SuddenLaunch

[pierresentme]

I think someone's made a thread about this before but I didn't really understand the answer so I thought I'd make one of my own.

After five years of using a SuddenLaunch board my friends and I have decided that it's time to update and move to a paid boards where we'd be less in fear of our posts being deleted when the boards suddenly decide to 'sneeze' (as happened just before and we lost an archive of newsletter articles x_x)

However, after five years we've amassed a lot of history on that site and parting with all that writing would be ne'er impossible. The idea of starting from scratch is daunting.

So my question is thus, is it at all possible for the boards to be transfered to vbulletin?

Thanks.

Ren
x x x

[Zachery]

AS far as I can tell it looks like YaBB or SMF, which you might be able to transfer if they are willing to give you your database/datafiles for an import.

If they are using some totally custom software for their forums it amy not be possible, esp if you are not able to get any sort of backup.

[pierresentme]

Thanks for replying. I'll go and ask the SuddenLaunch people and see what they say. Hopefully they'll be of some help *crosses fingers* Then, if the situation is favourable I will return, lol :)

[feldon23]

I poked around SuddenLaunch's web forum and very quickly found the answer to your question. They WILL NOT provide you a copy of your data, no matter what.

I don't understand how these people sleep at night, knowing that they could be responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of posts. They HAVE to know that people will eventually outgrow their forum, get tired of slowness and lack of customizability, and just want to move on. And yet they provide no means to do so.

It would really be very easy to make a backup of the forum and provide you with the data. They just choose not to, thinking if they can hang onto you, even if you are disgruntled, so they can get their paltry banner ad revenue. I think all free web forums should allow you to buy your way out for, say, $50.

I'll add SuddenLaunch to my hall of shame:


Free Web Boards Hall of Shame
-----------------------------
ProBoards {Won't Provide Data} (http://support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=support&action=display&thread=1106175098&page=3#1151977720)
JConServ {Won't Provide Data} (http://forum.jconserv.net/viewtopic.php?t=6102)
SuddenLaunch {Won't Provide Data} (http://support.suddenlaunch.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&num=1182352852)
EZBoard {Won't Provide Data} (http://www.sleazyboard.com/ezboard.html)
MyFreeForum {Will Provide Data for $120} (http://www.myfreeforum.org/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=37)