Willysmjeeps forums to be closed

[wilfreeman]

We, over at willysmjeeps.com, just got the announcement from Wes and Ryan that the willysmjeeps.com forum will be shutting down. This was spurred by way too many spam applications, resulting in way too much time having to be spent on administration. The website is free, therefore there is no money available to hire out the admin duties. Wes and Ryan are pleading for help from any member with experience, in order to keep the website alive. The other option is to lock the forums and keep the archives available. Many of us rely on the information and experience available on willysmjeeps. So, if anybody with experience would like to volunteer their time to keep this capable resource running, please visit the site and shoot wes an email!

 

[wilfreeman]

Also, admins - if I posted in the wrong forum, feel free to relocate for me!

 

[clinto]

That really stinks...................willymjeeps is arguably the best M-series Jeep site out there.

I wish I could help.

Perhaps some of their technical drawings and archival data could move over here? Thus giving the community somewhere to migrate to (I know a lot of people don't like the g503 M38/M38A1 sections).?

 

[quickfarms]

The spammers kill another site

 

[wilfreeman]

, I hope they can leave the site up so that the old posts can still be searched and all of the manuals and photos can still be viewed - I would hate to see all of that info disappear! I rebuilt my 'a1 using the m38/m38a1 yahoo group forum (the forum wes started before the willysmjeeps.com) and the willysmjeeps.com site.

 

[firefox]

Maybe SteelSoldiers could be given the data so that at least it wouldn't die.

 

[stampy]

Seems like they could change the way people join to help keep spammers out. Maybe a small fee 1$ charged to your credit card.

 

[wilfreeman]

There have been some suggestions about how to go forward with keeping the site open, and they are still looking at some of them. Possibly upgrading the software sounds like the most logical and easy to me, but I am not a web page designer or admin either - so I don't know. Wes said if nothing else, they would just close the forums and keep the rest of the site open - so at least the old information wouldn't be lost!

 

[patracy]

Upgrading the software isn't the solution. Having fully involved admins and staff, along with strong filtering software are the key. But even here, we have a few that slip in from time to time.

If the data needs a new home, I'm sure we could accommodate for it.

Edit: I see that forum uses freeware php-nuke software. I'm not familiar with that freeware, but it appears that it can also use a few of the tools we use here. It will take some time and effort to salvage it though. First thing they simply need to do is shut down registrations for now until things are addressed.

 

[jime]

That stinks! Just registered over there. Hope it can be saved in some way!

 

[patracy]

Never heard anything more about this?

 

[wilfreeman]

The last thing said was that they were adding re-captcha(?) to the signup process. As of now, the whole site is still up and running.