urbanMSP

Hello all,

As you may have seen in the other thread, there is interest at streets.mn in taking a more active role in how the forums work. I haven't been involved with streets.mn for a while, but they have been paying the bills and doing the occasional technical work for the forum for sometime now.

I did think, at the time, that it made sense for the two sites to be combined. streets.mn has since gone down a road a bit wider than "website where people talk about land use and transportation," which is something they are allowed to do.

My take today is that the forum has worked pretty well for a while with minimal interference. Remember when it didn't! That was fun.

So one other possibility is that, perhaps, someone here could offer to take over responsibility for the forum. The hosting fee is roughly $130/year, plus you may have to periodically figure out technical stuff, but I don't think that happens very often. Ideally this person would understand the technical part of phpBB. I would imagine you could crowdfund the money pretty easily--I would personally prefer no ads and would be happy to chip in $20 or $50 or whatever.

Is that something that anyone would be interested in?

Let's think bigger- https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_prof ... aper&e=com

I'd be happy to throw in $20 a year to help keep the whole thing simple, independent, and ad free. Sounds like we just need a volunteer administrator and a few people to throw in a little cash and maybe some beer for the person who volunteers to run it.

I would chip in monetarily, not smart enough for the other stuff.

I would chip in monetarily, not smart enough for the other stuff.

Ditto

Same.

Happy to pitch in. Open to a conversation about doing the tech admin of the site as well if necessary.

Patreon could be a good way to establish memberships and easily connect the funds to whoever takes stewardship. I'd join in on that.

I'll dip my toe in and say that I've done Linux hosting for client sites for two decades and know PHP (but not phpBB specifically—I do Drupal and Laravel). I'd also be open to a conversation if it looks like streets.mn wants to offload the forums.

It would be great to make improvements, but users hate change. Keeping things on phpBB seems like the right plan, but looking into plugins or making mobile device or accessibility improvements to the theme could be a good move.

Alternatively, I'd also be open to pitching in $20/year or whatever to a Patreon to keep things running with no ads, and a small fund for maintenance/technical hours.

Would happily chip in financially, as I'm not going to be much use on the technical side.

I already donate to streets.mn. I'd donate to the forum, too, if it went it's own way.

Also do infrastructure and development on the side outside of my day job (managing development teams) and would gladly help out with whatever is needed.

Agree on keeping it ad free, and agree with @karishea about finding a way to update/improve without ostracizing the user base. There are definitely better platforms than phpBB out there but not sure if small enhancements to the existing site may be a better path forward.

Hello forum folk.

You may have noticed we have a site redesign at streets.mn. There's no longer a forum link.

We're trying to get someone to officially take over the Forums again as the streets.mn board wants to leave it with someone who will take care of it, run it, pay for it. We're no longer going to do that.

Please email me at [email protected] if you know someone here that can do that. Otherwise this forum may just disappear one day due to neglect.

The forum is now officially urbanMSP again, including slightly revised old logo. We will switch back to the old domain over the next couple of days (forum.streets will still redirect you). Thanks to streetsMN for years of supporting the forum.

Nick is managing collecting and paying — I believe he will post how to pitch in.

Thanks Sean.

Julie here from the streets.mn board. Can confirm the forum is paid through year-end, so the timing to have it all together is generous right now. Can also confirm that autopay has been turned off from the streets.mn side, so the billing will need to be in place by roughly 12/15 to avoid Bad Things Happening.

It sounds like things are being taken care of--I've got my credit card info punched in the thing so if we're good until year end, I will start the shake down in November.

Thanks for taking the reins again, Nick.

Thanks for providing a place!

Thanks, Nick! Looking forward to hearing how we can all pitch in.