The forum needs your guy's help.

[koko]

Hi everyone that reads this. 

Koko's needs your help guys. With everything that has gone on this year, its becoming harder and harder for me to pay for the forum. We have lost a lot of subscribers. I have a fund raiser at the top of the forum to try and raise money to help cover the costs. Im hoping that if we raise enough we will be able to keep going. I don't know exactly when I will have to shut it down, and I don't want to!  

 I want to thank everyone that has supported the site over the years.

[Arctic Mama]

What are your yearly fees like? Could you potentially pay the domain and host elsewhere? My husband has a server and we could certainly have it on there if it would cut costs.

[koko]

10 minutes ago, Arctic Mama said:

What are your yearly fees like? Could you potentially pay the domain and host elsewhere? My husband has a server and we could certainly have it on there if it would cut costs.

The main site has been payed for already for 4 years. I don't know if your hubby can handle the ssl that needs to be attached to the site but this would be a very good idea for the future.

My issue is the forum hun. It costs me and I'll tell ya flat out, $70 a month. It has to be hosted from these guys cause of all the coverage and support it needs. I don't know if we could move it to another message board or not. Its gotten so huge. 

Im up for suggestions. 

[Arctic Mama]

Hmmm, I’ll ask him about it and see what he says, you may have options, but it just depends on a number of factors.

[FishyMandy]

Ill sub as long as I can, but I do have to admit with the lack of activity on the forum its getting harder to find and keep people willing to pay

[LetiJones]

Donated!  It is a bit of a bummer because I just started in this hobby not too long ago and this forum helped me so much. I do wish it was a lot more active. Is sharing this on facebook goldfish groups okay? I feel like a lot of the facebook people don't even know about this forum somehow... And I will start doing my best to post here more often, I usually just come to read. Thank you!

[koko]

18 hours ago, FishyMandy said:

Ill sub as long as I can, but I do have to admit with the lack of activity on the forum its getting harder to find and keep people willing to pay

I know hun. Its been bugging me too. I think a lot of ppl are using FB and out of fish keeping. 

18 hours ago, LetiJones said:

Donated!  It is a bit of a bummer because I just started in this hobby not too long ago and this forum helped me so much. I do wish it was a lot more active. Is sharing this on facebook goldfish groups okay? I feel like a lot of the facebook people don't even know about this forum somehow... And I will start doing my best to post here more often, I usually just come to read. Thank you!

Well we can all trying to post more. I know I have been so busy home schooling, I will try harder myself  

It sure it. You can share anywhere you would like  Thank you so much for helping and being a part of the community 

[Arctic Mama]

Haven’t had time to poke DH and ask about solutions, but I know it is tough  forums are suffering in general, and it’s a damn shame. They’re far superior for discussion and preservation of information and knowledge.

[koko]

6 minutes ago, Arctic Mama said:

Haven’t had time to poke DH and ask about solutions, but I know it is tough  forums are suffering in general, and it’s a damn shame. They’re far superior for discussion and preservation of information and knowledge.

I agree. They are more like a library than any other kind of platform. I sure hope we can keep going. For me its heart breaking. I mean I been hosting it for 21 years now. It like a child to me. I don't want to loose it. But you know you got to feed your family first.  

[FishyMandy]

Yea i know quite a few of the old kokos people are active on fb and  it makes me so sad that they arent here anymore

[dahling8]

I enjoy this forum, though I am on several fb groups, I rarely visit them.  I downsized to just 1 tank, a collaboration of my favourite fish in my hobby, but sadly goldfish are not compatible in that mix.  I do have a spare 40g breeder in the corner but we big travel plans starting this year, but the world is upside down now, so who knows.  I'd like support where I can though, so please keep us up to date as to which direction you would like to take the forum.

[koko]

5 hours ago, dahling8 said:

I enjoy this forum, though I am on several fb groups, I rarely visit them.  I downsized to just 1 tank, a collaboration of my favourite fish in my hobby, but sadly goldfish are not compatible in that mix.  I do have a spare 40g breeder in the corner but we big travel plans starting this year, but the world is upside down now, so who knows.  I'd like support where I can though, so please keep us up to date as to which direction you would like to take the forum.

Hey, 

I know the feeling of the goldfish. I have my 2 and once they have passed I don't think I will be having a goldfish tank. My daughter wants a Betta tank, so thats what we will have next. It just costs a lot to take care of them right and the time.

We have raised $190 so far. It costs $70 a month to keep the forum up. I will keep it running as long as I / we as a community can keep it going. 

[dahling8]

Betta?  Really?    One or I should say 6 of my inhabitants in a 40g breeder is a sorority of 6 lovely betta girls.  Lots of space to handle any squabbles and aggression issues.  Just a thought.

[koko]

1 minute ago, dahling8 said:

Betta?  Really?    One or I should say 6 of my inhabitants in a 40g breeder is a sorority of 6 lovely betta girls.  Lots of space to handle any squabbles and aggression issues.  Just a thought.

lol She wants the boys. Every time I go to Pecto, She looks at everyone of them to figure out which one she wants lol. I told her you need to wait a bit. I have 1 cat, 1 cat/dog, 2 fish, her and her daddy. I got to much I tell her to take care of.  

Oh she also wants a Glo Fish  

 

Oh you guys want to see something funny? This is what its like to live with a Maine Coon lol

 

 

[dahling8]

Thai Plakats.  Hard to tell the difference between the boys and girls.  They don't have the flowing tails of the halfmoons/crowntails etc. but they are stronger swimmers.  Hmmm...1 boy or 6 girls amongst the glofish.

Your Main Coon is so lovey dovey, too much affection for me in a cat.  lol.  Our lovebird growled at me and only me, but purred with his main caregiver.  Just say I was fine with that, but we all shed tears when he did pass on.  

[Arctic Mama]

According to DH:

If she can dump her database to an sql file, I can try the available converter. 
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rafphpbb/

he says he can potentially do it in December after we upgrade our servers, and move it to a PHPBB, which are free. Interested?

[Arctic Mama]

He also floated dumping the entire site to archive only to preserve everything and just beginning anew-ish with posts in the new board software. It would keep all the data and allow all the new discussions, but possibly play more nicely with old videos and images and such?

[Arctic Mama]

Also we can’t see anything but the mobile in our phones, what version of invisionzone are you running?

[koko]

I'm on 4.4....i sent a memo to TD....see what he thinks. 😊

[Arctic Mama]

What we kicked around is essentially the simplest and cheapest solution is moving it to archive and running a simpler board interface from here on out. There is no reason to either lose data OR a message board format, but Kokos needs to be sustainable from here on out in the current iteration, one that fits the smaller user base and collected knowledge. It just doesn’t *need* the bells and whistles, nor does it seem like the cost makes sense. I guess I’m offering because I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, so if Peter and I can help you maintain a more stable, simple solution privately, we would be happy to. You shouldn’t be paying for much more than a little server space and the domain name, it’s just not needed and I don’t foresee the forum population increasing beyond the steady pace it has been at the last few years. You can still have some integration and posting of discussions back and forth with Facebook or even Instagram, but those should be tools to drive traffic here as needed (like have a disease help link on Facebook that redirects to the forum for additional assistance) and not something that needs to be separately maintained.

The PHPBB solution would also make it easy to link the static Koko pages to the site, and have it all hosted in a simplistic fashion. We use Serendipity for most of our personal and business websites because it is so customizable, and long term maintenance could potentially be a bit easier because we maintain our own pages and system upgrades for other reasons (therefore tacking on some support and structure for you is easy, as we are already doing church, personal, and business pages and own the whole thing, including the mail service  ).

It’s just an idea, but it makes sense to be to transition to a longer term, lower key model that wouldn’t be a constant cost. The time spent should be mostly on the front end, and the money on fun member contests and such, not on endless fees and maintenance. And being able to call me and Peter for support seems like a much more straightforward proposition than paying some third party for it. We just want to make things easier for you, and if the conversion couldn’t work, we could still preserve all the links, files, and knowledge long term for very little expense. 
 

The conversion from this board software is the potential sticking point, but there are solutions, some are just more or less elegant, according to hubs.

[koko]

Ric says that this would be the last effort. He said that trying to archive and pack up a site and move it over to another kind of forum is very very tricky. It can and may result in loosing everything. 

As of right now we have raised enough for 4 more months.  I will keep on trucking for now. Every bit and thought helps guys.

[ryukingirl]

I stopped by to see how you were doing, and donated! I can't thank you enough for all the help and joy you've given me over the years, Koko. hopefully my little bit can help keep you up and running ♥️♥️ - Sarah H. (aka ryukingirl)

[mermaidkitten]

Added a little to the pile just to show my deep appreciation for all of the emergency help with my fish and to vastly improve my fishkeeping skills! So grateful for this forum! Keep up the good work!

[Arctic Mama]

@koko Just let me know :), we are happy to help but it’s true it would be a big reboot. You wouldn’t lose content, but I’d say to retain it entirely it would be closed to new comments. The text and images and such could certainly be preserved in a more financially feasible way though, which would be the important part long term. But as long as you have enough support to keep going, that’s easier for everyone and it’s spiffy :)

 

[koko]

On 11/10/2020 at 8:21 AM, ryukingirl said:

I stopped by to see how you were doing, and donated! I can't thank you enough for all the help and joy you've given me over the years, Koko. hopefully my little bit can help keep you up and running ♥️♥️ - Sarah H. (aka ryukingirl)

Hey there.... I have misses ya hun.... Thank you Thank you so much! 

On 11/10/2020 at 10:03 AM, mermaidkitten said:

Added a little to the pile just to show my deep appreciation for all of the emergency help with my fish and to vastly improve my fishkeeping skills! So grateful for this forum! Keep up the good work!

Thank you hun. Its nice to see you on here. And Thank you so very much hun. 

On 11/10/2020 at 10:50 AM, Arctic Mama said:

@koko Just let me know :), we are happy to help but it’s true it would be a big reboot. You wouldn’t lose content, but I’d say to retain it entirely it would be closed to new comments. The text and images and such could certainly be preserved in a more financially feasible way though, which would be the important part long term. But as long as you have enough support to keep going, that’s easier for everyone and it’s spiffy :)

 

I just have to say thank you..... Every attempt to keep the site going helps. Lets see how long we can work together to keep it this way. the only other way I can think is Tapatalk. But here's the main issue. If we did move it, we loose the URL and the Links in the search engine. We would start over again.