CTS

Thats the only way he could get the valuation out of x for what it cost him to buy it. And it was straight stock swap purchase. The value is now in the private company X.ai . AND x.ai has the largest ai supercomputer in the world now I think. Now couple all that with all the financial and personal data now available to musk, they are going to know ALL about you and profile you to the T.

Yeah, this time around with this project I needed a turn-key solution. But I wouldn't align the xfcloud as a standard "shared server" as the server is specifically setup by xf and serves only their software. It isn't like I could install WP or something as a sidecar.

Moderation?... easy on a phone for me. Administration? ... only on my desktop.

I used shared hosting in the beginning, found I felt I needed more power and root access. Then I went to a vps, and found myself spending as much time managing the server to optimize for a forum and keeping it tight as I did just managing the forum. Speed was awesome. Now I just rent a cloud instance. No server maintenance at all and is already tuned and tightened for forum software. Only can have one instance though and costs a monthly fee and my license is good as long as I pay the bill. Looking back, I realize I have found that I really like the xfcloud system. All I need to do is maintain the forum. Speed is good at a smaller level, and scaling up as needed is easy. It is my p[reference now. edit to add: I guess the cloud systems are in fact shared.

Sorry for the addon post,... But how many active domains are there? The chart above represents 30k unique domains. Thats barely a fraction.

The only traffic increase is the ai bots imo. And with an accuracy rate around 60%, that would be misdirected traffic in 40% of the cases, if there were traffic that resulted. Until i see definitive results that directly produced real targeted traffic to websites, I am out. So sayeth my robots.txt and cloudflare filters.

Installed a new flame sensor in my furnace. Weeee. :cautious:

Today, a flame sensor for my furnace and a power supply for my synology. I wish it was fun stuff instead.

Only about 5 months here, but been around forums a few years. I was just expressing my opinion from my experiences.

I dont quite agree that site-themed default avatars give the impression of fake accounts. I have never really felt like that on any other forum that does the same.

Considering my dislike of adverts, pop-ups, and roll-up ads, I will not monetize that way. Real estate is too valuable to use to raise pennies. If, a big if, I were to monetize in any form, it would have to be something integrated into and by the site.

Sat around after dinner and watched Despicable Me 4

The irony of alternative topics on a ufo forum, lol.

I am liking how the forum has been turning out. BUUUT,... I realize there is a stickiness element missing. There is only so long you can keep a member logged in when you only have a specific niche focus. So then I think, "but we have a lounge style forum for off topic conversation". But I realize that's all fine and dandy, but you end up with a lounge forum with a convoluted assembly of topics. I have introduced a couple of things I hope may prove popular. 1.- Instituted a points reward system, not dissimilar to what many forums have. 2.- I renamed my lounge to "Alt-Topix" with a new navbar presence. Then I implemented a mechanism that, where a member is promoted to member+ status after a number of posts, gains the ability to purchase a new forum subject spot with a subject title of their own choice. Members may now create their own CTS forum under the Alt-Topix heading in order to expand subjects in the lounge, thereby making the lounge a little more sensible. Feel free to visit and give it a try out. Currently all new members are given Charter Member status at registration which gives all features and benefits of being a Member+ member immediately. And while this feature is in beta, the price is very low.

Why does it feel like WP has run its course and is just ripe for a new better product offer from a new vendor with less drama and external influences.

Thank you. I do feel ready. I have quite a bit electronic and computer experience in my background. But not anything RF related. That is where I am focused on my study for areas of improvement.

I rent an xf license via xfcloud.

Well, I have spent a good part of a month cramming for the general and extra test. I completed reading the books I bought and did the self testing. Although I feel I am ready, I still have another month before the next nearby testing event at the sheriff 's office. So I am going to do all the books and self testing again. I will ace this, thereby completing my new years resolution for this year. I am really enjoying this challenge, but I am aware it is taking what time i have to attend to my new forum.

They say they want it easy to click on sites, and maybe they will. Now if the AI has already provided the answer to the query, then why would somebody click anything after that. Again, AI is just a nice way to describe non-attributing content scrapers. jmo

Interesting you said that. My traffic is small reletive to most forums. But I have a domain link in the footer that just points to a theme based page within my forum. So it's really easier analyzing traffic and sources. And almost all of my hard and soft 404's come from that domain. And no, it isn't residual traffic from before I got the domain. That can be determined when you look at the strings they used when they entered the site.

I think they have special group meetings for people like that. But I refuse to go. I will not change because some people think I am a hoarder. Alas, I am a collector of things (sobs). And I don't want to stop. Honestly though, I enjoy collecting things that remind me of people I know or knew, and places I have been, or moments of memorable times in life. But of course it's all completely subjective.

I used to use Google, but it became less effective. So far Cloudflare Turnstyle has blocked everything except the random human spammer from time to time.

I feel I need to add, I currently have no add-ons or themes installed that require a copyright nor ask for a removal fee. Currently. But I felt compelled to post here as I am planning on purchasing an add-on that offers copyright and removal fee. And in that case, I will pay for the removal.

When Matt was there, PR made sense. I know they diluted the importance of page rank by the old metrics and now I find it difficult to understand, short of buying ad words on the auction block. Maybe I am being a bit shortsighted, but I have felt my site needs a lot more content and build-out before I start working on backlinks. I want to avoid the drive-by disappointed click-thru's and am hoping that my site better presented will gain a bit more stickiness with guests. I dunno, I guess I just don't feel my site is ready for getting it out there like it is something already, when my guts tell me it is not yet.

[mention=62]Ravenfreak[/mention] While I do agree with your sentiments, I am certainly not big business by any measure. But you know everyone that builds forums has their own pet peeves, mine is a trashy footer. I like it tight and neat as possible and as such I don't like footer data. I know I will always have footer data, but to me it becomes confusing when there are multiple copyrights down there. That said, I rarely buy add-ons, but I feel the vendor is better supported with cash than just free advertising. And that said (lol), it better be a pretty danged good addon to have a footer copyright placement in the first place.