Welcome back from The Moving Caravan’s first unplugging

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fearedbliss

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Annnnnnnnndddd we are back!

The name “The Moving Caravan” represents this forum’s temporary and transitory nature. It’s suppose to cause reflection within oneself to think about the impermanence of things, and to not get too attached to stuff in a negative way. Most websites try to maintain 100% traffic and try to get as many people as possible to their product, attempting to maintain them on the platform for as long as possible. In our case, I haven’t unplugged the forum since we didn’t have enough members to start this process back then. However we are at a point where I can begin doing these _random_ unpluggings. Use that time to reflect on the above and enjoy your present moment.

If you haven’t read The Moving Caravan’s opening post, I would highly recommend it.

- fearedbliss
 
I don’t necessarily disagree with your reasoning, however you should consider giving people a heads up on these sorts of things. Especially after what happened in the past with communities like Xyinn, I thought this forum was vanishing for good. The thing is, this community exists more or less out of spite for the old diabloii forums where a few lonely middle-aged dictators tried to force everyone into their own antiquated unified way of enjoying the game. A lot of people left since then and are still leaving to this day to come to more open communities like this one. If you want them to stick around and invest time here, like they do with long write ups, screenshots, etc, they should probably be given reassurance that they can rely on the forums.

I’m saying this as someone who used to be addicted to Diablo 2 in my younger adulthood where forced breaks was something I sorely needed. I’m not too active because I don’t play much anymore, and have balanced it with other things in life, but I do like to break away here and see peoples’ excitement for the game still (:
 
Hey [mention]galaxyhaxz[/mention], I definitely understand what you are saying, but from the very beginning, I stated that people should not \"rely\" on this forum. Everything is temporary including this. We can share and enjoy the moment together while it lasts, but I definitely won’t be guaranteeing uptime or long term existence of this forum. Do I want it to exist for a long time? Definitely. Will it? Who knows. I know that answer won’t instill confidence but I’m not necessarily trying to either. I’m only guaranteeing that it exists at the current moment. Giving a heads up would be counter to the \"momentariness\" of it all. If/when the forum \"vanishes\", people should be prepared to continue their lives at any moment and not necessarily feel too bad about it.

If I decide to \"shut down the forum once and for all\", I’ll make a heads up post about that, but I won’t be doing it if it’s not going to go away forever. Plus, if the forum was going to be gone forever, you wouldn’t see a front page (board disabled message) at all, it just would be gone for good. If you see a front page message, that means the forum is still loading and still exists.
 
Well I think it would be good to organize these things. I think it would be a good thing actually, to have scheduled predictable shutdowns to encourage people to share time with family/exist in the real world for a bit, especially during peak times. Such as 2-3 week shutdowns during Christmas, summer, etc. with a more clear message on the page such as:

\"Please take this scheduled time to take a break from your computer, enjoy life etc.! The forums will be back up by <X weeks from now>\"

I also understand and don’t expect you to have these forums *indefinitely*, afterall the cost to host them comes out of your own pocket, and you likely host it in your own home even. But--it would certainly suck for many to lose up to years of valuable posts and such. Both of us had made many such posts on diabloii.net about time traveling and such, but thankfully wayback machine has salvaged those.
 
[mention]galaxyhaxz[/mention] You’ve made several solid points which I appreciate.

[mention]fearedbliss[/mention] I think out of respect for this (very small) community, it would be courteous of you to provide a heads up in the future when you are planning to shut this place down (whether temporarily or for good).

Regarding the \"impermanence of things\", and the \"forum’s temporary and transitory nature\", etc...

Those things are quite obvious, but IMHO, it’s a bit arrogant to shut down a community website, and just expect people to come back when you are good and ready.

Imagine showing up for work one day, and there’s a sign posted:

My business is closed for an indefinite hiatus while I contemplate life and muse on the impermanence of things. You should take this time to do the same.

:lol:

Anyways, I am glad for this forum because it is a place to share my renewed enthusiasm in a beloved game that was once lost and is now found again. On the other hand, that random shutdown made me realize that there are probably better ways to archive my current d2 exploits and progress. Something offline, and something more, well, permanent!
 
I already stated what I believe about the reasons I created this forum and the way I wanted to manage it. But regardless after these discussions I’ve decided to shut it down. Please read the following post and back up anything you need from here.

https://themovingcaravan.com/viewtopic.php?t=255
 
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