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Forum for Epiphytic Myrmecophytes

New forum owner and administrator


Frank

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The recent two day hiatus of this forum was caused by the transfer of forum ownership to me, Frank Omilian, from its founder Dr. Andreas Wistuba. 

 

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to Andreas for establishing this forum.  We also need to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of a number of individuals who have shared their photos, taxonomic insights, cultural notes, research and other information here.  It is this treasure trove of ant-plant information that has motivated me to take over the forum at Andreas’s suggestion.  This material is too good and too important to disappear from the internet.

So my goal here is to insure the long term availability of the important information posted here.  Since money to support forums seeps oh-so-slowly from people’s pockets I want to explore moving to an advertising supported forum.  Many eyes are better than two so if you have suggestions as to advertising supported forums that are easy on the eye and smooth running please let me know.  You can post them to this thread or to me personally by the personal message feature on this forum or to my email, frankinmi@aol.com

These are exciting times in the world of ant-plants – the new young gun, Guillaume Chomicki is pushing the taxonomy, exciting new species are being discovered and new species are coming into cultivation.  This forum is moving forward with this wave and I hope you all continue to participate and contribute.

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Fantastic news Frank, I agree with everything Jay has said in the previous post. I look forward to contributing many new articles in the very near future as my new shadehouse is nearing completion and I will have the time and space to photograph plants and share information with members.

 

Cheers,

Robert

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  • 2 weeks later...

Frank,

This is fantastic news. I know that you will do a fantastic job.

 

You may want to look into vBulletin for the forum support. They aren't ad driven but the fees are minimal and the support is very good. Just a thought. I am sure the community can help with the fees.

Again, great news.

 

Todd

 

 

 

The problem is the transfer of content.

I do not know if there is any way to extract the content to transfer to another forum.

All the best

Andreas

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There is software that can do that.

Look here: https://cms2cms.com/cms/supported-cms/vbulletin-to-phpbb-migration/

 

It seems to be an automated proces so little effort.

 

It has a calculator that gives you costs based on pages, topics, comments and number of users.

As this forum is not really big it might be affordable...

 

20 pages and 100 users comes to an estimate of 19 dollar as an example.

 

It might be worth deleting inactive registrations and non important comments though..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for all the private and public input and support you have provided.

My stated goal here was to provide long term stability for this forum so as to keep all the fantastic information and photos that exist here available to the world.  I also want this stability to encourage the providers of such important information the confidence to keep posting here.  Please, all of you, continue to share your information, insights and photos.

To provide this stability I am keeping the forum with Invision for the coming year, but at a reduced rate of $20 per month.  We will also be getting a software update to their latest version.   I have been assured by Invision that this upgrade will not result in any loss of our photos or data.

During this year I will continue to explore other options for the future, including a no-fee advertising based forum.  I will say that, so far, no acceptable ones have been brought to my attention.  Your continuing input is appreciated.

 

Given the new lower monthly fee some of you may want to contribute towards our existence.  If so, please send me $20 US by paypal to frankinmi@aol.com   with the “note” line saying “forum”.   All contributions will be acknowledged here by name (or let me know if you prefer to be acknowledged as “anonymous”)

.

2017 CONTRIBUTORS TO THE FORUM:

January   Frank Omilian

February, Ursula Wistuba

March, Christopher Mallett

April, Todd Kramer

May, Jay Vannini

June, Shimi

July,  Andreas Wistuba

August,  Andreas Wistuba

September,  Andreas Wistuba

October, Jordan Ives

November, Jay Vannini

December,

Thank you very much to all the donors!!!

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