The end of ZetaBoards

[Moonface]

Considering Brandon can't even be bothered to respond to his own staff, users, and those who have paid for an IF database and still not heard anything back, the lack of courtesy on anything doesn't surprise me anymore. The person being paid to do a job is doing nothing to interact with their users while the volunteer team, who weren't even thanked by him, are continuing to try and help people for free.

He was a poor developer when it came to ZetaBoards, and he will likely still be a poor developer on Tapatalk.

 

[Azareal]

But know that not everyone can afford self-hosting for their forum, and that's why they would rather go with a free host to save them the hassle.

It can usually go down to as low as a dollar per month, but I can understand the disabled no income case somewhat.

 

[Geoffrey]

This entire situation is just continuously getting worse for everyone with ties to ZB. The handling of the situation by Brandon and his new buddies at Tapatalk is beyond poor. No customer service. No transition plan. No support or answered questions.

How can you expect to make a major announcement such as this and only make one other post on the support board in the near-three months since this started? SMH.

Sales for ad removal/premium and new board registrations are all still live. People are out there going about their business with their forum and have no idea what's about to happen.

 

[simonweb]

Yeah, this merger doesn't give me much faith in ZetaBoards or Tapatalk. I would have expected a company like Tapatalk to handle something like this much more professionally.

 

[Reverie]

At least there have been emails about the transition. Non-informational emails... but maybe it will make people check the support board... if they even still use that email address lol.

It was definitely handled unprofessionally. I have to give props to how icyboards handled their closing. Allowing people to take their database. Plus made contact with jcink.

 

[Geoffrey]

At least there have been emails about the transition. Non-informational emails... but maybe it will make people check the support board... if they even still use that email address lol.

It was definitely handled unprofessionally. I have to give props to how icyboards handled their closing. Allowing people to take their database. Plus made contact with jcink.

True, sending out emails at all is the bare minimum amount of effort. But considering those emails have tended to lead more problems, questions, and confusion, I wouldn't mark those in a positive column.

It's a shame IcyBoards did decide to close around the same time - it would have been a great alternative for board owners to switch over to and they would have seen a large bump in usage over there. Thank goodness Jcink is still kicking.

 

[Gio]

The ZetaBoards Support Forum has now been converted.

 

[Gizmo]

The ZetaBoards Support Forum has now been converted.

I do not like the convert one bit.

 

[fantanoice]

It's sad to see this as the end of Zetaboards, I enjoyed using the software and always recommended it to people who didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of learning self-hosting. I think Brandon handled the situation very poorly.

There are still crawler converters that can go through and convert all your stuff so you can go to MyBB / some other platform but there aren't many people that know about them. I'm also not sure if any have been made for Tapatalk yet (for forums that have already switched over).

 

[Bryn]

I do not like the convert one bit.

We all feel the same.

And @fantanoice, Brandon did handle this badly. Even by remaining a mute since that damning announcement four months ago. Before this happened, all of us were assured that ZB would be staying despite its purchase by Tapatalk but, turned out that we've all been lied to. We won't forgive him for it.

 

[VirusZero]

Even the staff of Zetaboards support forum feel betrayed over this... One posted a message in the "Service discussion and feedback" section about options people had.

Also Jcink has stated that he won't use a database made from a crawler.

 

[Cam]

Also Jcink has stated that he won't use a database made from a crawler.

That sucks, but you can definitely understand why Jcink would be hesitant to assist people with that. I'm surprised ZetaBoards didn't at least try to sell all these databases to forum owners. There's so many large databases that will basically go to waste because of all of this. Tons of forums have been completely abandoned.

 

[Geoffrey]

Given the whole thing is money-motivated, I'm also surprised they didn't put a price tag on databases. I'm sure many board owners would have jumped on that opportunity.

Of course, the right thing to do here would have been to offer the download for free. Meh.

Seeing the ZB support board on Tapatalk is a sad thing to look at. It's a sign of the true end of the software.

 

[Jason76]

I think the just think would have been to compensate the owners for their loss - even if technically, they don't have to.

 

[fantanoice]

Also Jcink has stated that he won't use a database made from a crawler.

That's unfortunate, could be a good to get people to your platform. I guess it would be too much work trying to support people if their converter doesn't work or something.

 

[Azareal]

I think the just think would have been to compensate the owners for their loss - even if technically, they don't have to.

That would be going too far. What they really need to provide are backups, you go your way and they go theirs. They don't really owe you free hosting though.

 

[Geoffrey]

Also Jcink has stated that he won't use a database made from a crawler.

That's unfortunate, could be a good to get people to your platform. I guess it would be too much work trying to support people if their converter doesn't work or something.

I think it's more of a ZB doesn't want you having your database, you obtain through *other* means that may or may not be legal, and then Jcink uses the data to put it on a board, which again may or may not be legal. It's a legal battle they don't want to get into, which I understand.

By never offering databases or content downloads, ZB/Zathyus technically remains the owner of any content on their service. We've had the ability to use the service and access the content, but never really became the "owner" of the content or even the site itself.

Of course, if they wanted to play the legal game, all the folks that paid for InvisionFree downloads or those that paid for ZB ad removal/premium and got dumped over to Taptalk could respond with a nice lawsuit of their own so we're basically left with the current situation of either use Taptalk or start over elsewhere.