What Now? Important!

[pk]

Well the message board will be gone tomorrow. What do we do?
Stay here....which we dont know how stable here is or how much room we have.
Use the site gulffresh made www.skywayfishing.com
1337 had mentioned he would host a forum and let Mike admin it

[havetofish]

I don't know what to think yet...1337 needs to register here, unless he already has under a different username.

Just a few thoughts:
1. Personally I really don't care which site we use. I think that we all see some of the benefits that a forum like this can provide. I am concerned that getting everyone to switch to many times will take its toll and they will just not bother anymore.
2. Moderating a forum can be a mixed blessing. As soon as someone deletes a post that seems inappropriate to them, they will catch a bunch of flack. So there needs to be some rules for the board.
3. Although someone having an advertised website seems to me to be just another website, there are some benefits. When there is a vested interest in keeping it up to date, it seems to get done. What Pk mentions about subdomains is true. I do not know the limitations of proforums.
4. Thanks gulfresh for giving us another alternative. But it seems to me to be another capmel or pierfishing type format. There are plenty of them out there. Maybe its just me, but all I want is Skyway, Skyway and more Skyway. Not that other topics aren't discussed.

So for now I say lets get more info from what we see is available and don't rush to any conclusions.

[bill jacques]

I agree with Havetofish. I think the main theme should be skyway pier info or topics on skyway fishing.
Question for Bigmike. any possibilty of getting a link on the skyway website to this forum?

[bob]

Seems 1337 is offering for free, a secure site with a ton of options! It could be made into whatever everyone wanted. Strictly Skyway Piers with no interference from State Park Managment. Strictly for the fishing folks!
While this website is free if it goes down you have no backup to recover!
Utilize this as a temporary and set up with 1337 on a super site! IMHO.

[GoinDeep]

Either way is fine with me folks. I just started this one out of necessity like someone else said...

Ive done a bit of reading about proboards...Theres over 2 million proboard forums out there, and Ive seen some that have been online for years with hundreds of thousands of posts, tons of pics, etc...so I dont think room will be a problem. Im not sure how secure/stable it is as I never even heard of proboard till Pk posted a link at the other board. They DO have a support forum should anything go wrong (stuff can go wrong, even on secure sites), but again, I really dont know much about it.

I know having a secure site with backup capabilities and tons of storage, bandwidth, etc is important...Im havin fun with this site right now, but if everyone decides to move, Im there with yall.

Tiiiiight lines!!

[GoinDeep]

1337, can you give us a link to see what kind of forum we would have??

[havetofish]

Goindeep,
You saved our bacon by getting this up quick.
I tried looking for some more details and have basically seen what you mentioned. Do you see anywhere that they charge at anytime for bandwidth, storage, backup etc.. Maybe they don't, if the forum is that popular, maybe the extra costs are offset with the extra page views for the google advertisers.

[GoinDeep]

Havetofish...proboards does offer paid services for add-free forums and file attachments, but I havent seen anything about paying for extra space or backup. I dont think we will need any extra space for posts. Their servers seem to be capable of handlling hundreds of thousands of posts, and if the time ever comes where we need to prune back a bit, we could always add an archive forum to save some of the threads with the best info. Bandwidth doesnt seem to be an issue either.

File attachment space costs $2 per month for 20 MB of space. but posting pics in messages dont count as attachments, so I dont think we need the attachment subscription. In fact, I have attachments turned off so we dont even use that feature.

To go ad-free (the ads at the top of the page would disappear) its like $7 per month (for up to 50,000 ad-free pageviews...every $7 buys another 50k page views), but I havent seen any popups, so I dont think the ads are much of a distraction.

One thing I just noticed is this forum also has a live chat option I havent turned on yet (also free, with some subscription options that I havent checked out yet)...I think having live chats scheduled to discuss certain aspects of Skyway fishing would be cool...like for example, we could post on the forum that a live chat will take place Friday night at 7pm to discuss Skyway Shark Fishing, and whoever wants to show up for a real time chat could do so to learn how to do it, or to share techniques and experiences, etc...Not a huge dealbreaker, Just another feature we could take advantage of.

I will contact their support forum this weekend to see if theres any way to have our posts backed up.

[festeroo031985]

so far i like this forum and if it has the space to make it last and an option to make an archive thread option why re-create the wheel just stay here and keep talking fishing i agree with whoever commented on if people have to keep changing from one forum to another well loose a lot of people in the long run i like the options this one gives so far just have to set up a photo bucket acct so i can post pics but other then that i like this.

[bigcatcatcher]

I say we use all 3 because each has there on positives. I will visit all 3 dont know about yall

[bigcatcatcher]

Does my opinion really matter. I havent fished the pier for at least 18 years. ia am stuck in memphis tn and just enjoy reading and chatting with yall about the skyway / redington / pier 60 etc. I will be back 1 day and mabey meet some of yal. I have a feeling that some of us allready know each other and dont even relieze it.

[jab]

1337 site looks pretty cool

[bodysnatcher]

I'm liking this site just fine.

[Deleted]

I come home about every 2yrs. but I have read the forum everyday. I really feel no need to post but your post make me smile everyday. Thanks for the memories rekindled through all of you regulars.....By the way I'll be back wed. the 7th. Mabye I'll finally have a chance to meet some of you all.

[riverviewsteve]

Yeah! I like this site pretty good. Just haven't figured
it out yet. ie the double post yesterday. By the way
I'd like to thank Steve for removing one. It was
embarrassing enough when I see what I'd done.
Thanks Steve.
Steve

[pk]

1337...........you still out there?