As I am sure you all noticed, we were down for around 48 hours recently. 

I run this site off a computer in my garage on my home internet. While this is not officially allowed by my internet provider, they do not actively search out such servers unless they are causing problems such as sending SPAM or using excessive amounts of traffic. Running a server on home internet is not optimal, and there are some parts that are cobbled together to make them work properly. Since home servers are not officially sanctioned, any changes the ISP makes that breaks the way my server works I cannot complain about, and must cobble together a new workaround.

The outage was caused by one such change. I was not initially aware of it, as I still had outgoing internet access. I have managed to get the web site and forums working again, however my internet provider has made big changes to their email security, and I can no longer send ASSRA.com emails through them. Since my internet is a home internet, any emails sent directly out without going through a "real" mail server, are almost always going to be flagged as spam by other "real" servers making it so we cannot send out any emails.

This means we need to look into moving the ASSRA server to a real hosting service. In the meantime, since we cannot send out emails for validation, I have turned off new user signups to the forums. We will work something out soon to where prospective new users can email someone to have their new account manually created.

Forum notifications are still attempting to go out, you may get them, but most likely you will not, or they do arrive, they will likely be in a spam folder.

This also means that the ASSRA.com email addresses for officers will generally not work either. Incoming emails will still be received and stored on the server, but anyone who had me set up a forwarding email address will likely not get their copy. Officers will also not be able to send emails using their ASSRA.com address.

Thanks Josh for all the time and effort you put into the ASSRA Forum.I know I appreciate it as do all the  others using the forum---Fritz

Josh,
I too would like to thank you for your work at keeping this forum up and running.

Frank

Josh - my vote is to have the forum members start a collection and pony up some cash to put the forum backbone on a vendor's server of your choice.  PayPal is an ideal method to transmit the collections.  What would be an annual estimated cost to put the forum & resolve the mail problems?

If it is considered - I'm in for an annual contribution and thanks for all you do to provide an excellent forum for us

Thanks for keeping this up and running.  Maybe the board should make a decision and raise the funds necessary by subscription.  Regards, Bob

Folks
I think moving to a hosting service is a prudent idea. The infrastructure to handle BBS and ecommerce is all set up for under $200 a year. 
With the ecommerce feature you can set up a gateway on the forum to allow users to make donations to support the forum. 

Josh 
If you want to go this route I will commit to the first yr of hosting fees.... And thank you for the time you put into maintaining the forum.

As I read and learn  from this forum evey day I'd be glad to donate. Another forum that I belong to, jaglovers, has an annual donation drive and they identify those that do donate which is fine with me!

Also happy to contribute. $20 a year would be a bargain.