It went down last year because of hacker attacks. Ironically, someone was pushing for our getting the new phpBB version for security reasons, and yet after the update, it was apparently the new version that attracted the hackers. Anyway, I think that was the only time it has been down for an extended period, and I don't remember it being down even for a short time since then-- which is more than I can say for my own website, since a month or so ago I accidentally left the garage light on and a decades-old fluorescent-light balast went out and tripped the circuit breaker. The UPS kept the server going as long as it could, but the battery still went dead before I discovered it. I went to the garage for something else and found it filled with smoke from the balast.

I wouldn't mind paying the $10 myself, but I know it would have the undesired effect of keeping the low-budget people out like the highschoolers who may later prove very valuable to the field after they learn more and get experience.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

I'm not quite a low-budget person, but I find the idea of paying in order to access a forum repugnant. Plus you then have to keep track of finances, someone has to cover transaction fees, and so on.

You make it a contract that it is not for board service. If they make constructive posts for six months or a year, they can have it back. If they don't, it is yours and you can ban them.

For $20, you can have levels of membership.

An alternative is to create a forum called "Sandbox" and let new registrations only play in the sandbox until you are sure about them. It is easier to clean up one forum instead of all of them.

Surely the simple answer is just to have a few more moderators in different timezones so spam is removed soon after it is posted.

Also some boards have a feature that forces the first 'n' posts by new members to be moderated before being generally viewable. After 'n' posts they post freely. Not sure what phpBB supports.

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Andrew Jacobs
6502 & PIC Stuff - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/
Cross-Platform 6502/65C02/65816 Macro Assembler - http://www.obelisk.me.uk/dev65/
Open Source Projects - https://github.com/andrew-jacobs

I probably like this one most.

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Yes, that sounds good. A few tweaks is all we need - Mike and Garth are doing a great job.
Cheers
Ed