is 4x4wire gone?

[MontySquareo]

many of you probably remember 4x4wire, another 4x4 forum. in the past few months one of the moderators posted that the forum might be shut down, and in the past couple days I haven't been able to get into the forum. google chrome just says this site cant be reached every time I've tried.

if 4x4wire is gone then we have lost a ton of information on how to fix/modify monteros, they had a good mitsubishi section.
edit: you can still get to old snapshots of the forum on web.archive.org

 

[DenTar]

That's a shame. I used that site and planetisuzoo for my old 95 Trooper. Lots of great stuff there.

 

[Toasty]

Jamie archived it and we're in discussion on how to rebuild it however there's a lot of money involved in purchasing it from John. We haven't decided how to go about it or how to pay for it, personally I'd like to see it community owned and operated but still we need to have a plan of action first.

 

[plh]

however there's a lot of money involved in purchasing it from John.

Really? a basically dead forum is actually worth "a lot of money"?

 

[CharlieNorth]

Really? a basically dead forum is actually worth "a lot of money"?

To you it is dead, to many of us it is and now was the best forum for our collective needs. The Mitsubishi section was the last portion of all the pages that could possibly carry it's weight. I is possible that if all the fat was trimmed and people realized Farcebook is not a place to have any history and documentation stored maybe the Wire could survive. There are less expensive servers available.

 

[Toasty]

Really? a basically dead forum is actually worth "a lot of money"?

Yeah, it's thousands of dollars. I think collectively we can pull it off but then there's putting it back up which also costs money.

 

[CharlieNorth]

I presume for that money you are buying the Izusu, Nissan and other pages that have barely seen a post in the past 6 years.
When I started my Pajero build I posted it on the wire. After a month with no viewers I brought it here and it has received good attention.
Personally I could not see 1K+ of value in the Wire at this time. I stopped by there monthly and there has been literally no value in doing so.
No Viewers, no value.

 

[Toasty]

I presume for that money you are buying the Izusu, Nissan and other pages that have barely seen a post in the past 6 years.
When I started my Pajero build I posted it on the wire. After a month with no viewers I brought it here and it has received good attention.
Personally I could not see 1K+ of value in the Wire at this time. I stopped by there monthly and there has been literally no value in doing so.
No Viewers, no value.

Right, we have the archives. It's really just the nostalgia of the old forum because it can't come back online as-is, it's a loosing venture. The idea is a completely new website with a forum but we haven't really hashed out how to add value. Lots of ideas but some are too expensive to execute out the gate, the other thing is ownership.

When the ADD forum was launched it was the complete opposite of what I wanted which was an unbiased free place to discuss everything Mitsu 4x4. I want us to all have an equal stake in the new 4x4wire and if/when vendors and sponsors get involved they don't get special consideration on what is discussed.

Like here, I can post a rant on how much Warn sucks at making hubs and why. If a representative wants to reach out they're welcome to but those opinions shouldn't be censored unless someone is just trolling or has absolutely nothing to give (why is the thing terrible?). A lot of us are influenced in our purchases based on what other members of the community are running and this I see as a real value.

 

[wicked1]

Send the archive to the internet archive. Let them host it. Problem solved. The thing people seem to want is the past data. Useful posts. Save that. Let the forum die. No cost involved.
Same thing happening all the time lately. Yahoo Groups shutting down was horrible. Tons of pages of information, schematics, engineering documentation, for a lot of different topics. (I was involved in a bunch of electric engineering groups). We all archived everything we could, for the year or so before the shutdown. Still lost a lot.

 

[plh]

To you it is dead, to many of use it is and now was the best forum for out collective needs. The Mitsubishi section was the last portion of all the pages that could possibly carry it's weight. I is possible that if all the fat was trimmed and people realized Farcebook is not a place to have any history and documentation stored maybe the Wire could survive. There are less expensive servers available.

I understand the historical information. By dead I meant current traffic flow. And now I guess it is offline - so really dead.

and yeah FB is horrible, but it is on an app in the palm of your hand, 4x4wire wasn't that way.

I don't understand how there can be monetary buy out value for the wire. There is no advertising revenue. If you are planning to "charge" a new owner for content that people "members" voluntarily added to the site, that is a whole other issue,

I see that recently starquestclub.com reinvented itself.

 

[djcommie]

Its a bummer to see it go, and had read the official news of it being shuttered just after registering there myself. I used to a lot of dead/dying forum digging for the last 15 years ofar various rare and terrible cars, and have noticed that with archives, unless it had been crawled for the images and had them rehosted or merged into the archive, its likely anything image-wise over a certain date is dead. That old of a site with a lot of self-hosted or dead hosting services (imgur, etc) it won't have been as affected by the Facebook hotlinking timeout that affects older threads all over this site, but its still at best a bittersweet recovery as it can't ever be 'full.'

 

[rascott]

i am pleased to see interest in restoring a version of 4x4wire.
it was a comfortable place to blather about my projects, and follow other's, plus i met "fellow enthusiasts".
i have no clue how forums get paid for- never gave $ to this one- but it may have been funded entirely by j stewart at the end?
i kinda lurk on here, keeping tabs on some friends, but rarely log on- mabe that's how forums die?
i'm an old luddite, but realize change happens.
and if it came back- how would i know?

 

[plh]

i have no clue how forums get paid for

If they are out to make a buck $ - then it is advertising revenue which is based on total members, active members, page views etc. Wherever the paying advertiser thinks they will get the most dollar return - just like any TV ad or YouTube, FB ad etc.

If not out to make a buck, then privately funded. Hosting services cost money, and maintenance takes time (money).

 

[irish44j]

Bummer, I used the wire a lot during my Raider build. The historical information there was great, though clearly little new activity there in years.

 

[ChrisCosta416]

Hi all,

It's me Jamie - I have backed up the whole site with permission from the owner. Sadly like Adam said, its way too much money to buy the domain. With that being said my plan is to host a static version sometime next month of early next year. I plan to make it add free with a paypal donate link to those who want to donate to hep keep it up. Adam and I are in talks about making another forum but we want to keep ads low and embrace what 4x4Wire has to offer.