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Apologies for the length...but it's an important topic! TLDR; Tapatalk will be removed due to a series of issues/concerns identified. If you don't use Tapatalk, you can skip this. If you do use Tapatalk, please read below and start to use your device's web browser to visit the website. Please post any issues here and we will work through them before Tapatalk is removed, but I think you'll find the website's responsive design will be much like many desktop and mobile websites you use! The longer story... So I'm personally not a big fan of Tapatalk and I'll explain why shortly. I do understand its appeal to many members in terms of convenience and having a single app that connects them to many forums easily, which is why I've always had the plugin installed for members on this site. However, that's pretty much where I see the benefits ending for Tapatalk, so much so that many of the website owners and webmasters I've spoken to have taken a hard line on removing it. We've discussed the removal of Tapatalk before on this site, and I tried to be flexible, but after looking more into the nuances of Tapatalk's practices, I've opted to remove Tapatalk. Below are some PROs and CONs that were identified during the review of Tapatalk PROS: Convenient single app members can use to connect to many different forums they belong to CONS: Tapatalk takes all of the media (images, videos) you post on here through Tapatalk and stores it on their servers instead of this website. The only option for a site to override Tapatalk storage and use their own is to pay Tapatalk a monthly fee to do so (i.e. I have to pay them to store what you all intended on posting here). This is a pretty shady practice in that it should be the site's content and in safe harbor with the site's chosen storage platform. Instead Tapatalk effectively takes ownership of it by forcibly hosting it on their servers. Further, if Tapatalk goes under, fails, etc then all of the media tied to them disappears (perhaps unlikely, but a risk nonetheless) Tapatalk is riddled with bugs and has terrible support. I try to serve as a facilitator for members and open tickets with Tapatalk on issues experienced, but rarely receive a response. The last Tapatalk plugin update took over a year and it broke the entire login process here, so I had to back it out. The old version allows spammers to circumvent security checks the website software has, and while we (mods and myself) can mitigate it by being active, it is just another strong indicator of security concerns in general Tapatalk is not very robust, it is a forum-only app and really short changes the experience for members. Many members may not care however and only be interested in the forums of the site, so this has always been a consideration. Tapatalk has it's own ads and shares essentially nothing with the hosting website (pennies). So for those members who post through Tapatalk, the net effect is virtually all of the revenue your activity generates goes to Tapatalk instead of the site. There's probably some other CONs, but the ones above are the top concerns IMHO and are enough to formalize this decision to remove Tapatalk. Beyond that, I have a bunch of work ahead of me to recover everything that's already been stored over there, as they don't offer porting history over. I know this comes as a bummer to the small subset of the members who use Tapatalk, but I can't overlook this any longer. I hope you understand, and if there is anything you'd like to discuss, please feel free to PM me or post here!
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Hey all, just a heads up the site had a significant (but quick, you may not have noticed it) update take place on the backend. If anyone experiences any issues, please report it here!
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All, Due to the increased traffic here and in an effort to get longer term upgrade-ability for the site, I'm going to be migrating the site to a new host most likely tonight or tomorrow. There will be some downtime, but you'll see a notice posted on the site when the site is offline. I'll keep you posted as we get closer to migrating!