It’s with great sadness I must now announce that we (the BE Forum Admin Team – Dave, Graeme, Mark – and I) have decided to close down most of the BE forum. We say a huge thanks to all our regulars and supporters over the last decade and a half since this version of the forum was first implemented. (Does anyone remember the clunky Bravenet version which preceded it? I know Mike K-H will.) We’d never have made it this far without you and we appreciate all you’ve done for the community. However, the simple truth is that social media, Facebook in particular, have killed off a lot of traditional discussion forums. We tried to keep going but sadly BE did not escape the death blow.
The number of postings dwindled over time until the place became very quiet. That might have been manageable. But concurrently it also became a magnet for people attempting to promote all kinds of undesirable goods and services. Frankly, keeping the place clean became quite a hassle and we had to assess whether it was worth the effort for a handful of people to post occasionally. We’ve already stopped any new registrations and the next step is to shut down all the public areas. It’s a big job but we’re working on it.
These public forums will still be viewable as archived pages but no one will be able to post anything new on them.
The forums we plan to keep open include the Malta Premium Lounge and the General Premium Lounge. This means that Premium Members will still be able to use these places to ask for help or to socialise. It’ll be a smaller community but the vast majority of helpful people were Premium Members anyway and those private forums were where nearly all the most useful info was exchanged.
Given the reduced level of service, I now propose to award current Premium Members (and those who’ve earned the rank of Supporter) free Premium Membership for the remaining lifetime of the forum. In other words, you’ll still be a Premium Member for as long as the forum continues, without having to pay anything again. It’s a pity we have to do this because half of our membership fees were donated to Gozo SPCA, but things change. And we have to accept and move with the changing times.
Please don’t send me “please cancel my forum account” messages. Chances are you’ve paid for your membership via PayPal. In which case, if you wish to cancel future payments then the best way to do it is to go into your own PayPal account and do so. It’s not for me to give instructions to your PayPal account. Thanks for your understanding.
If you’re not currently a forum Premium Member then you’ll still be able to access and read the archived information but will not be able to post anywhere.
If anyone has questions or comments about this issue, feel free to contact me via my email address if you have it, or via the BE contact form, which is linked to below.
Once again, many thanks to all who’ve contributed to the forums in any way over the years. I hope we can remain friends in one way or another.
With sincere best wishes, Kay and the Admin Team.