We're all grateful to Adrian for keeping the skating forums up since 2002, and we know he didn't make this decision lightly. We've all grown to rely on the friendships and free consulting, the practice threads and the answers to questions. Still it's come time to move on.

One option is for someone to take over the existing skatingforums. Volunteers?

The second option is to migrate to a skater (vice fan) friendly board. Here are the options I found.

1. Start a Figure skating Yahoo Group--those never last long and end up with flame wars, trolls and spam.
2. Floating over to FSU--too many fans not enough skaters
3. Golden Skate Forums--Well, the Lutz Corner seems similar to the On Ice Forums. It's got 14,000 members but not as active posters as the skating forums.
4. www.ifsmagazine.com/forum==just for fans
5. http://forums.isu.org/--fans
6.http://www.skatingforum.co.uk/ looks promising--but it's UK only
7. Absolute Skating seems promising though it is fan centric, it does have a Basic Skating message board.



So of the 7 above only Golden Skate, and Absolute skating would seem compatible with the worldwide reach and skater centric mission of Skating Forms.

Suggestions? Discussions? Additions?

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

If we all go over to FSU and use that Strictly Skating forum, we will have what we want!

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Thanks for the list of options, AgnesNitt. It was comprehensive and well-thought out.

On Yahoo! Groups, there is an existing "Competitive Adult Skaters" group run by one of our members. (I've forgotten which one, sorry.) It's a bit snarky and tight-knit, but well-moderated. I hate the interface, but it does allow for uploads and documents, so it has its merits.

One option no one has suggested is the USFSA/IceNetwork message boards. I know Debbie S is active over there and it seems well-moderated, although there are no USFSA reps like there used to be when they had their own message board. There's already an "Adult Skating" forum as well as several others. It doesn't have the panache and off-topic discussions of FSU.

Truthfully, many people have already migrated from message boards to social networking sites, which provide more discretion and selective discussions. Boarding is on the decline, blogs are in.

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The UK one let me register. What'd you mean by UK only?

And please please no yahoo groups

FSU looks promising, besides the snark, and if we get enough skatingforums people over there we can start building up the "Moves in the Field" forum which is their on ice forum.

Absolute Skating's Basic Skating doesn't look very promising to me. I glanced at the first page and didn't really see anything On Ice- Skaters related.

I can't find the IceNetwork one. Help?

Overall, I liked the UK one the best. But I'd rather that a bunch of the adults here chip in to run the site, so we can keep all our old posts. As I am a minor who saves money for equipment, I can't help.

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Right Brain: In the distant future, I will land all of the doubles.
Left Brain: HAHAHAHAHA
Left Brain: You can't even do a backspin.
Right Brain: ...

figurekb on YouTube.

The USFSA/IceNetwork board is called "The INCrowd."
http://www.icenetworkincrowd.com/directory

Pretty well-organized if you want to talk mostly about skating.

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Ehh... can't get over the news yet.

Taking existing board over would be ideal ... Depending on how much resources current board uses (size of database, number of files, etc) - I might be able to at least temporarily house it in the hosting space I keep for other purposes. Even if it is way above the resources I have available, hope Adrian is able to take a complete backup of the forum, for a possible restore on another host at a later time. I sent him a PM asking about the possibility of the move (hope we can actually do it, and retain the domain name and everything else)

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--renatele

I was thinking about you, Renatele. I know this is something you could help migrate.

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I'd rather move to FSU's MITF forum than to Icenetwork's INcrowd- much to USFS focused, and we have a lot of international participants.

Besides, most snark on FSU stays out of the MITF forum. The people there tend not to be skaters, so they don't go into those boards.

The biggest potential problem is if there is a huge jump in posting there they will make it a subscription board, but it would have to be a HUGE jump.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

uh, don't really have any experience running any sort of forums, but with the number of IT "types" on here I guess we could collectively figure it out

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--renatele

Thank you, renatele! I would pay to stay here, and I would make an additional donation to help enable more members to stay.

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Ditto for me (would pay to keep things going). Planning for the moment, though, to hang out at FSU's Moves in the Field forum for now.

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"Go wash an elephant if you wanna do something big." -Baby Gramps

Finges crossed that the forum stays...
If not, my vote goes to FSU or Goldenskate. OTOH does anyone think a facebook group is feasible?

Adrian's response was that it would be too much work to transfer skatingforums to another server or board. In fairness, there are a lot of threads and posts in the various forums as well as a multitude of user IDs involved.

He suggested starting over on another site, using social networking groups, or joining FSU/GoldenSkate as options.

Sorry - I'm just the messenger. I don't mind asking again for something more simple, if you want to narrow the focus or just ask for the domain. Let me know if you want me to relay another message.

(He already knows I'm a pest, anyway.)

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I am thinking of a whole vbulletin board transfer to another server at the level of the database, not at the level of posts and members. From my very very quick search on google, seems that would be possible.

Could you ask him if he can take a full database/file backup? If Adrian does not have the hard drive space for it, could we get the hosting account level access for a backup? Shoot, I'm not even at home atm, away from my PC with a nice speedy fios connection, or I could have taken a backup if Adrian would be ok with giving access... Maybe I could get dh to unpack, connect and power-up up my PC, and do it remotely (it is still packed in the box in Virginia, and I am in NJ for several days).

Anyway, if we would be able to get a full database/file backup somewhere, the board probably could be restored later on another server. I think vbulletin license does allow the transfer to another server, as long as only 1 copy of the software is in use at any given time. Backup would be the priority right now, if we hope for any chance to get the board back.

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--renatele

THANK YOU for working on this. Volunteer work is so important and those who do it are never fully appreciated. I will support you 100 %.

Renatele - I forwarded your request to Adrian. I offered to make the backups, but he'd have to authorize my ID for that functionality. He might not want to give me admin rights. (I've done it on other boards.)

I'll keep trying, but I can't promise anything.

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taking it private, for more tech-talk

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--renatele

Thanks AgnesNitt for summarising our (very limited!) options, and thanks to those who are techies and are putting your heads together to try to work things out on behalf of all of us.

I've been lurking at FSU for a long time now - the last couple of years, I've even paid my premium membership to access the members-only forums. I'll admit right now that if FSU is where we have to head, I'll be devastated - it's really not a terribly welcoming place (especially the Secret Sources forum).

I've seen for myself on more than one occasion some extremely b**chy remarks posted in Secret Sources. What really troubled me about some of the remarks was that they were made about posters who may only have paid the second-top level of membership, and who therefore probably have no idea of what's been said about them, because it's been said inside a sub-forum they can't access. As a result, they can't defend themselves against such attacks. The cattiness is why I will not post there.

I really don't think FSU is a good option for adult skaters, and adult skaters is where SkatingForums has shone. I'd be more than happy to follow dbny's lead in paying to stay - this board has been worth so much to me. I'm not a techie person so can't help on that side of things.

Isk8NYC, as I see it, and depending on what the others say, the real priority might be to save the On-Ice Skaters forum, and the On-Ice Parents/Coaches forum, as these ones contain a wealth of technical information which would be very, very hard to reproduce.

That's what I suggested to Adrian initially - archiving the two On-Ice forums.

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Please try and keep it going. I'm not very IT literate, but if I can help I'd like to.
I really wouldn't want to move over onto the UK forum, given that the members there come here for advice!
I suppose in a pinch FSU is an option but I've never worked out how to register and don't really like how every British thread that ever gets opened ends up in a b$tch session about the state of the governing body and the mods then shut it down.

I used to be in Sekret Sources (let my membership lapse because of $) and found them to be a supportive group with ample amounts of friendship and snark. Plus, extra juicy competition gossip! B!tchy is as b!tchy does - you can't control what people think or say about you, so why let it get to you? I don't see any cattiness in the Moves in the Field forum. If you don't like the rest of FSU, stay in the MITF forum and don't read the rest.

Besides, the members set the tone. If all the awesome people from SF go over and make their MITF section awesome, so much the better for everyone!

I thought I would post my personal feelings re this issue and some of the alternatives. Since Skating Forums has a strong adult focus, I thought I'd post my grownup concerns.

I don't want to migrate to Facebook or some other social network site as I regard them as too insecure. I don't want to make my posts with my real name. Maybe if I was younger it wouldn't matter, but I regard Face book as an operations security (OPSEC) nightmare. Suppose I post "Hey, I'm off for AN, see everybody there." under my real name. That would just be asking for trouble. It's like not stopping the paper and the mail when you go on vacation. My military background just says "No." I *like* the anonymity of a forum.

FSUniverse. The posts are way too mean. I'm a beginner skater and likely to stay there. I'm not interested in joining a service where they have "Secret Posts." Sorry, I lived through high school already, I'm not going to pay for the privilege.

I'd be willing to pay a subscription to keep skating forums open. I know that this means that some of the younger skaters and skaters with financial issues would be affected, but it would tend to make the forum adult focused and there's an unfilled niche for that. I can't migrate to the yahoo adult competitive skater group because i'm not a competitive skater, I'm a hobby skater. There's really no place for us who love the purity of the sport and aren't going anywhere with it except our own pleasure, other than here.

Golden Skate would be my preferred option if Skating Forums can't stay open.

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Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

I think what the poster meant was its focus was UK skaters. There are a few posters there from other countries, but most of the members are from the UK.

To repeat what I posted in another thread regarding other forums (apologies to those who've already read this):

For the Brits: http://www.skatingforum.co.uk/, which is quite busy, with mainly adult skaters, although a lot of the posters are only at SkateUK (i.e. Learn to Skate) level, rather than higher level. Having said that, a few of the higher level UK adult skaters who've posted here in the past do now post over there.

For the Aussies here, don't forget there's an Australian skating forum at:
http://oziceskatecommunity.myfreeforum.org/index.php. There's not much traffic there at the moment, but maybe with a few more keen posters....

I agree with those who've said that the Moves in the Field section of FSU is largely free of the attitude displayed on the rest of the board, as the non-skating fans don't tend to contribute. MITF would be much improved with a greater volume of knowledgable posters, and you don't have to read the other fora. I suspect more of us would come out of lurkdom if there was more skater-friendly traffic.

There are already a couple of Adult Skating groups on Facebook, but I gave up on them fairly quickly as I didn't find the discussions particularly useful. They seemed mainly focused on competition, and like AgnesNitt, I'm usually after more lower level practical advice.

EDIT: Wow - just went to GoldenSkate and made what I thought was a helpful post. I was automatically banned for posting an external link on my very first post. Whilst I completely understand the reason (it's to prevent spam posts - fair enough), it has rather put me off going there again as I've never been banned from anything before now!

And I actually read the rules and I don't *remember* there being a ban on external links there. I was rather foggy brained this morning after a long midnight drive but I imagine I'd remember something like that... ? So WTF?!

I'm more inclined to FSU or Golden Skate but will follow the herd.

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Happily defying the laws of physics when I skate...and not in a good way

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