Frank Posted November 9, 2016 Report Share Posted November 9, 2016 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stone Jaguar Posted November 9, 2016 Report Share Posted November 9, 2016 Congratulations, Frank, Andreas and Derrick, for having built, curated and maintained this forum over the past years. The community of persons interested in this group of plants really has a great resource here. Cheers, J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted November 10, 2016 Report Share Posted November 10, 2016 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Wistuba Posted November 18, 2016 Report Share Posted November 18, 2016 I'm very glad that Frank gives this forum another chance after I decided to step back. Good luck!!! All the best Andreas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Todd Kramer Posted November 26, 2016 Report Share Posted November 26, 2016 Frank,This is fantastic news. I know that you will do a great 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Wistuba Posted November 26, 2016 Report Share Posted November 26, 2016 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel Posted November 27, 2016 Report Share Posted November 27, 2016 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.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted December 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 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!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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