A personal message to all members

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Moderators: David Martin, dave robinson, Iain Purdon, George Geddes

A personal message to all members

Postby Admin » Sun Sep 13, 2009 11:57 pm

First of all I would like to thank Chris sincerely for having taken ShadowMusic to the exceptional standards that we have enjoyed for the past 12 months. He has his own, well considered, reasons for wishing to hand it over and I am proud to be able to do so.

I created and set up this site at David's request after Chris told him he no longer wished to host ShadowMusic. My remit was to create a site as close as possible to the one Chris had created with the same facilities and reliability but preferably at a reduced cost. After researching the possibilities I came up with this one. Whether I can maintain the high standards Chris has set remains to be seen.

In an ideal world I would have simply copied the site to my own server and no-one would need be any the wiser but a combination of various factors made that an impractical proposition.

There are two trade-offs which I have had to adopt and, hopefully, these will not impact the enjoyment of this site in any way. Firstly the software that Chris used is an excellent product but is rather expensive. The software I am using has several advantages: It is open source, comes with excellent support and can be modified freely and easily by anyone who knows how. It also has the advantage of being very transportable so there's no reason why this version of ShadowMusic shouldn't last for many years, whatever may happen to me in the future. Members of other forums are very likely to have come across it before and it's certain that some will find it very familiar. The second trade-off is the question of where to host it. Chris used a dedicated server kept and managed in a datacentre in Slough. This site is not that different. It is kept and managed in a datacentre in Slough but is also used by other sites and users. I have been using this service for many years and have never had a problem with downtime or slow speed. It may seem a little slower during busy periods but nothing that should impact on the use of this site.

Although I am the site owner and administrator and will maintain it to the highest standards I can, I have decided that I have no wish to be a moderator. That task I will leave to those who have been doing it for the past year. Very occasionally I might post a message with a username of Admin or, in the unlikely event of needing to, might have to moderate the odd posting but I will never do that without good cause and I will always accompany it with a full explanation.

Finally, I hope that all members can continue to enjoy using ShadowMusic and will quickly get used to the differences they encounter. I have create a special forum where members can ask questions, request additional facilities, report problems and so on. I will respond to any messages and fix any problems as quickly as possible as well as talking through any future enhancements with the best interests of all members in mind.

All The Best,

Bob Dore
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