The URL was harder to change than anticipated? Does this also mean this site did not move to a new server? Why was it so difficult?
You can move to another server and keep the same URL no problem.
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Iāll be back in Taiwan next week and will be able to focus on this then. I hope it will happen before the end of the month
We ran into problems with moving the backups to Digital Ocean, which is a host we are not used to. We spend hours uploading to it only to find out we didnāt have enough space and had to restart the process. This happened 3x. We think we have set up the droplets with enough space only to be proven wrong ā either we miscalculated the size in the first place or settings we thought we made apparently weāre not. Forumosaās database is now 12GB in size (text only) so running these batches only to see them not happen because we overlooked something has been frustrating. Plus both my tech guy and I have just been busy with travel schedules and new school year stuff (heās based in Thailand)
Iāll announce when we get this process going and if we decide to shut things down just to play it safe.
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I would like to change the URL to something even simpler, like Forumosa.com or www.forumosa.com if possible
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Be aware that this might break some internal links in threads. Discourse probably has a function to fix this though.
How much space do the pictures use up? 
you can just set it as forumosa.com and then set www. as an alias, which usually is how it-s configured by default in your DNS server.
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Half of the storage used is Funny Political Pictures. Half of that is @Dr_Milker gracing us with Trump pics.
We are all enlightened now.
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I recommend against them. Iāve had to deal with them for clients and I donāt care for their interface. Forumosa isnāt an especially high trafficked site, so cloud hosting is going to be expensive for the amount of use it gets. If the DB is 12 GB, the site files must be massive. You might be best off renting a VPS or dedicated server and installing support for Rails and whatever else Discourse needs. There are also managed Discourse servers out there like itās on now, which might be best since basics like changing the domain seem so difficult. You can hire people for things like this on Upwork.com, and it might be wise to get someone on a long term basis as much as youāre paying for hosting. If you donāt have the right configuration, youāre going to run into more problems like memory overruns that shut down the server and cause database corruption. That can be hard to come back from.
I am not thrilled to have to learn yet another hosting platform, style, culture, etc. But from what I have been reading about hosting oneās own Discourse, DO seems to be both manageable and very inexpensive. This is why I have looked into it.
I have engaged freelancers in the past for other projects, and my experience has been mixed although what has been consistent is the amount of management I had to expend almost offsets the hoped for time savings I hired them for in the first place. When I realized a close personal friend of mine could help - i.e., is trusted and willing to put in the time to learn what was needed for Discourse and DO - I decided to go that direction. However, what I flubbed was the schedules - he teaches in Thailand, so had a window of time (summer holidays) to devote to this that ultimately did not work with my travel schedule.
I have mentioned to @tempogain some ways to seek donations that could offset the cost of hosting Forumosa. A much simpler approach is cheaper hosting, but I will explore Patreon or similar approaches.
Maybe crowdfunding like Gofundme? Or an event. Put all the mods in a line and we get to punch one for $1,000.
Cheaper hosting is worth what you pay. Were it me, Iād get a managed dedicated Discourse host.
Hi folks:
We will be moving the Forums over to a new server in the next few days. Hopefully, you will not notice any downtime.
Things might get bumpy in the weeks ahead. I asked our consultant to start with a smaller server size and then we upgrade if/as we hit rough patches in load. I hope things stabilize in time for Christmas (which IIRC is actually a relatively low traffic day)
If the site seems to be down, please check our Facebook page for any announcements or updates
Or join this Forumosa Status Group Chat on LINE
Hopefully, we will not have to post there often (or at all)
Excelsior!
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If the site goes down just move the bants to the FB page. Itāll be fun guessing who is who. 
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Do people still use that?
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Or Wikisocial or whatever itās called! 
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Noted
Good point, I forgot to sign up.
Iām only on Google+.
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If the site goes down, itās because the site is temporarily down!
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Someone left Doc on Permanent Hipster mode! 
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Watch it, or Iāll unfriend you on MySpace. 
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