nwKite has a new home!

Nak · Mon May 27, 24 8:49 am **nwKite has a new home!**

I will be taking over ownership of nwKite from Phil. Many thanks to PKH for providing such a great meeting place for our community for 20 years! This place has been a welcome home for these past decades, and I will do my best to ensure it remains so.

My plans are to update to modern forum software, and to include sections for winging, SUP, surfing--any and all board sports. This is going to necessitate archiving the current forum. It will continue to be available as a read only resource. This update is going to be a big effort, so don't expect the change over until winter. Possibly earlier, but no promises.

If you have any ideas how to update and improve this community forum, please post your ideas here. I am open to anything that will make this a better place! I have quite a few ideas myself, and I'll be discussing those ideas here as well. My goal is to not only have a place to exchange ideas and information, but to help build the water sports community.

If you are currently a moderator here, and wish to remain a moderator, please PM me. Your help is appreciated and needed!

I am hoping to port over current user names and passwords, but I'm not sure this will be possible given the age of the current software. If you have any technical expertise in this area--and wish to help or advise-- please PM me.

Cheers!

chrissmack · Since 08 Jun 2005 526 Posts portland Addicted

thanks Nak!

i'm glad it's going forward.

the sharing of intel and the classifieds have been great over the years

ldhr · Since 21 Jul 2009 1490 Posts Hood River XTreme Poster

Much appreciated! Wish I had the expertise to help!

Wind Slither · Since 04 Mar 2005 2624 Posts The 503 METAL

blowhard · Since 26 Dec 2005 2027 Posts Windward

If you need donations, let us know

OG · Since 07 Jun 2011 600 Posts Addicted

looks like we'll be in good hands. good on you for taking this on and supporting the community

Windian · Since 28 Apr 2008 902 Posts Newport, OR NEWPORT OG

Thanks for taking on the task of keeping NWKite.com up and running. One thing I really appreciate about the current version of this website is the simplicity. No bells and whistles just makes it easy to use with no learning curve needed. Idea

jjm · Since 30 May 2009 6 Posts New Member

I evaluated a few modern forum packages and was impressed with https://www.discourse.org/. I was able to migrate data over from a similar era phpbb forum and it worked well.

Unfortunately we didn't have the active users to warrant the additional complexity in server administration required. (note: they also have hosted service but $$).

https://flarum.org/ was on radar but it was still beta at the time and the data migration is way more convoluted. But it will run on standard php hosting solutions.

Best of luck!

Sasquatch · Since 09 Mar 2005 2103 Posts PNW Bigfoot

Sweet! Thanks NAK!

dhhr · Since 09 Jul 2015 30 Posts Hood River

Hi, I'm a local web developer who has been thinking about this for a long time. NW Kite is such a great resource. Let me know if you need help with database transfer, hosting, design/development, I'd be happy to pitch in.

barfly · Since 31 Mar 2005 1216 Posts Portland BRACKISH

HH · Since 24 Jul 2014 50 Posts Hood River, OR

This is great news, thank you Nak! Even though Facebook Groups exist, I still feel safest selling and buying off these NWKite Classifieds. I wish I had some technical knowledge/experience to help with the changeover.

pollywog · Since 07 Aug 2009 292 Posts Obsessed

Thanks NAK! Appreciate you taking this on. It’s a great resource.

I too like the simplicity and zero pop-ups. Hate those things…. Since you’ve been here from the beginning, I know you’ll know what needs to be done.

Amy

shred_da_gorge · Tue May 28, 24 9:33 pm

One suggestion is moving to TLS/HTTPS from plaintext HTTP. I use Total Choice Hosting for my domain (windluvr.com) and they have built in availability for using a non-profit CA called Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org).

Mark · Wed May 29, 24 3:04 pm

windpig · Since 28 Aug 2008 283 Posts Obsessed

So stoked to hear that Nak! Thank you for taking this on! You may not be the hero we deserve, but the hero we need!

Nak · Thu May 30, 24 7:59 am

Thanks everyone! Keep the ideas coming in!

Update: The transfer of the website and domain is complete. I'm now studying the current software before I begin looking at the upgrade. I did build a couple of forums 16 or 17 years ago, but obviously I'm not current.

Good news on the forum software. The current software is from 2009 and had been abandoned. However, it looks like they started releasing updates again last year! That will make updating WAY easier. It looks like there's a conversion tool to go from the current software we use up to the newest version. My plan is to do the update on a PC. Once that is running, I'll upload the software to a different web address so that people can test and comment. All user names and passwords should remain unchanged. Once the test version is running reliably, I'll repeat the process on the active forum.