Zetaboards is going

IntoxNitram · May 8, 2018

They've announced that Zetaboards as a platform will be no more, merging existing forums into Tapatalk.

See here: http://support.zathyus.com/topic/7021172/1/

Many people are angry about this, especially after being given a choice between merging from InvisionFree to Tapatalk or Zeta and being promised future updates to Zeta's code.

Edit - so the current Tapatalk software seems to run a version of phpBB? Don't really like it. Apparently the Zetaboards to Tapatalk option seems to be having its own custom thing developed, which will apparently take the feel of Zetaboards. Either way, zero customisation or use of own domains without paying Tapatalk $10 a month it seems currently.

Seems Tapatalk are getting hold of most free forum systems, as they have also previously merged FreeForums and one or two others I believe.

Wes of StarArmy · May 8, 2018

Yeah, Tapatalk bought up Yuku (was ezBoard) and Network54 recently. They are aggressively acquiring forum hosts.

cheat_master30 · May 8, 2018

Oh joy. Tapatalk seems to be trying to become the EIG of free forum hosts, albeit even more openly than their inspiration.

Seems like this is really bad on a competition level, and part of me wonders whether it could be classed as anti competitive at some point or another...

vbgamer45 · May 8, 2018

I been approached for my forum hosting sites I said no. But can't blame them for the money offered.
My issue mainly is a lot of unique features of these services are going away.

mysiteguy · May 8, 2018

It is another example in their history that they couldn't care less about the independent forums which got them where they were.

Wes of StarArmy · May 8, 2018

I think a lot of those forum ecosystems they bought are outdated and full of old, abandoned boards.

Tapatalk is garbage, though, I and want to get my old forums out of their hands if possible.

IntoxNitram · May 10, 2018

Wes of StarArmy said:
I think a lot of those forum ecosystems they bought are outdated and full of old, abandoned boards.

Tapatalk is garbage, though, I and want to get my old forums out of their hands if possible.

To an extent, yes. There are a lot of active and big InvisionFree and Zetaboard communities though. They don't seem very happy in general but there isn't much they can do without losing all the posts built over the years.

JadedOne · May 21, 2018

I'm an admin of a board that's been on ZB from the start and it was a IF board before that. We have over 10yrs of posts so it would be hard to start over elsewhere. Brandon (Former IF/ZB owner) dropped that bomb of a post linked to in the OP and has yet to return to answer anyone about anything. Along with the sale TT hired him on as an employee. He didn't even let the volunteer staff on the support board know beforehand that he was going to announce things to everyone but has been more then happy to leave them and users of ZB to deal with the fallout.

The TT support people are clueless when it comes to how their own board software even works for the most part. ZB users have posted threads asking questions about the future, features that may or may not be coming and features currently that TT boards offer with varying results when it comes to replies from TT employees.

cheat_master30 · May 21, 2018

IntoxNitram said:
To an extent, yes. There are a lot of active and big InvisionFree and Zetaboard communities though. They don't seem very happy in general but there isn't much they can do without losing all the posts built over the years.

Well, those forum scraper exporter scripts still exist, and apparently one of those supports Zetaboards.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5a7lzeo82ah98ks/Crawler Converters.zip?dl=0

So it is indeed possible to save your posts from Zetaboards before the Tapatalk conversion. Get enough boards to do it, and well, Tapatalk's plan looks a lot less promising for them...

JadedOne · May 21, 2018

I wish there was an easy way to learn about how those scrapers work. If I knew how to use one I'd try it out. I looked at the directions for it and didn't understand much of what I was reading.

vbgamer45 · May 21, 2018

You would need to be able to run the Python script to be able to fetch the information.

JadedOne · May 28, 2018

vbgamer45 said:
You would need to be able to run the Python script to be able to fetch the information.

I have no idea how to do that. So that option is out. Hoping some of the useful ZB features actually make it over to the supposed ZB/TT hybrid and aren't held for ransom at their $10 a month tier like using one's own domain is.

vbgamer45 · May 28, 2018

You can probably hire someone. Post on a site such as upwork.com or other site

cheat_master30 · May 28, 2018

Or post on this one. Community Cooperative or Classifieds could work for something like this.

Snog · May 29, 2018

Tapatalk has to be looking for a new income source. More and more sites are dropping the mobile app in favor of mobile friendly styles for their forum. So, it only makes sense they would hunt for a different income source.

Don't know it for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they are doing.

zappaDPJ · May 29, 2018

Snog said:
Tapatalk has to be looking for a new income source. More and more sites are dropping the mobile app in favor of mobile friendly styles for their forum. So, it only makes sense they would hunt for a different income source.

Don't know it for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they are doing.

I'd say it's more likely sites are dropping Tapatalk because of their dubious business practices. Tapatalk's main strength is that is applies a uniform user experience to every forum visited and of course, push notification. I'm fairly confident the majority of users prefer that to sites with mobile friendly themes.

Cory · Jun 14, 2018

I used ZetaBoards since 2005 and I had a feeling the inevitable were to happen. You could tell by the lack of communication from Brandon and the inactivity of the network as a whole that something was deemed to happen like this. It is sad.

Sockio · Jun 22, 2018

Been using Zetaboards for about five years now, and I'm a member of quite a few communities.

Kind of disappointed. Going to need to look into Tapatalk to judge whether I'll continue being a member of the communities.

Wes of StarArmy · Jun 23, 2018

Tapatalk basically using a neutered version of phpBB3.

One where you can't export or backup your database.

Livyjr · Aug 22, 2018

I was on Zetaboards since 2010 and thought it was a fine site.

This Tapatalk site that I was transferred to is a literal piece of garbage.

Total crap that is tedious to use and confusing to navigate, plus I was stripped of things I had for free at Zetaboards, starting with control of my site.

Does anyone know of a site that has a Zetaboards type platform?

Zetaboards is going

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