Important - Latest update and news.

Thanks Mike, yes, received this morning.

regards

Alan

I am prepared to contribute £52 a year towards the expenses. Indeed I shall do this early next week.

Thank you Alan and Arvo, and any others who may be hiding behind the scenes of whom I am unaware.

I am happy to join a private thread on these matters. I would encourage others to contribute what they can afford annually. Thanks to those who have already opened their wallets!

To Alan's various suggested options:

1. Do nothing and hope that contributions from members will continue.

An obvious non-starter!

2. Close off in 6 months time once the existing cash has run out.

No need for this: I see we already have support to keep it going longer. I think an annual gentle appeal posting will always keep the wolf from the door.

3. Move the forum to a free site and start again – this would be one based on myBB or similar which I can maintain. But we cannot transfer the images and posts.

No. Constant reinvention of the wheel is a waste of time, as the members of UK political parties have been discovering in the last 10 years since the bright idea called Brexit!

4. Something else.

-- Why is there more discussion in this thread about what goes on at DPR than here? I no longer maintain an account there but I lurk from time to time. At present, the rate of new postings in the fora seems to be comparable to that here: not very exciting. As far as I am concerned, the design of this site is quite adequate. I do not use threaded views.

-- DPR editorial is much more interesting than the photos posted there. I know that Alan is apparently not interested in news items about equipment; but I personally think these would round out the experience on a site such as ours. Full descriptions/reviews are not needed; but a pinned thread with pointers to new gear and trends would keep us informed without having to visit DPR or elsewhere for this.

-- When not logged in here one is told things like "You dont have permission to do that." I would change this to something like "Why not register, join our friendly members, and be able to read this page?"

-- The encouragement of more stimulating thread titles (aka clickbait) might be helpul to encourage greater participation.

David

David,

Thank you for the post - I will try and address your comments:

Thank you for anything you can offer - and the same goes to anyone else. I do NOT want to make a profit out of this, but I would like enough to keep us going, and so far, we are meeting that requirements. At the moment, I don't see the need for a private thread, but I am happy set one up if enough people want to join one.

Actually, that one is the one that is working - see above. I have no intention of closing off and I I agree with you that number 3 is a non-starter.

Is there? I hadn't noticed. in any case, I don't see DPReview as our competitor - we do complementary things.

I'm not against links to gear reviews - but I do not want it taking over or even approaching that. If someone would like to manage a forum on gear, than I can create it. But I think that is what DPReview is best at.

I can't change any of that. Sorry.

Can you make some suggestions?

Thanks Steve - and thank you for your donation. I agree. We are staying here for as long as we can.

Alan

Truman, that is fantastic. Thank you so much.

Alan

That's my wedding anniversary.

Rafal,

I would love us to go to the next version - however, our sole developer is not really doing much at the moment. So we are stuck with this version. We are staying with Misago - just a very outdated one.

Alan

Thank you. That would be great.

Thanks

Alan