ElkArte gone?

[Pete]

There was a 1.1.8 patch not that long ago, and I see changes on the GitHub from this week, but the site itself appears to be gone, it's just a weird x-eyed smiley face?

Anyone know anything about it?

 

[Nev_Dull]

That's strange. I like what they're doing. Hopefully it's just a server issue.

 

[Pete]

That's strange. I like what they're doing. Hopefully it's just a server issue.

It's a bit odd if it is a server issue. Perhaps they're in the middle of migrating it to their 2.0 version - but it's been like this for a few days now.

 

[vbgamer45]

I saw it last night as well. Was thinking the same thing. But github looks recent. Wasn't sure who controls the site/hosting.

 

[LeadCrow]

I miss the simpler times when people correctly assumed a website modified this way had to have been hacked or defaced.

If anyone can contact elkarte's main contributors, it would quickly lift any doubt as to wether this is the result of foul play and wether they need any special support to reverse it. The site and addon subsite appear to be fine on their github.io adress though.

https://elkarte.github.io/Elkarte/
https://elkarte.github.io/addons/
https://elkarte.github.io/themes/

 

[vbgamer45]

My guess it would be on purpose. I noticed spuds did changes in the repos to point to the github.io site https://github.com/elkarte

Maybe lost control of the domain?
I have an open github issue about it.

 

[live627]

Maybe lost control of the domain?

I doubt it would return ASCII art signifying a dead face if that happened.

 

[AdamD]

Perhaps they're moving the domain to another server, according to Whois, the domain was updated on the 24th.
Updated On
2021-12-24

 

[vbgamer45]

Got a reply https://github.com/elkarte/Elkarte/issues/3526

 

[Pete]

Huh, though it makes sense. Hopefully once they get their 2.0 work done we'll see it come back and be bigger, bolder and better than ever.

 

[sanction9]

Hmm, well, if low site traffic was indicative of little interest in the project, will this move improve things...?

 

[Pete]

i don’t know what the 2.0 feature set includes. It might, it might not. Only time will tell.

 

[live627]

IIRC it is lots of code refactoring and little, if any, front-end changes. But I haven't followed it in 3 years.

 

[zappaDPJ]

Perhaps I'm missing the obvious but if you have a product sitting in a stock room that isn't advertised or on the shelf what's the point of it? 'Low traffic' in my view is irrelevant, the forum was first and foremost a shop window.

 

[Study Force]

All I see is some stupid smiley face. At the very least they could have written a proper message to their visitors indicating why such a decision was made. Very bad at their end.

 

[haqzore]

Fully agree.

Don't mean to be dramatic, but I can't see this as anything other than signalling a beginning of the end.

 

[AllanD]

There was a 1.1.8 patch not that long ago, and I see changes on the GitHub from this week, but the site itself appears to be gone, it's just a weird x-eyed smiley face?

Anyone know anything about it?

I was wondering the same thing, if anything happened.

 

[Joel R]

Perhaps I'm missing the obvious but if you have a product sitting in a stock room that isn't advertised or on the shelf what's the point of it? 'Low traffic' in my view is irrelevant, the forum was first and foremost a shop window.

Does anyone even care about the shop, or visit the shop, or is actively using the shop's products?

When you have no visitors, do you need a shop window? Isn't it time to ... close up shop?

Some of you guys are rather obstinate in trying to keep a niche project alive, when quite frankly, it seems like the only people who care are old-school, die-hard, 62-year old self-proclaimed crusty former SMF users who want to hang onto this project out of a sense of nostalgia.

 

[Pete]

seems like the only people who care are old-school, die-hard, 62-year old self-proclaimed crusty former SMF users who want to hang onto this project out of a sense of nostalgia.

Take out the word “former” and you can apply that to SMF itself in many ways.

Me, I was more curious than anything, I get it, but times change and so must we. It feels like another door is closing in the free forum world, and I don’t ever see that as a good thing, choice for the consumer is always better.

Then again I remember how and why ElkArte was started, in the same vein I was asked by community members if I’d return to contributing to SMF itself (hell to the no). Some things just have their time, but to me ElkArte represented the spirit of what started SMF, not what it later became, and that seems to have been lost

 

[AllanD]

When ElkArte first started in was much better out of the box then SMF was even though it based on SMF. The community itself had a different feel then SMF, but I have seen it becoming less and less active over the weeks and months. I was hoping it wouldn't come to them giving it up, if that is what is happening, without any response we really can't say either way if it's a dead project or something else. I think we mostly believe the latter of the two though.