Quo vadis, LHC?

**Rainbouu** · January 22nd, 2025, 11:17 PM

Originally Posted by physicschick

Glad you found it. I left a redirect on the Mane board that links to here. (Just trying to keep things a bit organized by topic. One of the other mods can move it back to Mane if they think it makes more sense there.)

Yeah, for some reason the redirect link was broken on my computer but, my computer is very old and my internet has been inconsistent lately so I think it may have been more of a problem on my end...

In any case, I do think this topic makes more sense on the Mane board because it's an effort to talk about community organizing, not nessecarily a problem with the website although concerns about it are what sparked the discussion, but I'll leave it up to the mods.

**baanoo** · January 23rd, 2025, 12:07 PM

Nefcerka, I'm glad you started this thread! It has been a big struggle for me to be able to log in since the security certificate expired - at first it was mobile-only, no laptop, then no mobile no laptop, and now I'm here via a very circuitous route and not feeling particularly comfortable about it.

I miss being here all the time, though, and hope we can get this fixed. I would be willing to make donations to keep everything running smoothly!

**Nefcerka** · January 24th, 2025, 05:21 AM

The way I see it – if it ever came to the need to move on from this place – it can only be to a space that is completely free. With so many available platforms that are competing for the attention of users, some of them with the same theme – hair – it is very unlikely that a sufficient number of members would be willing to pay for something they could get elsewhere for free.

Thus, a new, free and functional platform, universally agreed upon, would be needed.

It would need at least two people at its helm (so that if one drops out, there is still a backup). It should be people who care about the community and its spirit, people who have enough time to look after it, and also people who posess sufficient IT skills and know how to deal with software problems.

I have the time, I care, but I know nothing about running a website or anything about software, so that rules me out.

Only time will tell if the LHC ship is to sink or be fixed. We are all signed up here with our email adresseses, so I just hope that when the time comes, in either eventuality, somebody will take care to let everybody know.

**Ylva** · January 24th, 2025, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by Nefcerka

The way I see it – if it ever came to the need to move on from this place – it can only be to a space that is completely free. With so many available platforms that are competing for the attention of users, some of them with the same theme – hair – it is very unlikely that a sufficient number of members would be willing to pay for something they could get elsewhere for free.

Thus, a new, free and functional platform, universally agreed upon, would be needed.

When people talk about subscriptions, I'm sure they mean (and I certainly mean) that the subscription would give something extra, rather than the basic right to post and participate.

**Rainbouu** · January 24th, 2025, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Ylva

When people talk about subscriptions, I'm sure they mean (and I certainly mean) that the subscription would give something extra, rather than the basic right to post and participate.

Yeah like for Discord, the only person paying any money would be the server host, and most webpages/forums are the same. The owner pays but regular users don't.

Additionally, charitable donations are something multiple people have expressed a willingness to contribute. With that, I don't think there's any reason to expect a fee or subscription based model for the average user.

I don't understand website hosting but I was always under the impression that hosting itself isn't expensive, depending on what you're doing? Like it's expensive to host servers for a game with thousands of players, but a text based forum for a couple hundred people would be cheaper? Correct me if I'm wrong.

**Bat** · January 26th, 2025, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by Rainbouu

Yeah like for Discord, the only person paying any money would be the server host, and most webpages/forums are the same. The owner pays but regular users don't.

Additionally, charitable donations are something multiple people have expressed a willingness to contribute. With that, I don't think there's any reason to expect a fee or subscription based model for the average user.

I don't understand website hosting but I was always under the impression that hosting itself isn't expensive, depending on what you're doing? Like it's expensive to host servers for a game with thousands of players, but a text based forum for a couple hundred people would be cheaper? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Hosting is one thing but there's also bandwidth and data costs, the costs for site support etc
I had a look at the cloud 6 that hosts it for you. Or the one where you have to find the host site yourself the one you had to host yourself was about 200usd ish a year but cloud 6 is like 700usd ( gold class) ish a year which is a lot to me but we could have the step down that's 350ish a year anyway not really that cheap

**lapushka** · January 26th, 2025, 07:44 PM

I think the thread about us sharing various other spots we frequent (IG, FB, TikTok, YT, etc.) is just a very, very, smart move. Please also you guys, go find that thread. If you're comfortable sharing, please do. You don't have to share all of it, just what you feel OK with. I think there's a lot of people that I have crossed paths with here, in a great and awesome way, and I wish things were different right now, but... I think there's today's (&yesterday's) reality of a forum that's no longer being actively maintained by its owner, if that's safe to say, because it all points to that right now. Personally, first & foremost, I think it hugely unfair to all those hardworking mods out there, who also just volunteer effort (most of all) & time!

**cookies** · January 28th, 2025, 09:26 AM

Double post sorry

**cookies** · January 28th, 2025, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by Bat

Hosting is one thing but there's also bandwidth and data costs, the costs for site support etc
I had a look at the cloud 6 that hosts it for you. Or the one where you have to find the host site yourself the one you had to host yourself was about 200usd ish a year but cloud 6 is like 700usd ( gold class) ish a year which is a lot to me but we could have the step down that's 350ish a year anyway not really that cheap

Do you think it’s possible to set up a “buy me a coffee” type button somewhere where the money goes directly to cloud6 or whatever platform, and it says above “XXX money left to collect for 202X” until we reach it and then disappears until next money is due?

I’m also researching how we could go about saving all the data from here so we at least have access to it later on, in case it’s easier to just start a new forum (and then I’ll have to check the terms and conditions to make sure it’s allowed lol)

**Shorty89** · January 28th, 2025, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by cookies

Do you think it’s possible to set up a “buy me a coffee” type button somewhere where the money goes directly to cloud6 or whatever platform, and it says above “XXX money left to collect for 202X” until we reach it and then disappears until next money is due?

I’m also researching how we could go about saving all the data from here so we at least have access to it later on, in case it’s easier to just start a new forum (and then I’ll have to check the terms and conditions to make sure it’s allowed lol)

We did have a donate button on LHC for the longest time but it didn't say how much was left to collect. I agree that we need to save data from here but I have no idea how to go about that. There's so much valuable insight into hair styles, henna, etc that we dont' want to lose! I know that sometimes you can use the Wayback machine to recover webpages but I don't know much about preserving them.