Contents of Invitation Email I sent out yesterday to 19 former BF members

[The Parson]

From The Parson (BibleForums)

Here's a brotherly offer for you. I know that BibleForums has gone down for whatever reason. I also know that many of you loved being there. So I bought the domain https://bibleforums.us and have already loaded a forum software on it. It's a blank and clean slate if you want it to restart your Christian community. No strings attached... All you have to do is move in and claim it as your new home. I'll update to VBulletin software as the funds are available.

Please forgive me if this email is unwelcome. I don't know how many of you will receive this email as some of the addresses are quite old. I'm hoping some of you have the same address.

Your servant in Christ Jesus Folks,

Tim (The Parson)

[RandyPNW]

Good job, Tim. Very kind of you to do this. Apparently the forum had a questionable reputation in some parts, and it certainly had a few almost-hostile individuals. But I did enjoy being on the forum, and appreciate the fact you want to preserve what got started, and perhaps now can continue!

[The Parson]

Yes Randy, I've read just as many bad reviews as I have good. As far as I'm concerned, the good always outweighs the bad.

[David Taylor]

Very thoughtful of you to stand this up Tim.

I tried for a few weeks to reach or contact any of the old BF staff to see what happened, but anyone I ran into had no idea what happened.

I can share some light, from a member of the mod-staff, of what didn’t happen.

It was not a planned closure.

After a very rough year of being hacked and losing super-admin access to the site, and fighting a massive porn-bot attack, we were able to get restored several months ago; however the admin access was never fully fixed, and we while the new safeguards stopped the porn-bots, it was still shaky waters without any of our functional mod-staff having full vbulletin or server access. 

There was discussion by the staff about the owner Brent (disabled-inactive)’s son Jonathan turning over all access but it had not occurred by the time of the blackout.  There had also been discussion on whether to sunset the site or continue, and the remaining staff planned to continue.

There was a worry about Web77 sunsetting in March, also bringing us down, but we were told the sight was not hosted via Web77 anymore, and shouldn’t be effected.  I believe we surpassed the Web77 shutdown by a few weeks, so it seems that wasn’t the reason.

At this point, that is all I know. 

So maybe it will benefit some of the old members who drop in, and wonder what happened.  Basically the mod-staff was just as surprised as to what happened as the regular membership.

[The Parson]

Thanks David. I had some concerns last week about VBulletin vulnerability. Seems the more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. That can be said for VB, and maybe even XenForo.

[quiet dove]

I clearly have not been to the old site in a very long time. I just have not had the time to get involved in good discussion. Work kinda frowns on that. But I am most happy that you have managed to get this up and running. I was not sure where I was but recognize some of the user names and glad my old one was available. I hope all are doing well. It has been an interesting 1.5 years for sure. BF still remains special in my heart.

You guys have been around so long you should be getting a pension....lol

[Slug1]

I clearly have not been to the old site in a very long time. I just have not had the time to get involved in good discussion. Work kinda frowns on that. But I am most happy that you have managed to get this up and running. I was not sure where I was but recognize some of the user names and glad my old one was available. I hope all are doing well. It has been an interesting 1.5 years for sure. BF still remains special in my heart.

You guys have been around so long you should be getting a pension....lol

Hooah, it is a blessing to see more and more familiar faces :-) God bless ya!!

[The Parson]

Hoorah (in the navy sense), Outstanding.

[Aijalon]

Even if I don't wind up popping in to debate something controversial as I did in the old days, I am so glad to find out what happened!  I am sad about the loss of so much great content.   I did some google searches intermittently to find what happened, and for some reason, this site didn't appear until today!  I knew there were some die hards that would rekindle the flame.  I always thought BF was a place for great iron v iron and looking forward to seeing the community rebuild!

[The Parson]

Even if I don't wind up popping in to debate something controversial as I did in the old days, I am so glad to find out what happened!  I am sad about the loss of so much great content.   I did some google searches intermittently to find what happened, and for some reason, this site didn't appear until today!  I knew there were some die hards that would rekindle the flame.  I always thought BF was a place for great iron v iron and looking forward to seeing the community rebuild!

It's good having you here. And a lot of that old content might be found on the "Internet Archive" if you dig deep.