How many ways can I write “two” in one sentence?

In a prior post on this subject I suggested that it might be time to dust off one of the other domains I currently have (phpbb2mods.com) and try to make it into a more active site dedicated to the legacy phpbb2 product since the version 2 forums are slowly being phased out. After some discussions with various folks, I can now tell you that won’t be happening. That site may still get the dust knocked off at some point, but it won’t be to try to take on the task of becoming phpbb2.com for those that wish to have a place to continue to work with that version of the product. (By the way, I checked, and phpbb2.com is already taken. It used to be owned by a phpBB “consulting” company, and now it’s a freaking placeholder page with ads all over it. I absolutely hate when people take up valuable web real-estate with garbage like that. But I digress…)

Where does that leave me?

There is at least one site out there that I am aware of that has the stated goal of becoming the new “go to” site for phpbb2 users. That site is phpbbusers.com (note, there is no “2″ in the domain name) and it started, as near as I can tell, about a month ago. I am making this assumption because of the “join date” of the founder, which is generally when the board was installed. The “whois” database shows June 2, 2008 as the domain creation date, so that would seem to support that assumption. Unfortunately there are several things that concern me about this site.

First concern: The site has barely started and they already have advertisements. Maybe the ” ” is a bit harsh, but to be honest, it does bother me a bit. I don’t begrudge someone the opportunity to make a few pennies. But until a site has enough traffic to require an expensive server, does it really need advertisements all over the place? If I am looking for a new place to go for phpbb2 discussions, one of the prime requirements for me, at least, is a feeling that the site is going to be around long enough to make my time and effort worthwhile. It would seem to me that if someone can’t afford to sponsor a board running with a basic hosting package ($10-20 a month gets you a fairly decent configuration) that there isn’t as much confidence that the site will stay around for the long term.

Second concern: They have the “haplo” knowledge base MOD installed. From what I remember, that MOD has been reported more than once for having various security issues. In fact Robert (the founder of the domain linked above) makes the very same observation in this post at phpbb.com. Later in the topic someone else asserts that it is not the same MOD, saying:

It is a mxBB addon module, backported to phpBB.

I’m not sure that makes a difference, especially since the mxBB project has disappeared and been replaced by some other sort of project called “mx-publisher.com” which, when I clicked through trying to research gave me this:

This account has been suspended.
Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources.

Ah, that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside (or is that the Bertie symbiont making his presense known…)

By his own admission, Robert is not a coder. If there are errors or issues with the MOD code (especially security ones) where is he going to get help, with the original author (haplo) not having logged in at phpbb.com for many years, and the support site (mxbb) apparently gone?

Third concern: The site is using a template that was built by one of the more well-known style authors named “Daz” from some time back. He used to run a site called forumimages.com. There is a reason that domain isn’t clickable; Daz no longer owns that site or has anything to do with it. I think most folks know that, especially since when you click through to that site there is an interesting rejection message (at least for me) that states:

You are using an Invalid IP to access this site!

So far we have a potentially insecure MOD from a site that doesn’t have enough bandwidth to stay open for the month, and a style from a site that doesn’t want me to even see what’s going on!

There are more things that bother me about the site (broken links, configuration options that haven’t been updated from the default like “Put some description for your forum or links here”) but to Robert’s credit, at least he is trying. Robert is one of the more active members at phpbb.com with well over thirty thousand posts since May of 2005. I believe most of his posts have been in the support area, but he has become more active in other phpbb2.x forums (at least those that are still open). I would imagine that he’s trying to get folks to notice his signature (as I did) and click through to his site (as I did) and want to join up and support the cause (which I did not, at least not so far). There are too many things about the site that bother me at this point, so I will go so far as to mention the site here but will stop short of a full endorsement, at least not just yet.

Is there something else out there? I’m not sure. If anyone is aware of any other phpbb2-specific sites springing up, please let me know. Go ahead and spam me with your links, because I want to check them out. Perhaps Robert just needs a bit more time to get his site fine-tuned and ready. If not, I hope there’s something else out there, or something coming soon.