[False Alarm] Alizée Forum has closed
 

EDIT - It re-opened temporarily

Sad news in Alizée-land today, the owner of Alizée Forum has closed the site.

I don't know all the history of the Alizée fan forums, but I have visited there daily to see other views. It's a big loss to the fan community and I'm sorry to see it go.

http://www.alizee-forum.com/

Like you I visited it weekly and have noticed over the last few months that things were slowing down on the forum. It is always sad that one of Alizée's fan sites decides to call it quits. Hopefully one of their members will take over and bring it back to its glory days.

Alizée Forum has been a part of my life almost as long as Alizée has. I really dunno what to say, but I will really miss that place.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ginx7WKq5GE

Now if we could get someone to buy the domain and keep the forum running, that would be great.

would be interesting to find how much he would like to get for the site/forum :13:

However I expect nothing cheap... I will ask

I had such a nice Crime Show Friday yesterday and then one of my friends texted me that the forum has closed. What a great way to start the weekend... Well sure it was a bit calm lately but it's also summer, Alizée was on holiday too... sure, there were a lot more people years ago. But it had been like this for a while already and it never was the big deal.

What I don't like about this is the way all this happened. I mean yesterday Riccardo wrote something on facebook that he wanted to sell the place (but he didn't say anything about this in the forum itself... not everyone checks fb daily! I only read the update by accident) and suddenly he closes it down? Without warning?

Sure it's expensive. I understand that. But I just don't like this from-one-day-to-the-next thing.

Well I'm currently trying to sort my Alizée collection from the past few years ... so now the topics are all gone that's going to be fun...

I just feel like someone just kicked me out of my home and now I don't know where to go.

P. S. RMJ opened a new forum here: http://www.alizeeart.com/forums/

Of course that's really unfortunate for Alizee as well as the members of AF. I've posted over there numerous times in the past and I've even met some of their members in Paris. Hopefully someone will come forward and takeover the forum.

I wonder if they can carry on the same type of chat on Facebook that they did in the forum. If Facebook can't meet their demands, hopefully they will know they are more than welcome to come here.

I believe that in addition to the English section, they had sections for French and German speaking members. Of course French speaking members will be able to go elsewhere, but I'm wondering if their German speaking fans have any place else to go?

We've been lucky that Ben has kept this forum running over the years. We did make some changes a while back to reduce the operating costs and some current members have helped to take care of the smaller expenses that are left so hopefully this forum is in good shape for the time being.

Here's a link I posted a few weeks ago to the Alizée collection thread, it can still be accessed.. hope it helps you out.

http://www.alizee-forum.com/showthre...ections/page15

It's back, at least for some time
http://m.facebook.com/alizeeforum/posts/917644734916055

ah sorry I wasn't talking about this collection I was talking about all the files on my PC... I have no idea why I wrote collection instead of files. But well the forum is back for now.

I fear the main problem is that we don't have a lot of sponsors and Riccardo has to pay it all alone and it's getting to expensive.

Do you have any idea what his costs are? As I mentioned above, we made some changes to this forum to make it much cheaper to operate. Unfortunately we had to get rid of a very good video section, but we did what we had to do to make it affordable to run the forum, especially during lean times.

False alarm! It has reappeared by popular demand! At least temporarily.

Well I hope things get worked out over at AF. Hopefully a few more people will step up to fund the site. AF has been around so long and has been a mainstay in the world of Alizée forums. It would be a shame to lose it.

from email

"it costs around 100 euros the server im hosting it on, per month.etc..."

That seems pretty high at a time, despite her success with DALS, that her forum popularity has been waning. We got our costs way down and I still think AAm is a pretty good forum, so maybe AF should try and lighten the load too. The main thing we need to keep is the discussion factor.

OK nevermind, I just thought to post the link anyway to get you in the door. I had no idea the forum was up and running anyway ( :2_thumbs: ) at the time of my post as I was in a hurry to go out.

I was shocked after reading thread title. Although I haven't been active on forums, it will be sad to see any of the top forums getting closed. Number of active members have decreased, but I dont think it's impractical to maintain such big forums. If Riccardo is finding it difficult to maintain the forum, then he should transfer it to some other member. Monthly costs can be managed, however one time payment for buying it Riccardo can be high. For now, it's great that AF is back.

That seems VERY high. What are the specifications he requires the server to meet? :)

100 euros is VERY high. But one (or a group) of you could host it yourself with a static IP or DNS service. Keep in mind though that the traffic is very high on a forum and if the ISPs in your county have data caps (which is prevalent in the United States, among many other nations) it could get expensive or your ISP could shut you down.

Yes there are cost-effective offsite solutions and it couldn't be too much of a problem to re-locate the AF to one of them. As far as FILES (live clips, music vids & interviews) are concerned, that is the sole function of the Alizee Hub, and after over ten years of continuous operation, we ain't going away yet! (knock on wood).

I threw my support behind the Alizee America Forum a long time ago, and closed the Alizee Hub Forum down because I just didn't have time to run two Hubs AND a Forum. I like the way the Alizee America Forum is run and suggest it to people visiting my Hub as a "recommended site." In that light, I think that one possible solution would be a MERGER, with this Forum absorbing the database of AH as either a subset of AAF or transferring over the appropriate topics and assuming the membership list. Anyways,I'm just tossing out an idea to think about.....

So it's apparently not that much "false alarm", rather a delay of the inevitable.
Although that "at least" keeps me hopeful.

I see they're looking to collect 140 euros for the month and have only received 5 so far. I might make a donation myself if some of their full time members step up.

Not sure how well that feature works because I just donated 5 euros and it is still showing total as 5 only.

It's something they should attend to because if people think nobody else is donating, they're more likely to not donate themselves.

I just donated 40 euros ($54), mainly because I think it's important to Alizée to keep this forum going.

"If you have donated, comment in this: donation thread*, so we may review it http://www.alizee-forum.com/showthread.php?26674"

i do not understand why is hosting the forum so expensive ?

Me not too. I know they had a classical website too, but now it is just a forum. Domain can't be so expensive, so maybe hosting eats so big money.

Well hopefully they'll work to bring their costs down as AAm did.

well example Alizee-France is using a free forum (I think so), they just have own domain for it.

I volunteer with a non-profit web site (and pay for it). It costs me $10 (less than 8 euros) a month. A more robust business package is $20 a month.

I checked the host I use. For $80 a month (60 euros), $60/month for first year, I could get a Dedicated Linux server with Unlimited bandwidth (although server connection is 100Mbit). (They also have a server deal for $60 = 45 euros). The server would have an Intel® Atom C2750. with 8 cores, 8GB RAM, and a 1,0000Gig (x2) hard drive configured in Raid 1.

As I said, 140 euros ($185) seems high. :)

Looks like this has come up again.

source : https://www.facebook.com/alizeeforum...39937972686725

http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/atta...1&d=1479206971

Every time I visit their forum, I find the level of activity, even in chat to be so low, I wonder why they keep running it. I'd be surprised if this wasn't true and was just a rumor, but if it is a rumor, it was probably deliberately put out there to see if there's any interest in someone taking over the forum. The worst part of it's closing would be I think we'd lose all the past posts, the history I guess you'd say of this forum.

Closing at the end of the year...

http://www.alizee-forum.com

http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/atta...1&d=1479379937

It's sad but there are very few members left over there.

Man thats crazy im not gonna lie im a little sad... i remember being 15 joining the place back in 2004 my freshmen year of highscool. It was THE forum to be appart of back then. I eventually made the move here, but even though things didnt end well with me there.... i still have many more good/positive memories and glad about some of the friends i made there that i still keep in touch with occasionally. I remember staying up many nights as a teen and in college hanging out in the irc chat and doing graphics and just all the stuff you do when your in the early stages of fandom. I guess it was long over due though because when i last checked a few years back they didnt have many members. Respect to those who stayed till the end though. Like scruffy said it would be a shame to lose all those posts. I still will go through and read some of my old stuff and just think back to when a time in my life was different than now. I've definitely become a different person and recently just got out of Jail in October so i've definitely being doing a lot of reflecting on who i was and who i've become as a person and the Alizee forum and AAm definitely played a major role in a part of my life that not many know about. It was like my escape from reality from all the drugs and illegal activites that eventually progressed into a spiral that i could no longer control.

It's good to hear from you Plaz. I reflected on recently how Alizée had meant so much in my life. For those who like her music, her looks, her as a person, she is a game changer. She brought so much happiness into my life, where before, there was none and it sounds like she did the same to you. I wish you the best!

EDIT: As far as Alizee forum. I've tried to make contact with them to see if maybe they'd be willing to sell their server or if there was some way to keep it going for at least the next 6 months, which I think are critical, but all attempts have failed.

I can get a hold of ricc for you. What's the best way for him to reach you?

Probably through FB. I left a message on Ricc's fb page which I accessed through AF's fb page, but haven't heard back from him. Thanks Plaz.

He got back to me.

http://i.imgur.com/xPyj7Ef.jpg

Great....maybe I can get in touch with him now.....Thanks Plaz!

I sent Ricco a long letter via FB. I told him I think changes need to be made at AF. To just pump money into it, would do no good. There are reasons it's a ghost town now and it's not just because of Alizee. One change I'd like to see them make is maybe getting one or two of the newer members that had been posting of late to be admins in the forum. It needs some new blood such as the way when Ray came into this forum. This site probably would've faded away without him. Then they'd need to communicate, mainly to fans that have been posting in the past several months that things would be different.

They need to run a tight ship over there. Every week I would see arguments every day with insults being traded back and forth and that I feel was what drove people away. That's something I've certainly been one of the worst offenders of at times, but for the most part, I've tried hard to make this a better place to come to.

So I'll see if I can at least keep it going for at least a couple of months, until we can work some things out.

Of course if Alizee announced she was going to make another album, fans would come back in droves....problem solved or conversely if she announced she had a bun in the oven, that would probably be the end of AF and AAm.

My main reason for trying to keep AF going is if she sees one of her biggest fan forums closing, it might make her feel her fan base is drying up and would weaken any will she had to produce another album.

So I conveyed these thoughts to Ricco and he said he received it, but just got back from a trip and needs some time to think things over.