Missing Features of the TMF

To be honest, I feel like this forum is a little outdated, and is missing certain features that can be found on other forums/sharing websites. One such feature would be something like adding certain posts to a "playlist" or just a grouping, which would be arbitrarily designated, and would allow you to categorize by whatever criteria you would like. With something like this, of course, would include the ability to make it public or private.

Additionally, you can only search through specific forums one at a time, unless you want to search a fifth of the site at a time, which doesn't narrow much down.

Any thoughts or additional comments?

I’ve been away from quite some time - but returning from being quiet I can’t believe there isn’t a modern format for uploading pics.

I’m not complaining. Just an observation.

Thank you to Jeff and Myr and everyone who provides this forum for us.

These are all features that we'd certainly like to offer. But the software that runs these forums is not free, and in fact is a pretty solid chunk of change. So we've been required to muddle on with the format we have.

Jeff has been running a fund for upgrades, and the first major milestone for that was met earlier this year which allowed us to upgrade our server which is the foundation of everything, and the improvement was quite dramatic in speed and stability. It was the biggest need we had, so it came first. We also managed to upgrade the chatroom which was positively ancient, and a real... unstable creature. The new one has been solid and again, very noticeable for those who use it.

The next goal is new forum software, which will include many of the new features you see elsewhere, and will bring us into this decade. But it will cost, and we are slowly building the fund back up to do so.

I know it's annoying to deal with this old format, but I want to note that we have never charged for membership, or any of the features we offer while footing the costs of beign here for 20+ years now. You could buy a pretty nice HOUSE in many parts of the country for what Jeff has put here out of his pocket over the years, and that's why we are slow in upgrading. It's expensive, and just beign here period is not free for us.

It will come in time. You the community has reached out and helped with the first goals and continue to do monthly contributions, so we'll get there. And we thank you.

Myriads

Thank you for the explaination, Myr.

I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful or ungrateful in my post.

Thank you, Jeff and the countless others who provide this portal for us.

Thanks to Jeff and everyone else who has contributed financially to this site over the years. As stupid and ignorant of the internet as I am going to sound, I will say this. I always thought that making or having a website on the internet was free. Granted, before many of you get mad at me, I dont know anything about internet servers or operating one. I guess I just figured you go online, put a site together, and boom. The TMF is born. Obviously though I realize someone has to code and everything. So yeah. Shit. This whole time, money has been keeping the site alive.

Honestly I think I might be able to help somewhat in about a years time with developing databases and whatnot to categorize and store the pictures, groups and playlists. The only issue would be the storage space itself.

I never thought about the monetary restrictions on such a project. I for some reason just assumed the forum had the funding but refused to upgrade.

My mistake, please excuse me