[tecomsin]

I'm on several different forums with different usernames. One that I participate in was part of a larger website that underwent a reorganization. Unlike the last time they updated the site, this time they completely deleted all the forum posts and only copied a few over to bootstrap a new forum. One can't even find the old threads in an archive. The links are all dead. It's just been erased from the internet as far as I can tell.

I've been posting there regularly for several years and I feel I have lost a part of my life. The web update design was supposed to be for the community but it looks like they really don't care about the people who were actively participating in theirs.

[Blueberrybook]

I'm so sorry. There is a forum I used to post a lot on about eating disorders (it is a recovery-minded forum), but now the activity is nearly zilch, which really sucks.

[Wild Coyote]

Originally Posted by tecomsin

I'm on several different forums with different usernames. One that I participate in was part of a larger website that underwent a reorganization. Unlike the last time they updated the site, this time they completely deleted all the forum posts and only copied a few over to bootstrap a new forum. One can't even find the old threads in an archive. The links are all dead. It's just been erased from the internet as far as I can tell.

I've been posting there regularly for several years and I feel I have lost a part of my life. The web update design was supposed to be for the community but it looks like they really don't care about the people who were actively participating in theirs.

I can relate. I have had a forum I had participated in completely taken down from the internet. It felt strange. So very many people had added so very much information, it was sad to see it all gone!



WC

[tecomsin]

Thanks Blueberrybook,

Fortunately this forum is going strong!

I feel really let down by the people who run the site that hosted the forum. It is for cancer patients and there were 10 years of forum posts online that are now all gone except for a handpicked few that they chose to copy and paste over rather than keep an archive. I'm tempted to write to the organizers of the webpage to tell them how let down I feel by what they have done, but I don't think anything will change as a result so I'd get even more disappointed in them.

A few years ago, a quit smoking forum I participated in (that was also part of a larger site) shut down without warning and all my posts, and everyone else disappeared from the internet from one day to the next. The community was just blown up. I was also posting there every day as were a number of other participants. I found another quit smoking forum but it isn't so active. Anyway it has been awhile since I quit.

[tecomsin]

Actually it is kind of grotesque to watch this, but one of the admins is slowly copying and pasting certain selected threads over to the new site by hand. In the process she is editing some titles of the threads and deleting altogether some replies in the thread. It feels like a violation and I wonder how it can possibly justify someone's time to do this.

Sorry you're going through this.

I was on a popular forum back in the day where there were 200 people online at any time. Then one of the administrators got frustrated and let someone use his account, and that person permanently deleted most everything on the forum.

The forum recovered (somewhat) at first, but many people were discouraged and just left. They were upset that their posts and threads were permanently deleted, and that there was nothing that could be done about it, as the administrator's friend deleted the forum backups as well.

The only real people who stayed were a bunch of trolls, and the trolls were allowed to roam free because they are what kept the forum active... but they were trolls and that discouraged other people from joining. But the administrators let the trolls do what they wanted because they were afraid of the site dying... and well, as the trolls quit, no one new joined.

I'm part of another forum that is sadly dying because the forum owner isn't updating the software, the membership there has been waiting for years for promised upgrades and nothing is happening so sadly, heaps of people stopped going there. There's only a handful of old members left and new members who join, look around, then leave when they see there's little happening there.

[Movingon69]

This happened to me with a book social media website I used to be involved in. We became so close on line that many of us would meet each other in person when we traveled. I had the opportunity to meet six women from the site. It closed. We were devastated. We migrated to another site but it does not promote the same sort of relationship development the first one did. It is a loss when this happened. I'm so sorry.

Originally Posted by tecomsin

I'm on several different forums with different usernames. One that I participate in was part of a larger website that underwent a reorganization. Unlike the last time they updated the site, this time they completely deleted all the forum posts and only copied a few over to bootstrap a new forum. One can't even find the old threads in an archive. The links are all dead. It's just been erased from the internet as far as I can tell.

I've been posting there regularly for several years and I feel I have lost a part of my life. The web update design was supposed to be for the community but it looks like they really don't care about the people who were actively participating in theirs.

I know how you feel.

I used to belong to a forum called digital retreat (entertainment news), but it was ran by only one admin, and he decided to close the site

same can be said also for an Eminem forum I used to be on back in 2002 or so

I have good memories of that site

oh and the dinosaur forum- though someone found out about my MI, so maybe it was good it closed

tecomsin, I'm sorry you, too, have experienced that. I was a regular on a mood disorder related website that was extremely vibrant, but then over time fewer and fewer members visited. I had a blog there, and the site owner did something that made the blogs too difficult to access, limiting readership. He also deleted many of the bloggers' posts. He did give us about three days to copy some of the old posts before he got rid them. I did copy some, but couldn't read through all.

I have a blog on Wordpress. I'm sure Wordpress is not dying in the near future, but I keep my significant posts saved in MS Word files on my computer, dated with relevant titles, and filed by year. Sometimes I do similiar if I write a reflection in a forum post that I think I'll want to review again.

I used to keep a file of the therapy talking notes I used to always write. They were filed by date and by the name of my psychiatrist and various therapists' names. Those in themselves are sort of like journal entries. I can see what my moods were like based on the therapy talking note. Sometimes it's clear that I was manic, depressed, or had some other significant issue. Sometimes I only realized my episodes some weeks after writing the notes.

[diamondprincess]

Yeah same happened to me and thats why I ended up here (well the site didn't close down, but I got tired of the trolls on there and lack of support, it wasnt like that in the beginning). I wish there were more active forums where there is more support

[tecomsin]

Originally Posted by diamondprincess

Yeah same happened to me and thats why I ended up here (well the site didn't close down, but I got tired of the trolls on there and lack of support, it wasnt like that in the beginning). I wish there were more active forums where there is more support

I'm thankful for this forum and the other ones I participate in that look like they are stable, tended to and help create a supportive community.

There is another site I also post and read about cancer related issues. It is a good community. It is just disheartening that the people who run the other site would care so little for the community of people who were posting in their forum.

[*Laurie*]

It so sucks when that happens. I've been on 3 terrific forums over the years; each of them ended up closing and all was lost, including contact I had with people on 2 of those forums. That kind of loss is a byproduct of the transient nature of technology.

[downandlonely]

I was on a forum for 7 years and felt really close too the people on it. But everyone stopped posting except one other person and me. I'm glad I found this place.

[tecomsin]

I feel like I have lost a friend through malfeasance.

I had this delusion that the charity that runs the site actually cared about their community. I had posted links to their site at another health focused forum but now none of those links work. Because I trusted the site and the information on it I was promoting it to other people -- also it's forum.

Now the forum posts are gone and all the links i provided to them don't work anymore, so i feel totally screwed for investing time and energy to help support the site. The message is "we don't care about your support".

I'm really angry and disappointed at how misled I was. I doubt most people who participated are going to go back to the forum, so they will be waiting for a new crowd of people to show up.

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by tecomsin

I feel like I have lost a friend through malfeasance.

I had this delusion that the charity that runs the site actually cared about their community. I had posted links to their site at another health focused forum but now none of those links work. Because I trusted the site and the information on it I was promoting it to other people -- also it's forum.

Now the forum posts are gone and all the links i provided to them don't work anymore, so i feel totally screwed for investing time and energy to help support the site. The message is "we don't care about your support".

I'm really angry and disappointed at how misled I was. I doubt most people who participated are going to go back to the forum, so they will be waiting for a new crowd of people to show up.

Meh...you never know what's going on. I was on one forum for years; it was an amazing forum. Turned out that the 2 guys running the forum were extorting money from members. The forum was suddenly shut down by the feds. That was it. I still miss that place. Like the bumper sticker says, "Life's a bi**h, then you die" .

[Lightning2127]

I understand. Not quite the same situation, but I was banned two weeks ago from an online community that meant a lot to me. I had a giant meltdown due to stress in my personal life in the chat and was banned. I feel lost, but there are still other online platforms where you can connect with people.

[tecomsin]

Originally Posted by Wild Coyote

I can relate. I have had a forum I had participated in completely taken down from the internet. It felt strange. So very many people had added so very much information, it was sad to see it all gone!



WC

That's a good way of putting in WC. It does feel strange, and I am sad to see it all go.

I am also angry because it didn't have to be this way. We all knew the site was overdue for updates but I never imagined they would just take the forums off the web. They still have them somewhere because they are copying by hand (and editing) a few forum posts, so the level of uncaring is just amazing. I have tried guessing where they may be but havent' been able to find it and links I find on google do not work, they are all broken.

[Jester's Rags]

Like pulling the rug out from under your feet. There used to be a forum called Bipolar Disorder Connect that was great. Really great, non-judgmental people. Lots of good advice. It was closed with just a couple of weeks notice. I'm glad I landed here.

[Fuzzybear]

That’s a bummer.

[tecomsin]

Well I sent an email to a moderator of the forums about what has happened to the website and what I think about it. Also sent it to another participant who I know on a different forum too. There's a faint hope that someone who actually runs the site will get things fixed but I am not holding my breath.

They copied some forum posts by hand over to the new forum and didn't make even an archive of the old forum for people to access. I've never heard of moving data between databases by hand. it is usually done by a database manager by writing a script.

They have misspellings on their main page. It is cringeworthy. The person who is administering the site is just not up to the job.

It looks like they killed the forum too because nobody is 'joining the discussion'.

[tecomsin]

This is also a sad way for a forum, indeed a whole website that used to help patients to die. From some correspondence is that become clear to me that the IT person in charge of the database migration and web design is not up to the task. So the only way to fix the problem is to bring in someone else to do the job.

I might write a letter with another long time user to the owner and ceo of the charity that runs the site. She has a longer relationship with the site and the Dr. who runs it. I've asked her (on a different forum) if she wants to go in on a letter with me.

If she says yes then I'll do it and if no, then the site will die a long slow death. Every user who encounters it now will just be repulsed by the mess and all the broken links so the longer they leave their 'bright shiny' new site up the more damage they do to themselves.

[tecomsin]

So the moderator I wrote to thinks everything is fine and is confident the website will be everything they expected. They even have misspellings of words like 'disclaimer' on all their webpages...

I wrote to her about that but not even that simple thing has been fixed. All the links that come up on google are still broken or lead to pages without the expected content, with misaligned characters, broken links inside them... I mentioned this spelling mistake again but I doubt they will get around to fixing it.

This is a big charity run by doctors and they can't even spell or care to fix their mistakes when pointed out.

[tecomsin]

I feel like I am getting a run around. I got a message back that they had asked for input on the new site for years but I didn't respond when I had a chance. I never saw these requests, but once I did write to an executive director asking if I could help out with the website and was told they didn't need my help.

Just about all the links to the site you find by doing google searches are broken. So I can see that restoring the forums would not be high on the list but it looks like fixing the broken links to their main draws on google isn't on the list either.