Sadly we can't do that, as we can't go in and manually register users.

It is so strange. I know that we're receiving errors across various parts of the site. But for the first time, I receive that the government of India has blocked this site, and after I reloaded, everything was fine.

So what? Did the government blocked it for a second?

To be honest though, I wouldn't put it past some bureaucrat to do something like that.

Jack, do you at least have FTP access to the directory that forum.audiogames.net is hosted from? There is an extension that will let you do exactly that.

At the time of this writing, the webmasters are in conversations with us over email. So without going into too much detail for now, they are aware of our open letter. One way or another, things will be happening.

Yeah. Now they just have to stay.

It's a step in the right direction at least, and I'll take that over nothing at all.

I mean, it's still good news. I wouldn't call that coming back, but taking notice is at least what happened. To be honest, I had a small nagging that they may have forgotten this forum exists. So, this at least means they should make some sort of move. No matter what happens now, something should come of it. Unless someone really drops the ball here, of course. But knock on wood, everything should go smoothly.

I don't think it's being overly negative suggesting that just because a dialog has begun, that doesn't necessarily mean they're coming back. In my case, I'm not mad, because I get that people change. You're not the same person at 35 than you are at 20. The only real gripe I have regarding this issue is how the ball was dropped once they realized they were not willing or able to commit to working on the site anymore.

No, they are certainly not under any obligation to keep this place running indefinitely, but the responsible thing to do would have been to communicate their future unavailability to their staff. Further, if time were a factor, then why upgrade us to panBB, which was a lateral movement in the best case, and a downward movement in the worst. All the errors we've been seeing over the past year or two are related to that.

If I was hosting a community project and I found myself unable or unwilling to continue with it, I would put the word out. Basically saying look, if anyone would like to volunteer to step up to the plate and continue maintaining this, please get in touch, otherwise, I will have to shut it down. But it took until the staff basically said look, we need some sort of communication from you guys, or we'll step down from our positions because it's not worth the time sink.

With that said, we do owe them a debt of gratitude because they have kept this place running for so long. And we all make mistakes. Just because I feel that they weren't as communicative as they could have been about their diminishing level of time and commitment doesn't mean they aren't deserving of praise for all the things they have done for us.

So yes, this does indeed seem to be a step in the right direction. But I think it's reaching just a bit to claim that they're coming back because they've responded to the letter. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

I'd like to quickly note another minor issue that's just about last priority, but exists all the same. Thestatus page that most here probably never knew existed has been broken for a good while.

hmm, that's nice, but err don't get me wrong, I really thing visiting to their created forum atleast twice in year is nececery, to check if somethings have damaged, if there's any error? and other stuff?
Yeah it's good that they responded, But If you'll disappear a decade and you'll to write a letter and say, Hey if you won't respond, we have to resign from staff, that's well not good.
Yeah I get it, they have family, they have more important things to do, but if you can't manage forum more often, you'll have to add a new, compitant, experienced one in webmasters lists.
NOTE:
With this post, I'm not make any offence of webmasters.

@46, that's pretty common, actually. Usually it also means a topic has like two or more duplicate versions of itself.

This is really great news, let's see what comes off this.
But I agree with the people who say a response doesn't automatically mean they're coming back. It is a step in the right direction, but there's a long way to go.