State of the Forum 2025-04-01

[sqlbullet]

State of the Forum April 1, 2025

Hey all!

I thought I would provide some feedback about the state of the forum, plans for what is coming up, and concerns/questions that occupy my mind.

Forum Tech Status

The forum is currently being hosted on a virtual server in the Azure cloud.  The server is running Ubuntu LTS 24.04.2 LTS for the OS with PHP 8.3.6 and MySQL 8.0.41. The forum is running SMF 2.1.4.  HTTPS certificates are sourced from "Let's Encrypt" using certbot and are updated automatically every 90 days by a system job. The server load 35% CPU (average), 40% memory utilization (average), and 35% hard drive utilization.  Backups are manual, executed weekly stored both on and off the server.  The OS and web environments are patched for updates during the weekly maintenance as well.

Current hosting costs are expected to be around $15/month. I mention the cost only for your reference, as I am happy to cover this cost.  Since the launch/relaunch we have had twenty-nine members return and one new registration.  These are not huge numbers, but this wasn't really about the numbers.

One known issue I found over the weekend:  Any links that were stored outside the forum are probably broken.  For instance, the reference links in the factory ammo spreadsheet no longer work. This is due to a change in the way the forum software references threads.  I am working to create a fix, but it will have to be applied at the external sources.  For the spreadsheets I will patch them. Any topic links you may have shared in other forums, or your bookmarks directly to threads may not work.

The WIKI

There is a WIKI installed to go along with the forum.  The purpose of the wiki is to replace our dependence on members personal Google Sheets documents for certain data, such as the factory pull-down data or the factory ammo test data.  The WIKI url is https://wiki.10mm-auto.com.  I have only loaded some placeholder data at this point. 

I am not certain a WIKI is the best solution for this information.  For those not aware, a WIKI is any website that is collaboratively managed in both content and structure by the members of the website. There are a rather large number of different wiki software options.  I landed on dokuWiki as it is relatively lightweight, is is free and open source, it has no database dependency, and it supports infobox and tables (with sort and basic filter).  It also has an auth module plugin that should allow me to make it inherit user auth from the forum, but so far I have not been able to make that work.  If you sign up for the WIKI, please use the same username as you have on the forum.  That should preserve your edit/access rights if/when I do get the integration working.

The dokuWiki software does not have a visual editor, which is a big downside.  The markup language it uses is relatively straightforward.  The table filter feature lacks a "filter by column" feature, which is another downside.

I am not sure a WIKI is the best solution for the data we are currently sharing off-forum.  It is just what came to mind.  I am also not sure if our own WIKI is the right decision.  It might be better to just create and link to pages on wikipedia.  Or there may be a different solution that would still be hosted within our domain that better suits this need.

Our Domain

The_Shadow is helping out as a moderator.  So is Intercooler, though he has not been back to the forum since the re-launch.  I think from a forum moderation standpoint things are in hand.

The old forum was Patriot's.  He was the domain registrant, he paid for and managed the hosting.  He did our community a great service for many years. But ultimately Patriot's path diverged from continuing to provide those services to our community. I want to be very clear that this is not a criticism.  Patriot gave much.  He owed nothing. He had every right to decide his fate independent of us.  Patriot if you are browsing, thanks for all you gave, and thanks for letting this be re-born.

But a single person-dependence is a threat.  One that I would like to mitigate.

I am certainly engaged and willing to support the community right now.  I have no plans to change that commitment anytime soon. But I am another "single" person. Realistically a day will come at some point when this is more than I can make work. If nothing else I have an expiration date sometime in the next 40 years. When the day comes I no longer can, I don't want the forum to go offline just because I am gone.  The forum and community should have it's own path independent of me, or any other single member.

I am going to explore options to make the domain and website be more "community" owned. I know some groups have formed legal entities (GCA, Cast Bullet Association come to mind as two that I am affiliated with).  Or it may just be me sharing some admin responsibilities with other users or with people I know outside the current forum. Or maybe something I haven't considered.  My sister is a retired corporate attorney so I will probably pick her brain a bit.

Thanks to all of you for making this community.  I will try to post an update like this each month on the first.

–Mitch

[The_Shadow]

Thank you for all you have done Mitch, as the forum is moving forward, and hope people will take it to heart as they participate in community.

Intercooler has been doing some things like traveling and taking lots of photos which he posts on FB.
He & his wife actually made a trip down to Louisiana and we managed to have a meet and greet one evening which was great.  He did so much sending the cartridges back then to add to the documentations.  With the cost of that type of ammo I wound up putting many rounds back together and shipped a bunch back for his use.

I'm trying to promote the forum even through private messenger contacts.

[John A.]

Very good.  Hopefully will see a larger influx once the search engines start seeing more traffic.

If I'm not mistaken, there are ways (or companies) who can automatically bump search results more towards the front.  if that's an option you're interested in.

After all, the more people know about it, the more are liable to join and participate.

And there seems to be a pretty sizable interest in 10mm right now.  Hope it takes off.

[sqlbullet]

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a thing.  Long, long ago I new a fair bit about it, but I will have to re-educate myself.

Last night I was able to patch up the links in the 10mm factory ammo workbook and on the WIKI.