

Please hold off on creating alternate sites. It's looking like this one will be able to continue, at the same address with the same software. I wouldn't say the panic level can go down to zero just yet, but it's maybe a 1 rather than a 10. Details to come.

[distefam]

That's great to hear. I just offered because I don't want to see the site go away. My main concern is that the site is up and running and I'd be willing to help that in any way. Happy to hear others are working on something.

[craigr]

Here's the update.

Xan has offered to host the site going forward. It will be the same message DB we have here perhaps minus a couple days as the DB transitions over to the new host. The domain will be the same, etc.

Stand by for more details.

-- Craig