Is Avatar Forums (AF) down?
 

I still go here to ToS, and over to AF a lot, but I just tried AF, and I just get redirected to a site saying Avatar Forums domain is for sale?

hi Theorist...it's not just down, it's on the auction block. i have seen it go down several times over the years, and always the same page for several weeks, then it was back up. now it's down hard, and the for sale sign is up...never seen that before. the site is down so far, that every image link to google, chrome, firefox, and safari, is broken. those links were never down on the previous outtages. i think it's done for, this time. sad. very sad only. :(

Indeed, it seems like Avatar-Forums may be gone for good - a sad event for anyone in the Avatar community, as its impact could never be forgotten.

Without Avatar-Forums, Tree of Souls would never exist, and I will forever be grateful for its impact not only on the Avatar community but also myself. Rest assured that Tree of Souls will always remain, even more now taking up the mantle of AF. :)

^Irayo ma tsmukan, that means a lot :) So many memories from there and it's hard to have to let them go :( But I'm glad we still have great aysmuk to come together with.

after ten days of no AF and no apparent hope in sight, i have decided to leave the hopless AF Trail of Tears, and take refuge at ToS. #newhome

What exactly happened?

Chances are it just wasn't profitable - very, very few forums are. That's why ones that survive in the long term are often either connected to a larger site, or run for a different motive than money.

A lot of people here found their first home at AF, and will be sad to see it go. The worst part is the loss of so much early history of the Avatar community - we have archive.org but their snapshots are often incomplete. Either way, once I have a bit of spare time I will look into trying to scrape as consistent a mirror as I can and give it a permanent home on ToS.

I see this as a fresh start and a great opportunity to make new friends. I'm already familiar with many here, but there are dedicated ToS members I've never met. At least with us all together we have a larger community and I'm positive that it will only strengthen the existing ToS community. I really do hope we can get an AF archive here on ToS. The raw reactions of the original AF members must not be lost.

http://www.tree-of-souls.com/suggest...tml#post184501

Hey guys some former AF members are also posting in this thread. ^

It's nice to see more familiar faces. :)

i had a lot of fun and good memories on AF over the years, joined there in October of 2010, almost made it to 5 years. damn. i shall miss it dearly.


Avatar-Forums (2009-2015) rest in peace :(

The months I spent on Avatar-Forums in 2010 I will forever remember as some of the best of my life - it really was a community unlike any other I have ever seen.

More than anything else, it was the warmth and spirit of AF that sparked the creation of ToS! :)

AF was great in its time. I met so many friends on there who I still am lucky to be able to talk to. The Avatar community is bigger than any forum, while we may have to regroup I do believe everything will work out for the best.

Yeah, I don't think you guys (former A-F members) know about this, but Tree-of-Souls split off of A-F due to a disagreement about the direction A-F was going in. Eltu and HumanNoMore were (if I recall) in mod/admin positions at A-F before things began falling apart.

Many of us expected that A-F would eventually fail, because Lon is an incompetent idiot who was looking to make money. He overloaded the site with too many features, and he allowed people to upload far too many photos. I saw new photos uploaded daily that really had little to do with Avatar (as in photos uploaded to the forum member albums, not photo threads). That stuff costs a lot of money; not to sound brash or arrogant, but Tree-of-Souls has never had to worry about ads nor have we ever shoved the donation thing in user's faces.

Mostly correct! Me and HNM (along with a few others) were not in any special positions on AF whatsoever, other than very dedicated members :)

But indeed, ToS originated as a result of dissatisfaction among the at-the-time AF userbase, though the disagreements themselves we have long left behind. Honestly, looking back at the entire split there were definitely unjustified actions on the behalf of both communities, but it hardly matters today - and it did result in two distinctly different and in their own way great forums.

Even though I may disagree with Lon's way to run a community, the actual people of AF have always been amazing :)

Was the split around the same time AF got its makeover? I remember people were not happy about that at all. I think the few of us who were with AF at the end can definitely understand your feelings from when you split. We didn't publicly speak about it on AF but behind closed doors many of us were unhappy with how things were being handled.

I loved the people and it truly was my home on the web so I never wanted to permanently leave but hey that choice was made for us. ;) I do regret that my original Avatar home is gone, however when the owners only interactions with members is to donate and to post new threads about random movies to generate hits then well perhaps it was time. I would love to see AF in the hands of a passionate Avatar loving owner but I really don't see that happening for the price that's being asked. :hmm:

Posted in the other thread as well, but just wanted to pop in and say cheers to A-F for its years of existence. Glad to see people are moving here. Hopefully more people will be able to find it in the absence of A-F!

Srane, I wasn't on AF because of the features or its design, I was there because it was my internet home with my eylan. I too wish that Lon would just come down on his price so a real fan could get it back, but I'm not holding my breath on that one sadly :(. I joined AF after the split so I never really knew what it was about, but now things are more clear.

How much is Lon asking?

He prefers to keep that private unless inquired, which I can respect - but let's just say it's above what any of us is likely to come up with.

it is possible to have an AF-themed 'room' here on ToS? sort of like a man-cave to remember the good times and memories.

Sure it is! It's known as all of ToS! :)

I'd say ToS is about as AF-themed as it gets, especially in its inception. If you're looking for something a bit more specific, feel free to make threads on any AF-related subject you'd want (including just "General AF thread" if you'd so wish) - it's probably the best way to go about doing things :)

And of course, to the people who were around AF in 2010, ToS is almost a literal replica as far as the feel goes :D

Thankyou :)

...there's people out there that do things for other motives than almighty cash money?!:shock::shock::shock:

Srane :) :) :)

As I wrote in the other thread...


:D

I knew I was close.

For some reason, I thought I remembered that you were mods or some higher rank than a normal forum user.

i just now saw this post from the above quote, and want to say thanks for that last line of your comment. i found the start of my new Hometree. :)

I think it's possible to style a sub-forum with a overly shiny in-your-face look that you can't really see for ads plastered everywhere... Eltu?

:shoop:


Welcome to all the AF aysmuk who are finding this your new home. We're way cooler than LN too, so this is the place to be. (I kid, of course. No but seriously, our IRC channel is way more active. :awesome:)

- Mikko

I still clearly remember the split, and it wasn't fun. It was mostly the redesign, which is why we made ToS to replicate the original AF, and it still looks identical to this day, 5+ years later. It's very sad to see AF gone nonetheless, because I basically lived there until the split.

I had a VB3 license and webhosting, so I installed it, found the theme AF had originally used, and instant AF :) I doubt any of us expected it to work so well, or to still be around in August of 2015. I've been an absentee admin for years now, but it's nice to see it still going.

BTW, hi :)

Indeed it is. Still can't believe how ugly A-F looked post-upgrade. Always figured Lon would at least TRY to change it back to something Avatar themed but nope. Amongst many other things, that probably contributed to its demise.

Thought I'd pop over and say hi. Hope all is well.

Never knew it was down, but not surprised.

Also surprising is that I remembered my login information there, and had 3 notifications. I haven't been there since registering here. Still looks messy as I remember.

MGCJerry - still indifferent to AF's existence.

http://i58.tinypic.com/5dqqf8.png

http://i61.tinypic.com/903fo6.jpg

Looks like the forum is down again. I tried to access it just now and it timed out. :(

Unfortunately it is down again. I believe it's been down for two weeks now. No posts on the AF Facebook page, Twitter or on Lon's Twitter about it or when we may expect it to be back up, which is a bit concerning to be honest. Avatar Forums has 90% of all AVATAR related screenshots so when it goes down a large portion of AVATAR content disappears from the internet. Bad news for me as I currently don't have any way to get screenshots from my copy of AVATAR.

rest in peace, AF, i shall miss you. :/

^Oel ngati kameie ma Ja'k :(, very sad indeed, our Avatar journey will continue, but AF will be missed.

hai, Wind :) we are AF refugees once again, probz forever this time, our home destroyed by the selfish avarice of paper scrap love. :(

Is it seriously down for good and beyond the point of simply needing donations? Huge bummer if it is. :(

Kaltxì ma Ja'k, Oe mlltxe(I agree) :(, but it is nice to see you again :)