MSN GROUPS is shutting down - Need for alternative.

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I am manager or assistant manager at a few MSN Groups and so far everyone is pretty stunned about the announcement. MSN Groups is mostly a discussion board with some perks like member's being able to create photo albums or store files. Single web pages can also be developed. Our main concerns are the discussions. One group has been together for several years and the information there is priceless. (To us!) MSN made a deal with Multiply to allow groups to easily switch over but we have found it is not a discussion board type group but more of a myspace situation where each member has their own page etc. So for us it isn't what we need at all.

Besides me setting up a forum on one of my private sites, and us copy pasting some of our best discussions.. which go on the the hundreds of posts... does anyone have any ideas about where we might move or how to move the threads?

TY

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WOW!  AMAZING!  What a loss!!!  I am so glad you told us.
I have used the MSN groups to get help and it's sad to think this resource will not be there.

Other than copy paste, the only thing you could do is get a copy of the database (ya right).
Very possible that one of those crawlers you can get to steal websites wouldn't even help because it is database driven, not static pages.

I would try the Multiply migration.  You don't HAVE to allow all the features out there.
Just like this forum doesn't use all the features the SMF offers.
You might like some of the expanded features.
The sad thing is that MySpace, FaceBook, etc attract more people.

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I KNOW! It is amazing. Thousands of groups are affected. I am going to switch one group in a few days because I heard the original site remains up anyway at the time of the switch and it doesn't happen until I think February but don't quote me on that. But I have also heard there is no forum type program included. We need a disscussion board and two groups need to be private. So the question I so far haven't seen answered is what happens to the discussion threads.

I will keep you updated on what we and others do if I hear of anything else an dhope if anyone has a good solution they will post. 

This is just so sad. I am going to write MSN and ask about data base access but like you I hadn't considered it would really be a probable solution due to what they would have to do to grant it.

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So the question I so far haven't seen answered is what happens to the discussion threads.

Simple.  They will be taken down and the threads will be gone. 

Over the years Trellix/CSB has had 4 forums:
- Trellix Cafe on the original Trellix website (all data, all posts, all records GONE)
- GlobalSCAPE CSB/Trellix forum (2001 - closed but available for researching) 
globalscape.com/board/default.asp?b=1
- GlobalSCAPE CSB forum (June 2005 - open for posts) forums.globalscape.com
- Samisite Webmaster Community Forum (January 2007 - open for posts)   forum.samisite.com
GlobalSCAPE graciously kept our 2nd forum for reference when they changed to a new format.
Eventually all of them will be gone too...
Samisite forum was started so we could get some posts going on it before GS decided to clean house. They have passed the promised time period for supporting CSB and could close the CSB forum at any point.  They probably keep it up because it brings people to the GlobalSCAPE site and helps to boost their ranking for Yahoo, Google and others.  To THEIR benefit to have this resource even if it is a dead product.  By expanding it to the other products, they have given life to that forum beyond CSB...the longer it stays up, the better it is for us.

Both the GS tech and sales departments understand the value of the information in these forums. When I considered opening this forum, I had many discussions with them about the forum data. Legally they can NOT release the databases or information to me in bulk.  I have tried to copy/paste some of the most important threads. Or put information on Samisite about the topics so we will not be left hanging.  You will have to do some of that yourself.

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This is just so sad for one of my groups especially. We are a diverse bunch from all over the world who used to play Psycho Babble. A silly word game but full of great people who became friends over the years and were devoted to the game.

I have actually met two of those people now and talked with others over the phone.

Some of our threads have thousands of replies. :-( and the thing that brought this group together more than anything was HUMOR. The game was one of the funniest things I have ever played and it turned out all of the players were hilarious people and mostly really good people. So the humor we have shared over the years as well as the personal stories is just priceless to us.

I bet MSN won't allow me to access the data in bulk either.. thanks for that term, I will use it when I write. lol

We have a little time left but this is really a hard one for all the groups. Thanks for your input.

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It is sad when the groups have to break up.
When I first got on the web, I was a chatter, and some of our rooms were so pleasant.
Friends.  Not pickup places.  We banned those types of folks!
Most of the folks that were in there were in relationships (some married) and the rooms were not a danger to those relationships.  Sometimes the spouses/girl-boyfriends would join the conversations.  Used web cams on rare occasions (was on dialup!) and could see the folks you were chatting with...very personal and friendly.  FUNNY. Lots of foolishness.  Could talk about anything...family, work, pets, whatever and when those rooms were closed we were scattered.

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I have found yuku which I like and myfreeforum which I also like for different reasons but it appears the multiply site is not transferring all groups well and many have lost things in the transfer. I also have been told that the messages don't flow through threads like in a regular forum. Additionally reported is that when you transfer the msn group remains until it is shut down so I will be transferring one lesser used site on Monday or Tuesday to see what happens for myself.

My largest group started when Pop Cap shut down the Psycho Babble game about two years ago. We rushed together to be able to keep in touch. Most of us survived that shut down with little notice and now we hope to survive again. We will keep going forward but our past is what we treasure and hate to lose.

I love the kinds of groups you mentioned and they remain worth my time to me. Your site is also very friendly and borderline that type of site as well where people get to know each other and stay in touch. 

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Having all but finished setting up a private Yuku site I invited members to start testing it for the move forward. I really like it for ease and features.

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Never heard of Yuku.  Will have to see what that is...

Your site is also very friendly and borderline that type of site as well where people get to know each other and stay in touch.

WoW!  Thank you.  That is one of the nicest things I have heard. 

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Yuku it turns out is a huge community offering profile pages to all members with friend, information and messaging features that frankly are about as good as the myspace community. But additionally they have a pretty extensive program to set up free forums and after building smf and other forums I would say they give you lots and lots of options for settings and are comparable to many top line forums you have to host on your own site. It is free and if you want ad free forums you can pay either by person or by forum to have it that way which is pretty neat. A fellow myspacer commented she thought it was better than myspace because myspace doesn't have much of a group program at all and the forums can't be private. IN yuku posts and replies can contain flash, pics, videos, just about anything really and the choices of looks ard other add ons are many. I highly recommend it - so far so good.

The switch to Multiply on one of my sites went smooth. It will work OK for archives but it won't work for continuing our groups because we need to include more than text in replies to comments. There isn't a forum per se but an area called group blogs where the messages transferred to. There is no forum features like bumping messages to top when posted or notifications, organization etc.. Other than that it is is sort of a scaled down  Myspace or yuku site. Everything seems to be there including pictures.

My vote for our groups is to archive in Multiply and go forward in Yuku.

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good info!