Important News!!

I don't know have we all the facts.

We're relying on your word regarding the details.

A lot of people have a grá for the site, got to know other posters and so on. But that shouldn't be conflated with the owners and managers of the site, we no little about them, or their intentions. Pledging 50 euro blindly might be naieve, we might be better off sending it to aid Gaza and the Ukraine. I don't trust any faceless owners or site managers as far as I could throw them.

All here under new accounts anyway. You wouldn't know anything about that kinda stuff though.

In fairness, you were introduced to us as the new CEO of Boards.ie, the chief executive officer. The top man of the company. If said company is to now seek funding from the community, it should come from the top, not a community manager/employee. It reflects better on the company leadership, shows a bit of a hands on approach, and shows a bit of dedication.

If the leadership structure has changed, and indeed Mike solely runs Boards, I either missed that or it wasn't mentioned. If it was the former, then my bad, apologies.

I first started on boards back in 2008 under an older long lost name. I was a prolific user for about 10 years. My visits have slowed in recent years but I still read and post from time to time. I would genuinely like to see this site go from strength to strength.

I must say though modding can be inconsistent and in the event of people paying for membership it would require more objective modding. A few months ago I posted on the CA forum and received a 2 day ban. I thought it was very unfair and a bit targeted as looking back over that thread there were numerous posts of a similar nature. I haven’t really posted much since. Over the years I have received the odd warning and felt yeah fair enough I may have crossed the line there. But not the last time on CA.

Having said that I would be willing to pay a membership subscription to help the site stay active.

in a matter of weeks.

😳😳😳

You might blame Google AI results for the drastic downturn in use but that only came in at the end of March, use was already down 30% between December and March, I'd say mostly due to the page bouncing / endless scrolling and getting nowhere.

Did ye not realize it was so bad, or what?

I’ve been a member for almost 18 years now and I’d gladly contribute something to keep the site going

I don't know, I reckon people would have gotten used to it, every update to the site from the basic vbulletin 15 years ago or whatever, was met with a lot of pushback and users saying they'd never use the site again if it wasn't changed back.

I reckon even the in-house custom designed 'responsive site' that everyone hated would have been grand if they just made the break with the old and moved over wholesale, instead of trying to run the legacy site, responsive, and m.boards aswell for however long that went on

We’re now at a crossroads. Without a change to our financial position in the coming weeks, we will be forced to shut Boards.ie down.

Our goal is to reach 2,000 paying members. We know that’s ambitious - but with a mix of member support and ad revenue, we believe we can keep the lights on.

So……If we (those of us who can and will) subscribe but Boards doesn't get 2000 paying members, will Boards be shut down in the coming weeks then? …or did I read ^ Mikes message wrong?

I think it's the other way around, vanilla will be less customized and go back to a "basic working product" to keep the site running.