Important News

[Matthew Snell]

Dear All

I’ve been avoiding this for too long, but the issue can’t be ducked for ever. I am summarising things first, but there is context and further information below which some may appreciate.

I want to give reasonable notice that I can’t realistically continue to underwrite the forum and I am intending to close it at the end of this year. I think many of you will realise that I feel great sadness about this, but newer digital environments and updated software have finally caught up with us and, without a very large investment, I can’t see an alternative.

The current forum software relies on PHP5. The option to use this was discontinued by our, then, hosts earlier this year. I had very little notice (through various misunderstandings and ineptitude on the host's part) and I still feel angry towards them. At that time I spent a whack of money with web engineers to create a PHP5 compatible space on AWS and to migrate the forum. Annual running costs are now in excess of £600 and this is way more than I can afford.

The only alternative would be to bring the forum software up to date to allow it to function with current PHP. I have had quotes for doing this at between £2500 and £3500 - with no guarantee of a successful outcome.

I recognise that I should probably have been investing in incremental updates through the years but at least some of the neglect had already occurred before I became involved with World Designs. Alas, however bad I feel about my part in this, it doesn’t alter the problem.

I have been told that it wouldn’t be possible to keep the information held on the forum and publish it as some sort of read-only archive in another format. If any of you thinks differently I would love to hear from you. Urgently please!

As you know, many of you have generously supported the running of the forum (historically £300-350 p.a.) through John’s annual appeal. I have always been grateful for this and I list the income below both for “transparency” and to demonstrate the unlikelihood of our ever generating enough to keep going in the new circumstances (figures are rounded to the nearest £5):

2020: £435 (a surplus)
2021: £215
2022: £165
2023: £160
2024: £245

Since my involvement with WD, and excepting 2020, the difference between operational costs and income from donations has been met by me. That could be seen as coming either from profit from the business or from my own pocket (barring any small tax implication, these are the same thing!)

It’s probably worth pointing out that the forum is very little-used these days. I’m not complaining, it’s just a fact of life! But it perhaps underlines the fact that, at least from my perspective, much of it’s value is historic - and this has been my view from my first involvement.

The only cheerful news I have is that, for the past year or so, it’s been obvious that the A.I. bots seem to have been diligently “scraping” the content of the forum. This means that at least some of the information in the archive may yet live on. I certainly hope this is so.

I would welcome contact about any of this and would anyway love to stay in touch. After the end of the year that will means you’ll need to email me.

World Designs will continue to sell parts and kits.

Thank you all for your contributions - financial and otherwise - to the forum.

Lastly - but very importantly - I want to express my gratitude to our staunch and selfless moderators for their patient labours over the years. Thank you John, Richard and Colin, from all of us!

Best,

Matthew

[TimN]

Matthew,

To lose all the knowledge and experience contained in the forum would be tragic. I often use the search facility.

Would it be possible to move to a subscription based format? I would certainly be more than willing to buy a yearly ticket - within reason. Could you sell yearly passes on the World Designs "shop"? Is there any way of gauging interest?

Tim

[smithblue3]

Hi Matthew,
Really sorry to hear this news and I hope the forum, and the data can be saved. Over the years I have regularly "tuned in" to the forum, but due to lack of technical knowledge, very rarely contributed. The threads have been very useful to help me understand Valves, Diagrams, and associated Components whilst enjoying the Chit, Chat between the Experts. The forum recently has been very quite which reflects the current economic climate. I would like to Thank You for all you've done for the forum and people like me, and thanks to the Experts (you know who you are) for your help and guidance. If the worst does comes to the worst I will still continue to purchase items from yourself and wish you success in going forward with World Design Products. Regards Peter

[bob orbell]

Very sad news indeed Matthew. I have said in the past that ALL members should pay a joining fee, lets say just a few pounds, now, total the number of members and you have all the money needed and it would stop the riff raff joining and using the forum purely for private messaging, not mention the wasters who NEVER log on. I would be very disopionted to lose this forum and hope somthing could be done. Bob

[Chris]

I find it strange to see at times just a few members online but there is a couple hundred guests.

[bob orbell]

And look at how many of these quests are trying to register, and if they get on the forum you will never see them return and add somthing . Bob

[Fred Shaw]

Very sad indeed. Whilst my posts are extremely infrequent, I do log on to the forum virtually everyday to see what others are posting, and forum members have been unstinting in their help resolving any problems I have had. To loose the forum after 20+ years of viewing would indeed be quite a loss. I hope it doesn’t actually come to that, and that the more knowledgeable members are able to come up with a solution whereby the forum can be retained. I for one would gladly contribute more to the running costs but I feel that would only be a short time fix. I do hope a positive outcome can be found.

Fred.

[Shane]

If the worst comes to the worst, is there any way of archiving the forum for future reference?

[Shane]

Just had this suggestion from a computer boffin in the other place. Doesn’t mean a lot to me but it may be useful:

“ If there are only ever a few active real users there is no need for a cloud-hosted instance...

...do something like...

Get a backup of the forum, create a local docker container for it on a private subnet with PHP5, ban all robots in robots.txt (or at least all the robots that actually acknowledge robots.txt), create a pipe to the container via your firewall on the private subnet. Limit concurrent usage to say 5 users.

Zero cost except a bit of bandwidth and some time.

Being fair, PHP5 is **** and riddled with security holes. Older versions of PHPmailer, if they are used, are also vulnerable and should not be used. Maybe just disable all email from the site.”

[Matthew Snell]

Sounds straightforward - and not unlike the brief I attempted to give a web engineer earlier this year; that cost a lot and has led to high ongoing costs (see original post).

I don't personally have the relevant skills - so this would need farming out. Can anyone forward me details of someone who could quote for doing this? Or, even better, quote a price directly here for comment!

Thanks,