Quote:
Originally Posted by ckent45
I know there's been some talk of that, even before SWrealm went down (again).
The question is how much expertise and money is needed for it? As I recall, the owner of SWrealm was paying a fee to put the forum up, and then tapatalk came in and immediately started dumping in ads and pitches for "premium" service. Since there was no warning whatsoever that that change was coming to begin with, I'm guessing they are running tiers in their forums. I.e., Want a forum? Pay us this low fee! Want it ad free? Pay us just a little more! Want our spam emails to stop for a month? Pay us just a little bit more!
From what I've seen of other free forum options out there, they are doing similar things as well. I see that Giantess City is still running Phpbb, so I know it can still be done if anyone wanted to go back to the way things were, but there are other hurdles to overcome as well.
For instance, the SWrealm leadership seems to have gone AWOL just like Minimizer's did once upon a time. I was trying to contribute at one time at SWrealm, and might do just that once again, if a new home was started, but right now the biggest hurdle is how does it get done?
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I think you sum things up pretty well CK.
As a mod (or possibly ex mod) on SW Realm, I've always queried any glitches that occurred in the past with the chief admin (dorianblack), and have usually had a prompt and positive response. However, I feel it is down to the "management" to furnish us all with an explanation this time around, as the situation seems more serious than in the past.
As I said earlier, I won't shed any tears if I don't see that Tapatalk banner again, but if the forum has been terminated I sympathize with everyone who has contributed, and especially those who put so much effort into making it what it once was.
So what now?
It may be premature to write off SW Realm, because we have no idea what the situation is or whether it might reappear again as mysteriously as it disappeared, but whatever the future holds.. I feel an alternative forum solely dedicated to SW, is a positive move to consider.
So if you feel that idea is worth pursuing, please feel free to join this little Yahoo Group I started recently.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SWhaven/info
There aren't many of us there at present, but the more of us that can contribute ideas and opinions about an alternative SW forum, then the merrier we will all be (there's free imaginary booze there as well. But if that that doesn't hack it then bring your own!)
I hope that covers the situation for now, and I thank our host forum for letting us discuss these matters.