Please Read...Some Screen Captures Added

Back on March 16th I posted an announcement regarding some very large changes with the network that hosts Paganspace, these changes in my opinion were not positive, not for the members, nor for site owners, such as myself. Here's the link to my rantish announcement, so you can get the full jest of it.

Anyway, at that time I felt as though I was backed into a corner, and basically stuck with what was a good choice of hosting PS when it began, but what has turned into what I feel is anything but a good choice. While I do very much appreciate the platform and hosting that I've been paying for, I do not appreciate feeling as though I spent a large amount of money on this site; to do nothing more than help the "hosting platform" with their agenda of taking all of the members and our information as their own; to forge them into some type of competition for Myspace or whatever. When they opened their "new" site in March, it outraged many site owners; and as we suspected it has done nothing but encourage all of us to be spammed into the next century by other creators who are trying to fill their communities off the backs of those who actually worked hard and spent money to build their sites. That may sound crappy and well, I really don't care, the truth hurts I suppose.

They backed many people into the corner, and they have literally blocked us all from getting our own content off the network. Tools were created by outside programmers to help creators extract our content via XML etc, only to have it stopped via IP blocking by the network. They closed off all API's and the access that we had > the list goes on and on > basically if we want our content we have to manually take it off and if you notice the size of this site, you'll know that's quite the undertaking well over 40,000 pages I pulled just in the discussions (ugh). To the Gods, I've seen a lot in my day but this by far takes the cake! PS is filled with glitches and bugs that go unfixed and to be honest, I'm just plain tired of it and I know many of the members are as well. Hell I can't even access my own profile page half the time without getting that stupid green error screen, it's only after about 5 or 6 attempts it finally opens and I know I'm not the only one.

Bottom Line, I don't like being backed into a corner and when I feel that way I come out fighting and this was definitely one of those occasions. So, in early April I began working on scripts; to the Gods I've bought and tested so many damn social network scripts that I could probably write a manual on them all...lol I also began months ago paying for a massive server in which I had to have in order to host this big place alongside of my other sites; Emile and Robert of Lagniappe Internet totally hooked me up with everything I asked for and more at a monthly price that I can afford and I will be eternally grateful to them for all their help and to anyone who needs hosting Lagniappe Internet is the absolute best! For you tech geeks such as myself the server PS has is a Raid 10 with 8 Drives and Mirrored Backups. It's a workhorse, I assure you...lol

Moving along...(sorry I'm winded...lol)
Anyway, I finally found a software/script that I'm comfortable with, I've been coding for months (ugh) and the choice I made, has many additional script enhancements (it's pretty easy for me to modify the code) and I've been slowly purchasing all the extra bells and whistles to give everyone, everything they're accustomed to and more. Some things will be a little bit different (very little) but I promise you, it will not be a pain for anyone and it's very, very similar, actually IMO better than what we have now and the site looks the same, so it won't be confusing! The hard part for me, was finding something that I felt was good enough for you guys (my friends who have had to listen to me can attest to my pickiness...lol), which is why I tore through so many different scripts (lost some money on some of them, oh well it happens...lol), bottom line if it couldn't do what I needed it to do, and give you guys the best stuff > then it was tossed...lol

I'm not one to ask for help, and I completely hate to ask for anything but at this point I have no other choice. I've been spending a lot of money over the past months to make this happen, while still paying all the fees to the network to keep this site running on top of it. If you guys can donate anything at all it would be so appreciated as I'm spending money at this point, that I can't afford to spend but I've been doing it anyway...lol If you can help there's a donate button in the right hand column of the site, anything will help and be very appreciated. All who donate to help PS will be shown as Donors on the new site, alongside of our wonderful current sponsors & donors.

I know that many may be worried about moving (I am backing up everything on this site everyday via html (what a pain in the arse...lol) and there will be a database of our content that I'm creating now from the html, not to mention I will leave this site up under the sub-domain for about 2-3 months after the move so everyone can transfer anything they need from their personal profiles) I sincerely apologize for this even becoming a reality, I know some may feel that I shouldn't do this or I'm letting them down but I just cannot in good conscious continue with this growing mess any longer and I fear with all the network changes that have already taken place, that I just honestly don't trust what will come next.

Just so you know some of the things you'll have there are:

Groups w/ built in forums for each group AND you can actually find what you're looking for because the groups will have categories!

Customizable profiles with a built in box for adding your playlist music code & also profile additions via html.

Member Moods for your profiles

Video gallery for your profile that's a simple as searching youtube right from your profile and clicking an add button to add the video to your profile videos.

Member Forums & Articles for discussions

Classifieds

Blogs with threaded/nested conversation style comment system (like our current forums)

A nice chat room with different rooms

A built instant messaging systems

Profile Comments and your own Guestbook

Profile Privacy w/ many choices

Events

Photo Albums

Points system for activity (I know how you guys like that...lol but I'll get creative and figure out some cool stuff for reaching points)

Private Messaging system

Games

Lots of cool widgets to add to your profiles with the click of a button from within your profile

Social Bookmarking for your profiles (I'm working on this now)

Follow Feature (So you can actually follow your friends activity if you choose to)

Twitter Facebook like status where you can change your status and people can follow and comment on your profile status changes.

And Much More as I continue to find more fun stuff and build enhancements into the code.

Tentatively, on September 1st when you type Paganspace.net it will take you to the new site (our domain name will not change), and from there you will be able to log in (I'm adding all the email data from here into the database there, so logging in w/ your current info should be a breeze) and as I already stated this site will remain on the sub-domain for several months after the site change to assure everyone can get what they need from their profiles etc. I am trying to move all the main content onto the site now (current groups etc, which I'm working on databases right now from the html content to hopefully make that happen as easily as possible so we don't have to manually re-add that info > fingers crossed that this works, otherwise I'll be in copy/paste hell for a long time...lol.)

Okay, I hope no one wants to throw a chair at me right now...lol and I'm so sorry to do this but I truly believe it's what's best for the future growth of the site.
And yes, I will be hiring a few on call tech people to help with the site, so we'll have our own tech support in case you notice any bugs or issues with the site if I'm not online or able to quickly resolve. I'll also be contacting some members in early August to help me with beta testing the new site, to make sure it's all working properly prior to the switch.

If you can't afford to donate, then that's fine, I know all too well times are tough right now but if you can help in anyway it will be so very appreciated!

Love you guys a bunch & big hugs!

*Update 7-10-09* Added numerous screen captures of the site they're at this link :-)