Hosting can cost very little or a lot depending on where you get it. But by and large, the upkeep for a forum like this needn't be much. Possibly, that's part of the problem. With upkeep being cheap, any technical work will soon cost a few years of just running MB as it is.
As for possibilities, the owners can extract the forum database so that it's just a computer file and then that can be used to restore threads / posts on a different forum, essentially restoring a copy/backup of this forum to someplace else. Whether they'd agree to give away their database so that MB could be set up elsewhere.. Well, I agree that's unlikely.
But even if you start over from scratch, the old site might still be around for a long time and serve as an archive of your past deeds. A migration doesn't necessarily mean that this place shuts down (though it could).
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Originally Posted by adidasss
They might be out there, but to be honest, I don't know better, more mature, focused forums dedicated to music. Do you know any? I just googled music forums and I got few results, and the other ones seemed pretty deserted compared to here.
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Sure I do
From your description, I would recommend the Steve Hoffman forums. I've used them a little bit and find them to be very active, mature and friendly.
URL:
Music Corner | Steve Hoffman Music Forums
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I don't really know that it's true that it's becoming less relevant and having less participants. Maybe it goes through ups and downs but if it's failing, it's sure taking its sweet time about it.
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Even in an unstoppable decline, it could linger for many years still. From what I can tell from the front page, MB had its activity peak in 2013. Nibbler says activity has dropped the last three months during summer. Alexis gives a downward trend since the start of the year. I feel like the last time this was debated, there was referral to some analysis which showed a decline in activity over years, but I won't say for sure. Possibly it could be fun to rummage through old discussions.
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It makes sense to me. It's just that I don't think that can happen, while keeping all the databases, until this place stops being profitable to the owners, only then could the members think about taking over.
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You're probably right about that.
I definitely think the role of "Yac" (administrator) should be given to someone who is an active member here, sees what the mods and regular members get up to and have more of a hands-on management like setting up procedures for moderation etc. Instead of paying someone to do that, I believe Advameg could potentially delegate that responsibility to someone. They'd get better results for less money.
But yes, I do see how difficult it would be to get to such a situation so it's not a likely scenario.
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But what do the users here want actually?
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I don't know.. Just that question has been heavily debated and polled over before and then it seemed most members basically wanted things more or less to stay as they are. Today, I don't know.
For things to stay as they are was never my wish or goal (I generally think the goal should be to improve on things), but even so, I think that things are often changing in one way or another and so even maintaining the status quo requires some effort. If nobody steers the ship, you sorta end up wherever the winds take you. To figure out where that is, you need to try and see which way the winds are blowing and that might also require some educated guessing.