We wish the site to continue (Y/N)

[Mr.Mouse]

Dear XeNTaX community,

It is time for another existential poll.

After 20 years of spending funds on this site (I started it in 2003) I feel it may be time to close.
To be honest, today, in 2023, we have no funds coming in to sustain the site.
20 years ago, I paid stuff out of my own pocket, and along the way, we were able to keep it up with some community donations. The past years, however, I am adding my own funds to keep the site up and running, despite this PayPal sign up top.
Honestly, I don't feel troubled by it, and gladly pay from my own pocket. But, 20 years is a long time.
And something has to give. Nothing is for free in the end.

The final release of MultiEx Commander passed mostly with no one noticing: http://www.xentax.com/?p=1334
I said the final release won't be up for a long time, and now the day is approaching that I will no longer host MultiEx Commander. That day is June 10th 2023.

All of this gives the impression that the site is for a few people only, and no-one talks about it, posts about it, supports it, promotes it.

Hence, the poll. A simple question. It will determine the end date of the Forum. It will not have an influence on our Discord, you can still lurk there: https://discord.gg/UMFd7MFX2k

Let me know the verdict.

The poll will run for exactly 64 days.

[Esbeckett]

I think it deserves some discussion, especially since in appearances the site was superceded by a clone, zenhax, and discord itself. Discord itself being somewhat of a problem because it's SUPER closed and creates a memory hole. If someone decides they don't like the discord server itself or someone inside of it, it's likely it, and everyone inside of it could go missing more or less instantly. There's been instances where I've seen someone join, spam illegal content, self-report, and every user inside of it gets banned. Not fun.

Unfortunately, I'm also far too broke to support it, having recently suffered more severe financial distress myself.

As a result, I'm unsure what to submit.

EDIT: I think in this case, it might make things easier to reduce the scale and make the site a simple archive in which case, which you could transfer to peer-to-peer or the wayback machine. Things going missing from the internet when it benefits everyone like this is... harmful.

[marcussacana]

I personally don't go to the forum for general use, it's more when I need some tool or comments about the operation of a game that one of the first options that pop into my mind is xentax, I think this could be the case for several users also giving the impression that few care about the forum, but in reality I already think of xentax as a baseline for reference in game modding and I think it remains extremely relevant for us, sometimes when I have a fast doubt I just ask in the discord server too, but isn't like I forgot the forum.
So, my vote: Y

[Devilot]

I think multiex has to compete with QuickBMS but I also do not wish this website to disappear. Maybe it could be downsized?

[Metal64]

Shut down the discord server

[SteamyJ]

Backing up the forum is a good idea, regardless of whether you take it down or not so I agree with that.

If the money isn't an issue, I say let it run. But if you're not interested or not able to cover it, just let it go. Everything does have to die at some point. Perhaps in it's stead some kind of wiki could be created to flesh out the available tools and notes from users over the years.

[mono24]

In my humble opinion, Discord does a lot of damage, XeNTaX Discord server should have never surfaced in first place, I can understand why one would like Discord better, no one has to pay a dime to use it while the forum costs money to maintain it.
A archived version for the entire forum and its attached posts contents would be a great idea at least, assuming it will indeed be gone for good.

Also, it would not be a bad idea for us all to get an idea how much the forum costs monthly to maintain so we can have an idea what to do moving forward.

[Shadowmael]

I don't know about the others but I never forgot about this forum, there was only one problem in this case and the copy they made of it, it's not exactly a copy but it still affected the forum....
As time passed, the forum gained more and more information to the point that nowadays, instead of creating a topic, people can only search through a magnifying glass and find what they want
I don't think discord was the reason the site is understaffed, I may not be a veteran here as I just joined this year
So I'm going to speak from my experience...I quickly learned a lot of things about modding without COMMENTING almost anything, this forum is amazing... It was a gateway for me and others to learn modding I know I don't comment much...But I care a lot about this site because it helped me on this journey. Helped me much more than the famous "gbatemp" or Brazilian forums

I'm sorry for my English I'm not American so I may have misspelled some words or not expressed myself correctly, I wanted to help financially but in addition to not having money, the dollar inflation in my country is up there, almost a luxury car kkkk

[lionheartuk]

What are the costs of keeping the forum going?
If its say $100-200 a year for example, i think a few of us could provide some support without a problem.
If its like 1000 a year though, it'd require more people.

[mono24]

What are the costs of keeping the forum going?
If its say $100-200 a year for example, i think a few of us could provide some support without a problem.
If its like 1000 a year though, it'd require more people.

I couldn't agree more. More info about this would be recommended so we all know how to proceed, i personally know nothing about how to run a forum/website in general and its costs, there for, more info needs to be provided.

[Xan the Dragon]

At the very least, I would like an archive, a read-only copy of the site, something like that. And that's only if you decide to pull the plug.

I won't lie, my first use of this site was for a one-off thing when I was barely a teen and needed help understanding reverse engineering. That was nearly a decade ago (edit: 8 years!) and now I am a full-fledged game preservationist in my 20. Despite this, I think I only posted on this forum one other time across those years. To be frank, I'm not going to post very often. The only reason I'm here right now in this thread is the Discord @. I rarely visit here on my own accord.

Still, and this is where the desire for an archive comes up, this site has proven itself incredibly useful when I need to dig up data from some obscure title nobody has heard of, or get tips on some oddball practice that I would have never thought of myself. This place has a wealth of information for old games and reverse engineering, and every once in a while, I just so happen to stumble upon a thread while diving through Google on my latest problem. I may not contribute here much, but this place is one hell of a library and I'd hate to see it completely disappear.

[ikskoks]

Xentax forum has a special place in my heart, this is the place I've learned reverse engineering.
I log in to this forum every day to moderate content, ban spam bots etc.
So my vote is of course - Yes, I want to support it.

As for donation, I had several attempts lately to transfer money by paypal to xentaxfoundation account,but unfortunately I failed.
Something may be really wrong with my paypal account (or maybe with Mr Mouse account?).
Paypal seems very restrictive if it comes to payments, so maybe my debit card was blocked? I don't know.

So as some people suggested on discord server, maybe it will be a good idea to create Patreon account?
I would definitely try another support options (like Patreon).

Another idea is to try to cut the costs like:
- move xenax wiki to some free hosting server like https://miraheze.org/
- move multiex download to some free cloud storage (google drive, mega.nz)
- move xentax forum to some cheaper hosting server
etc etc.

[esreveR]

I'm not nearly as active as some on here but I've been mostly a ghost just learning/finding out how these tools work etc. Tbh it would be a damn shame to see such a helpful one with mostly helpful people who're still around since near beginning offering tips/hints for newbies showing up to the scene.

As someone else suggested worst case at least archive the site; biggest thing I've noticed with other things is once they're gone its almost near impossible to get those things back or find a person who may of saved it to begin with unless the site itself points you to it.

I've seen the donation option but I also wasn't sure how badly this site was needing it either; as demanding as it might be sometimes an actual goal tracker letting ppl know where it is met and not met helps a lot.

[masterX244]

And Discord is a blackhole for information, you can't google it (content only visible with registration) and you are limited on how many you can join. And being able to find information is important.

[bouvrie]

What are the costs of keeping the forum going?
If its say $100-200 a year for example, i think a few of us could provide some support without a problem.

It should be doable for ~$10 a month I think, def more towards $100 than $200 a year. Unless the admins require a lot of support from their provider, that usually costs extra.