I'll let Uncle Buck fill in the details, but suffice it to say that he did stellar work in getting this derailed mess of a forum back on track. Well done all who pitched in to save our little ol' home on the net.
As always, GF is humble and modest and wants to step back in the shadows. I am not going to accommodate his humility! In fact, I am going to call him out!
I assure everyone that I am typing this message 100% because of GF finding solutions, then guiding and directing what I needed to do next. So you see, I was just one of the tools in his box that GF used to get us back up and running. Yes, of course I was doing what I could, much like a drowning man! GF provided the life preserver so to speak. I simply followed his instructions, he found the solution, not me. So while I admire GF humility, I was not the lead on this but played more of a support role and nothing more.
To explain what happened, simply put, both this site, and MG have not had the routine maintenance performed at the Admin level that needed to be done for quite some time. Simply put, data wise the GG just filled to a point that the software that runs the site said no more and shut us down.
That issue was resolved by contacting the company that hosts the site and having them step in and purge the system so to speak to allow the site to reopen. That said, both sites need Admin attention that we Admins as a group will now begin trying cleanup and address as quickly as we can.
Life, the real serious stuff we all must address takes priority we would all agree. I suspect that is exactly what has happened with Rusty or I am sure things would not have happened as they have here. Instead of simply expecting Rusty to take care of everything we as Admins are going to work as a group, like we have for years to hopefully locate Rusty and become more involved than we have been with the behind the scenes work that was always just left up to Rusty to keep up with.
I would be the guy to blame for any screwups that happened here since while I had the title of Admin, the heavy lifting was always left to Rusty. It is past time for me especially to do my best to learn what must be done to keep this site open for business so we can continue to enjoy this community for a long time to come.
I will with a lot of help, guidance and support of folks smarter than I am hopefully give this place the tuneup it is begging for in the coming weeks and months as we feel our way along.
UB