Fate of the MSPA Forums

Well they did tell people to change their passwords, so presumably it was passwords they were after.

Although, seeing how amateur this script kiddie was, I'm not actually convinced that they actually knew how to steal passwords like that.

They then just deleted the whole site, so either they gave up on the password thing, or they never really had a plan and was just looking to fuck things up the whole time.

Turns out nobody actually needed to do anything to get back at What Pumpkin anyway, they have been perfectly happy to shit their own bed.

My money is on no.
The odd thing is though, is why they're not. According to phillip, the task of creating the new forums is practically finished. The software for it is done, and his posts imply they're sticking with glowhost, so they also still have the physical server to put the software on. Speaking of which, since the old server is still operational, nearly two years after the site went down, they also don't seem to care about the money they're wasting on it, so I doubt cost is the limiting factor for the new site.
So if we weigh the pros and cons for them, the pros for making the new site is that they get a bit of a PR boost(but only a tiny bit because of their awful handling of this) as well as providing a more centralized and controlled outlet for their fandom and interacting with them. And the con is that they have to take one of their workers off hiveswap for a few days so they can finish installing some software.

Hey all, it's been a while. What Pumpkin has told me that the forum relaunch will be handled professionally by a department of a larger media company, which I probably shouldn't identify here. Sadly, they didn't mention any timeline regarding this relaunch. I will pass on everything we've done to them. If you worked on the forums with me, you may receive an email from WP sometime in the future via the email you used to set up your Slack account. I certainly would've liked to have the forums up and running by now, with everyone's old posts in some sort of online archive, but at least it seems that this community is set to be handled much more competently in the future. This will conclude my involvement with this project, so this will be my last update. If anyone needs anything or wants to chat, you can message me here. So long everyone!

RIP philip, you will be missed.

RIP any chance of recovering the things I'd left on the old forum.

The internet is, despite common perception to the contrary, ephemeral and fragile.

So, a weird update on the Forums situation (with tangential relation to YouTube):

All of the Homestuck-related videos on Homestuck Official (the list as follows, Collide, ACT 7, and CREDITS) have had comments disabled completely. At this same exact time, the maintenance page for the MSPA Forums is now gone after around 2 years, and the domain of mspaforums.com now goes to the front page of MS Paint Adventures (except it's technically not MSPA itself or a relink to it as it takes place in the same domain because Hussie's web design on MSPA is the most convoluted piece of technical implementation that I've ever witnessed in my entire life).

No one has any clue as to what's happening and many are speculating either the possible return of the Forums or that What Pumpkin was trying to cover up the forum's existence once and for all (which is clearly not the case, as this thread exists).

Also...might just be on my end, but the News section's descriptions are either missing or have been shortened.

What is going on?

Well obviously, if the traffic can't go to the forum, Then why bother giving people a two year old error page.
Just send them to MSPA and make more money off conversions.
It makes rather perfect sense.
Even more so if Hussie has no plans to raise the forums.

Consider that MSPA works fine without. It costs overhead to run Forums.

1. Reasons not to make a forum:
Time,
money,
busy

All of these are incredibly relevant for years on end. If you weren't getting paid, but were working on a fertile and fun project for years, would you stop?
And if you did, would the first thing you do, be to donate time and money to running a server?

2. Hey they are keeping the url. Probably like most businesses It makes sense to sit on old IP that is not a huge cost.
A redirect would be simpler, but I think it's practice/warmups for web design. Standard stuff for a small group.

3. I do think they are practicing web design.

4. I don't see any reason to remove it. The website would need an overhaul anyway. Without anyone making comics, there is no reason to update the site.


-It's really awkward to draw any conclusions off the cloned site. I would say they are playing with basic web design stuff. What I've seen so far, it just isn't meaningful.

I've seen this sort of website edit go down a couple times, and it's usually just some guy practicing.

Web design is alot easier if you have a base to draw/test from. But again, they need that for the Hiveswap domain.


-It's a lie dude. The forums aren't coming back. If Andrew works his way through the four games he promised, and then goes back into webcomics hardcore, maybe he brings back the forum.

I mean changing his day job, not some doodles on the side.


I've seen servers die before. When they come back after a year and a half, they don't stick around for a full year.

You have to acknowledge a few things. One is that Hussie isn't going to personally moderate the server. The original people have moved on to more important things.
The old leadership is gone, and they are never coming back.

From what I've seen of other servers, new leadership rarely, if ever, sticks around long enough to make the forum great again.

Has there been any update in the last four months? Given that both of 4/13 and 6/12 passed without the revival, it seems unlikely for anything to happen soon.

The really tragic thing about this is that I’m fairly sure the fandom would have survived much better if the mspaforum had been destroyed with no chance of recovery. I, for one, would have migrated here or to the eagle one instead of waiting.

i dont know if this was posted in this thread or if anyone really cares anymore but this exists mrcheeze.github.io/detritus/mspaforums.html

was that mrcheeze who made the archive?