BIG BIG NEWSNope, The Trad Forum didn’t shut down — if you want the tl;dr version, just scroll to the bottom.
As most users here will recall, Sbyvl closed the Te Deum forum inexplicably this past summer; in response, tmw89 and I opened “The Trad Forum” — which had previously been a minimal use private board since about 2014 — to the public. When we opened TTF to the public, we were ready to customize it and build it in a way that would accommodate growth and encourage new users. Unsure whether or not Sbvyl would return and if TD would re-open, we figured that it was better to just plan on TD not opening up again. So we we asked for suggestions on how to improve our new venue.
As we catalogued suggestions and attempted to implement them, we came to a very unfortunate conclusion:
mainly, that we couldn’t really do much of anything to improve the forum due to software and host limitations. Had the forum remained private, these limitations wouldn’t have mattered, since the bare bones of this place are enough to support basic posting for anyone who really wants it. But for a public forum with prospects of growth and an enjoyable user experience, it just simply wasn’t going to cut it.
Over the last month, many users have commented that the forum is dead, or dying. No doubt it looked that way, but
au contraire! During this “dead” time, we’ve invested a significant amount of time and money into launching The Trad Forum at a new URL. This means (generally) that everything is better. It also means that we can finally grow as a forum — in case I haven't emphasized it enough, the old software was too limiting.
The only downside is that you will all have to create new accounts. But you will find that most (if not all) of the things that were lacking from the freesmfhosting iteration are fixed. Here's a preview of some of the exciting improvements at The Trad Forum:
- A rich, deep, and hand-picked pack of forum avatars for selection (you can still upload your own, of course)
- Bigger Avatars
- Custom Titles
- Personalized text
- No Ads
- Auto-embedding of video links (not just YouTube-- dailymotion, vimeo, etc.)
- Much more seamless posting experience with responsive MS word shortcuts for BBC code in the post view (e.g., press ctrl+i for italics tags, ctrl+b for bold tags, etc.)
- A proper 'karma/thanks' system that tracks and identifies who liked a post
- Bigger fonts
- Custom member groups
- auto-save outgoing PM's by defaul
- A rich, hand selected, customized set of smileys (yes, this includes prayer emoticons!)
- A completely customized ("from the ground up") look and feel
- Much better mobile experience (with Tapatalk integration imminent)
- And much more!
When we first opened The Trad Forum to the public, many users were concerned that it, too, would go the way of the dodo bird. We very quickly squashed that type of thinking, and asserted our commitment to maintaining it. I’m sure that over the last month, many if not most have thought that promise empty, especially given the level of moderator involvement (or lack thereof) on the forum.
But be assured of our commitment! The resources and efforts required for this undertaking would have deterred anyone who wasn’t committed.So, without further ado, enjoy
http://thetradforum.com ! We'll see you there!