SHARETRADER.co.nz - Thanks for fixing the database. Should we talk?

Great sharetrader is working again after some days of eerie silence. Big Thank You to the nice person who managed to fix the latest database issues.

Sharetrader is a useful communication platform and for many of us an important part of our daily routine ... sort of like taking the time to stand around the watercooler in the office, catching up with colleagues and get a new idea or some different views on things which might bug you.

Office life can be tough without the watercooler.

Sharetrader is as well a useful tool to help new investors to learn about their trade (and yes, I am talking from experience - I learned a lot from some of the wiser people around here).

Learning is more difficult if the sources sporadically disappear.

What I am wondering is - would it make sense to establish some sort of dialogue between the people running and funding this site, the people who provide most of the content and the people who use it?

Maybe we could even help each other?

Does the admin side need another hand? I know there are people with IT and database experience under the posters ... and I remember some of them already previously offering help. Some open dialogue (ask and you might be given) might be able to fix this issue.

Is funding a problem? Depending on the size of the problem, of course ... I could well imagine that some of the posters here would be able and willing to contribute to the running of this site. Is this something we should talk about?

What do the people who are funding and running this site want to get out of it? Is there anything the users can do to make it more worthwhile for you people?

Any chance we could inform each other when there are problems? Sometimes small messages like "We know that the site has problems and are working on it. Expect issues to be resolved by the weekend" could make a huge difference.

Just asking. Sometimes talking can make things even still better ...

Being technically inclined by trade, when the forum had a glitch some times ago, I remember trying to offer some advice with a genuine intention of helping out, only to end up being welcomed by a fairly inflexible admin. In fact I can't even find that discussion in my post history anymore, maybe was the thread deleted? Anyways.

Unfortunately, software don't always age as well as some wine do, and it turns out that this forum runs on vBulletin, which despite being still actively maintained, was introduced some 22 years ago. To not help, the current version being used by sharetrader is vBulletin 4.2.5, which was released in 2018, meaning that we're probably missing out on various optimization and security updates that may have been introduced since then, probably caused by the admins not being confident in being able to update to the latest version 5.6.7 without taking sharetrader down in the process, which I can understand.

Just to make it clear, I'm really grateful for the admins' time and effort in running this forum so by no means am I trying to put any blame on them—some technologies can sometimes be more difficult to harness than they really should be and we shouldn't be too demanding on admins, especially in the context of a free forum.

What I'm trying to say is that, nowadays, it should be possible to find an alternative modern forum software that not only would require less CPU/RAM resources to run but also less technical knowledge, if any at all. I admins had any interest in continuing to run this forum, I only wished that they would be open in considering such an option for everyone's sake.

Interesting ...

Just wondering, whether this leads us back to the third stake holder (i.e. whoever provides the funds).

Admins are always resource constrained and an upgrade might cost more (e.g. in terms of $ and / or time) than their current budget has on offer. Doing a major upgrade might not be an option for them.

This would lead us to the following questions:

How much should it cost to run a forum like this based on modern SW?
How much does it currently cost to run this forum?
If there is a cost issue - is there anything the users (or potential sponsosrs) could do to contribute to them to narrow or close the gap?

After one week, would it be fair to now assume that the admins' answer to your question “should we talk” is a resounding “no”? Disappointed but not surprised :t_down:

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Originally Posted by BlackPeter

How much should it cost to run a forum like this based on modern SW?

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You can get an idea of what pricing look like with these offers:
- Discourse: https://www.discourse.org/pricing
- NodeBB: https://nodebb.org/pricing

Note that the pricing for both includes hosting on their own server and support from their teams. It's also possible to use these software for free if self-hosting them, which would probably be much cheaper, but then this would likely come with the same drawbacks as we have been experiencing with sharetrader: performance issues, unresponsive admins, admins not tech-savvy enough, ...

Also note that some sort of migration from one forum platform to another is usually offered, as a way to attract existing users.

Hooray, and thanks to all concerned, for getting the site operating again.

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Originally Posted by Getty

Hooray, and thanks to all concerned, for getting the site operating again.

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Whilst it's great to have it back I can't really understand in this day and age why there are so many outages and how long they take to resolve. Given there have been offers to help both technically and financially the lack of feedback or explanation seems a bit odd.

What happened to the Eroad thread? It has just disappeared??

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Originally Posted by Jaa

What happened to the Eroad thread? It has just disappeared??

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It's here...... https://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showth...or-technology)

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Originally Posted by Vince

It's here...... https://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showth...or-technology)

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Thank you !