Important News!!

Wow, I didn't know it was literally dead:

the last official prebuilt release from Vanilla HQ that was well-tested was 4.0 RC1 in Jan 2021. No active developer from Vanilla has communicated here since 2021, nor any other staff member since Feb 2023. I departed Vanilla in Feb 2020 and am no longer active here.

A handful of community members periodically distribute newer builds using the raw source code. Those releases are in the Community Developer category and pinned at the top of main discussion list. Others have moved to Flarum.

Please exercise caution downloading zip files from discussions on this site, as anyone has the ability to post them! Check their post histories first. Good luck!

^^ It's a bit mental to be asking people to pay money for such a product. Could we not have approached the community with an initiative to move away from Vanilla, back to a competent, suitable backend/frontend, where people would be a LOT more likely to contribute to? At least, I imagine many would feel the end result of throwing a few quid at Boards would actually be helping to reverse this whole mess, rather than as someone else perfectly put it, putting a plaster on a gunshot wound by staying with Vanilla.

I don't think migrating away from vanilla would be the easiest to achieve on a shoestring budget either. Staying on vanilla reads like it'll pose a huge security risk TBH.

Is there a way to pay the subscription available? I might have missed a post pointing it out.

Like others I used to pay on the old site.

I have been back and forth with myself since yesterday - I deleted my account quite a while ago as the mods made it difficult to post etc. If anything I have seen it get worse here since then, including Vanilla… but I would miss my daily lurk and I probably have some advice to give in some forums, now that I am old and wise…

First question - where do I click to pay my 50 Euro… maybe I am not as wise as I think, but I can't see a "pay now" Call to Action…

Also… When I clicked on the "Advertise" link I got

The page you were looking for could not be found.

So I guess that is broken?

Going by a lot of the feedback already posted, moderation has a lot to do with the current problems, and certainly it would stop me subscribing, as the current system allows certain mods to ban good posters merely because they disagree with them.

There's a well-known Irish marketing company that uses boards extensively, maybe you should ask them to contribute? After all, they are charging their customers to post on here.

From the posts I've read so far, the only people disagreeing with the general consensus on modding issues are, coincidentally, those who seem to get an easy ride from the mods, or are mods themselves - the issue with that is that the site will end up being even worse than it is already if a subscription model weeds out the few independent posters left. You'll end up with a site where a small group of people with exactly the same opinions are paying to agree with each other in complete safety!

I'd echo the 'delete everything' sentiments before the lights are closed off!

Boards needs another lockdown scenario! I thought the last one went very well!

I’ve been here 23 years, same account for more than half my life and I posted way too much back in the day. It was once a great community and I made some friends who I’m still in daily contact with on another platform.

However, decisions at the top table have, for want of a better term, f*cked it in recent years and I wouldn’t trust the regime with a cent if I’m honest. I get the sentiment attached to the site but messaging boards are archaic and all good things come to an end. And if we’re honest, Boards as a whole hasn’t been good for a long time.

Ah lads… you ask people to start paid subscriptions and the website isn't set up for it???

I'm not joking for a second. Have the boards.ie crew tried flashing a leg at Elon Musk? He bought Twitter for a gatrillion dollars to "save free speech". I'd imagine giving boards.ie what it needed would be less than chump change to the bloke.

At least we would have free speech!!