TLO has suffered in membership decline and participation over the past few years, including dedicated social media resources (e.g. Facebook groups) that fulfill many of the interests and needs Thomas Ligotti followers. TLO had also suffered from a my absence in maintaining the reliability and performance of the site. I had so heavily modified the vBulletin 3 version of the forums that any upgrade to newer versions or other platforms would lose most custom features, most of which were not designed for later versions due to both the decline in forum popularity and vBulletin platform itself.
When the site became completely unreliable, I had to make a decision to upgrade vBulletin or adopt a new platform. I had purchased vBulletin 5 previously with this plan, but did not follow through due to my disappointment in the platform regressing in some aspects and vBulletin 6 did not alleviate most of these concerns. I chose instead to purchase XenForo, and in spite of my initial disappointments with the conversion and the daunting task of correcting data and rebuilding what features that can be replicated, I am now at peace with the decision.
Beyond the significant investment in the software, I have pre-purchased three years of remote hosting services and intend on spending what limited time I can afford on making gradual improvements. At some point, I will email membership with a one-time notice that TLO has been resurrected, as I believe we lost several members due to technical frustration or the belief that the site was lost forever.
In spite of my personal time away from TLO, I still believe that it should remain in existence for as long as possible. I would like very much for membership and participation to increase, but even if it remains a ghost frequented only in passing by curious onlookers or a select few fervent followers, it shall remain as David Tibet once mused "a shining brainless beacon of elegant mutations and cunning annihilations."
When the site became completely unreliable, I had to make a decision to upgrade vBulletin or adopt a new platform. I had purchased vBulletin 5 previously with this plan, but did not follow through due to my disappointment in the platform regressing in some aspects and vBulletin 6 did not alleviate most of these concerns. I chose instead to purchase XenForo, and in spite of my initial disappointments with the conversion and the daunting task of correcting data and rebuilding what features that can be replicated, I am now at peace with the decision.
Beyond the significant investment in the software, I have pre-purchased three years of remote hosting services and intend on spending what limited time I can afford on making gradual improvements. At some point, I will email membership with a one-time notice that TLO has been resurrected, as I believe we lost several members due to technical frustration or the belief that the site was lost forever.
In spite of my personal time away from TLO, I still believe that it should remain in existence for as long as possible. I would like very much for membership and participation to increase, but even if it remains a ghost frequented only in passing by curious onlookers or a select few fervent followers, it shall remain as David Tibet once mused "a shining brainless beacon of elegant mutations and cunning annihilations."
