I need help to get out of it all

[Malamute]

Im still curious what information the forum has that could negatively impact you depending on ownership? Everything anyone posts is publicly available to anyone. Whatever info you put in your profile is not particularly sensitive as far as i can tell, your email address being the single item of interest I can think of, and its not revealed to anyone looking at your profile. If you put a bunch of truly private info in your profile, you can change that, though Im not sure why anyone would put such info in their profile, regardless of who owns the forum in question.

If privacy is an issue, do you block all 3rd party cookies on your devices? Do you regularly (daily or several times/day) dump all your cookies and history? If not, youre giving away far more useful info to unknown parties that whatever you may have put in your profile, unless you put all sorts of actual private info in, which is absolutely unnecessary and ill advised in any event.

Do you participate in facebook or any other social media or forums? Facebook is far more of a privacy concern than whatever a forum may know about you, and its well known they are not using your info in your best interest. You arent the customer of facebook, you are the product. Same could be said for most free online things, but advertising is the primary money maker and interest in your info. I ignore 99% of online ads in any event. If I want the forum to benefit from any interest, ill click on the ad to see more info about it, otherwise, so what?

Somebody help me out here, Im truly trying to understand what sensitive info is going to be used in a nefarious way due to ownership of the forum, and why a different owner today changes anything from a week or a month ago? Totally not getting it.

As was mentioned previously/elsewhere here, most of the time a forum changes ownership, most people are never aware of it at all. Things roll on pretty much the same as always. I applaud Bob for being upfront about it, and understand his reasoning. I havent seen anything so far to indicate any changes in management, most of the moderators are the same old people, and we now have a vastly improved forum format from the old one. So...what the heck is up with all the concern?

 

[WanderingRose]

I think many of us generally dislike change, particularly as we get older, and for some change feels unsafe.

Known entities that change then feel unknown, just a shaking a bit of the ground under our feet.

That said, we can only control what we directly control.

 

[shadowmoss]

It has been said that this company has been known to take posts from one message board that post them to a different one they own to boost traffic and make it look like there are more users. No idea if that is true, but the authorization to "repost" is something I'm uncomfortable about. Something of mine posted to a message board I'm not knowingly a member of is not cool.

 

[Southbound]

You read the article wrong. We didn’t do that. Please reread the article.

It was another company unrelated to us that did that well after we owned it.

 

[crofter]

You read the article wrong. We didn’t do that. Please reread the article.

It was another company unrelated to us that did that well after we owned it.

@Angie
That's good to hear. That would be a deal breaker.

I have nor heard about the teens we will be having as members on here. Did I miss your reply?
-crofter

 

[CosmickGold]

The primary concern I have is that I posted on a forum that was owned by someone I have personally met, who I had an idea I understood his priorities and possible uses of my information. His priorities changed, he sold us off and now my information is owned by a nameless unknown to me company. There is a difference.

I feel the possible uses of your information were always the same as now, because the original forum had released your posts to the public already (as with everyone else's posts). So the new owner hosting your posts makes very little difference with everything you've said planted around the world everywhere already anyway.

Isn't there a way to get in touch with the new host and talk with them about their plans and values?

 

[Malamute]

Isn't there a way to get in touch with the new host and talk with them about their plans and values?

Yes, and one (Angie) of the group of 3 humans is posting here and has mentioned they plan to have it be the same as much as possible, even with the same moderators as always. You can probably find the specific post if you search her posts.

I may be mistaken, but I believe Bob owns the name "Cheaprvliving" and still has his own blog up under that name. The forum probably needed to change names once the sale happened.

What seems lost in the confusion is the part about Bob saying his choice was to close it down due to the outdated forum format, and lack of time and money to do a complete update to new software, or sell it to someone with the time, money and energy to do it. Keeping it (the forum format) exactly the same was not an option for anyone. It was badly outdated and had very poor functionality the past couple years and was getting worse. Its time had come to end, the question was, would Bob just shut it down, or pass the torch and let new owners keep it going.

Again, pick one, but leaving it exactly the same was not possible for anyone.

 

[Southbound]

@Angie
That's good to hear. That would be a deal breaker.

I have nor heard about the teens we will be having as members on here. Did I miss your reply?
-crofter

I don't expect teens. Unless over 18.

 

[magicman]

Get real, enjoy life on road

 

[crofter]

That is a better idea.
-crofter