Website for sale?

[Frayed Knot]

No you don't ... Ha-ave ... to post like a Refugee

That's all I got.

[kcmets]

Interesting. The one I found was at:

https://metsrefugees.wordpress.com/ -- like I said, circa 2007

[Centerfield]

I found a website at metsefugees dot com. Briefly looking, there's no

phpBB forum there and the site hasn't been updated since 2007.

So yeah, SJR, I can see the similarities...

 

https://metsrefugees.com/

 

I don’t recognize any names. Unless they all have new handles.

Anyway. Can we get back to saving this forum?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Anyway. Can we get back to saving this forum?

 

I want to be transparent about what's going on, so here's an update. No real "hard news" but I want to at least share what the landscape looks like.

PLAN A

As mentioned earlier in this thread, KC reached out to 700 members of the SABR New York chapter to see if anyone was interested in taking on the UMDB. He got one response, from a professor at Columbia University who lives in Queens and is a big Mets fan. I reached out to him a couple of days ago but haven't heard back. I realize that it's Thanksgiving week and a lot of people have things going on, so I'll wait patiently for his response. But if I don't hear from him by Friday of next week (December 5) I'll move on to Plan B.

PLAN B

The Ultimate Mets Database is an extraordinary property in that it makes zero revenue. Despite that, my research indicates that there may be a market for it. I saw recently on Flippa a different zero-revenue site sold for $5,000. A long-lived site that would appeal to fans of a popular sports franchise might actually be a money maker for someone who markets it aggressively. So if Plan A doesn't work out, Plan B will be to list the UMDB on Flippa. I haven't decided what my minimum price would be, but it will be a four-digit number. If nobody meets my price, I'll probably go to Plan C, but might skip straight to Plan D.

PLAN C

I'll keep the UMDB for a while, but I'll seriously scale back the functionality. I'll probably roll it back to what it was in 1999, when I created it to develop my web skills and for my own entertainment. I'd update stats once or twice a week and that would probably be it. I might enter game results, but probably no box scores. No transactions, no fan memories, none of that. I'd probably lose a lot of visitors, but it's not making money anyway so I don't really care about that.

PLAN D

Complete shutdown. I give up the ultimatemets.com domain and take down all of the content.

What this means for the CPF:

Under Plan C, nothing would change.

Plans A and B mean there's a new owner of the UMDB and it would be up to him or her or them whether or not to continue to maintain a forum. If they do decide to keep a forum, they would have the right to moderate it according to their own rules. Right now, we would get a rating of R from the Motion Picture Association. A new owner might want to roll it back to PG or even G. We would, of course, still have the option to establish a new forum elsewhere. And we can do that. (More on that below.)

Under Plan D, establishing a new forum elsewhere would be the only option, other than disbanding entirely.

Any one of us who already owns a domain with a hosting account that supports PHP should be able to host the forum at no additional charge. If anyone here wants to be the new host, I'll take care of the setup and the move to the new location. We don't have to disband, but somebody would have to step up.

At this point, I really don't know which outcome is most likely. I just know that after 27 years (longer than my marriage lasted!) the UMDB has slowly morphed from being a hobby of a sort to being a chore and I don't want to do it anymore.

[metirish]

Thank you for the transparency, and honestly I feel a little ****** complaining about how much I would miss the CPF and not taking enough account of the work it takes to keep things running

[stevejrogers]

I found a website at metsefugees dot com. Briefly looking, there's no

phpBB forum there and the site hasn't been updated since 2007.

So yeah, SJR, I can see the similarities...

 

https://metsrefugees.com/

 

I don’t recognize any names. Unless they all have new handles.

 

 

Doing some digging, looks like its more of a splinter from an old ESPN forum section, I was “outed” as being the SJR from the MoFo, and there are a couple of MoFoites over there. So that was where my bad assumption was from *shrug*

It is very active for a nice old school alternative to modern day social media platform “groups” “sub forums of the platform” and “hashtags to follow”

Though I like places like Discord for that real old school feel, while on a device app platform

[metirish]

I couldn't imagine going to a different Mets forum

[whippoorwill]

Looked it over too; kinda hard to tell whats going on.

I hope we can resolve it in a way that satisfies Ben; he is the one that deserves all the credit and any $$ outcome from this.

[Frayed Knot]

I don’t recognize any names. Unless they all have new handles.

 

One way to find out would be to sign up with our old handles and see how quickly someone chimes in with, "Are you the same ******* who used to post on MOFO back around the turn of the century?"

[stevejrogers]

I don’t recognize any names. Unless they all have new handles.

 

One way to find out would be to sign up with our old handles and see how quickly someone chimes in with, "Are you the same ******* who used to post on MOFO back around the turn of the century?"

 

Worked for me!

[Frayed Knot]

There are likely few, if any, who remember my pre-CPF identity.

But my post-CPF persona was not a popular one among the crowd at that time.

[whippoorwill]

LF

[whippoorwill]

LF

[kcmets]

Sweet Polly Purebread?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Still no word from the Columbia professor. We're now six days away from Plan B.

[kcmets]

I'll email him.

[Centerfield]

I don't have the know-how to keep the CPF up and running. But I'd be happy to venmo anyone who has an interest in doing so.

And a big thank you go Ben, Edgy, KC and everyone else who has worked hard to keep this little community going all of these years. I can't even imagine a world with no CPF.

[The Hot Corner]

I too lack the technical knowledge to run or host the site. However, I like Centerfield, am willing to offer financial assistance, should it be needed, to keep the site running at a new home site.

No matter how this ends up, I again wish to offer my sincere thanks and appreciation for the countless hours of administrative duties/technical support provided by Ben, KC, & Edgy over the years. So much time and effort goes on "behind the scenes" that most users, such as myself, are unaware of.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thank you!

Update: I've heard from the Professor (but nothing yet from Ginger, Mary Ann, or the Howells) and it looks like we're moving forward. He asked if it was okay with me if he made significant changes to the UMDB's user interface and I said I have no qualms about that at all. In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it.

No word yet on what his plans for the forum might be, but I'll let you know when I know more.

We'll continue to follow this breaking news story.

[kcmets]

The Howells have never been particularly reliable.

Good news UMDB-wise!

[whippoorwill]

Thank you!

Update: I've heard from the Professor (but nothing yet from Ginger, Mary Ann, or the Howells) and it looks like we're moving forward. He asked if it was okay with me if he made significant changes to the UMDB's user interface and I said I have no qualms about that at all. In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with it.

No word yet on what his plans for the forum might be, but I'll let you know when I know more.

We'll continue to follow this breaking news story.

 

yay!

[metirish]

Forum looks different!

[Benjamin Grimm]

It's been "unbranded"

[Centerfield]

What does that mean? I feel like it’s faster.

[Benjamin Grimm]

If it's faster right now that's probably just happenstance.

Unbranding means i removed the reference to the UMDB and it no longer matches the UMDB's font and color scheme.

[metirish]

It used to look like this IIRC

[Centerfield]

Could unbranding have sped up load times? It’s seriously much faster.

[metirish]

Much faster and no random log-outs

[whippoorwill]

It’s awesome

And less guests

[Benjamin Grimm]

All I did was change the graphic at the top of the page and the shade of orange. That couldn't have affected the site's performance.

What may have made a difference is that about three weeks ago (maybe) I disconnected us from Cloudflare. That was supposed to have been a service that would improve performance and filter out bots. It made a difference for about two days and then we were back to the status quo.

It was a Cloudflare issue that shut down Wordle (and many other sites.) I disconnected us that same day.