JTF.ORG Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chaim Ben Pesach on August 04, 2025, 12:21:28 AM
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בס''ד
As we all know, JTF's main activity has not been on the forum for many years now. Forums have lost their popularity. Our main activity is on the social media sites like YouTube and Rumble for our English videos, and on YouTube, TikTok, X and Whatsapp for our Hebrew videos.
The forum software we are using is no longer available unless we upgrade, and even then we must start all over again with the upgrade. That means we would lose our posts.
So how can we give our great JTFers an opportunity to express themselves if we move away from the outdated forum model? Any suggestions?
Some groups use Whatsapp (including many in the Hilltop Youth movement). But Whatsapp requires that we show our telephone numbers, and we don't want our members to show their telephone numbers.
What about YouTube, Rumble and X? Our members could always post their messages there - but YouTube censors; Rumble and X censor less.
Any other suggestions?
Of course, we will continue to have our main pages - JTF.ORG in English and HAYAMIN.ORG in Hebrew. Our main pages with our hundreds of videos are not affected by this. The only thing affected is our forum.
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You could create a subreddit, but Reddit censors like other platforms.
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Return to ProBoards?
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a lot of kids are using discord.
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I am will to help donate if otheres do for an upgrade.
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I am will to help donate if otheres do for an upgrade.
That's a good point.
We need the .org as the glue.
The forum is good to have if the price isn't too high.
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That's a good point.
We need the .org as the glue.
The forum is good to have if the price isn't too high.
You could always have two forums. Keep this one and add a new one. I don't think it cost money to have the forum on the JTF server. It cost money to have the jtf.org domain. I don't know if having two forums would it make it too expensive unless there is a data or storage limit under the current price. Old sites load faster than new technology so the current forum probably doesn't use as much storage.
I think the reason the forum isn't busy has nothing to do with the decline in the use of forums. JTF lost a lot of activity of the forum when Trump first became President since the JTF position on Trump is not popular among most Right Wingers. The other reason is that there is no Ask JTF. The long time users wish there was Ask JTF. I don't usually watch all the new JTF videos. But Ask JTF is something viewers would be hooked to. I remember when the show was 3 hours before a limit on questions. Some of the new videos are like the old QPTV shows but it would be more interesting if people got to ask questions to. Of course the affirmative action story should be an important segment in the shows. A lof of the UMM HMM quotes are predictable on the current shows such as when quoting about the Mother Ship (UMM HMM) or something like that but it's less original.
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I am will to help donate if otheres do for an upgrade.
בס''ד
The upgrade is free. The issue is not money. The issue is that we have to start the forum all over again and lose all of our prior posts. Also, this forum software is not very good. If we have to start all over again, we might as well go to something better.
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You could always have two forums. Keep this one and add a new one. I don't think it cost money to have the forum on the JTF server. It cost money to have the jtf.org domain. I don't know if having two forums would it make it too expensive unless there is a data or storage limit under the current price. Old sites load faster than new technology so the current forum probably doesn't use as much storage.
I think the reason the forum isn't busy has nothing to do with the decline in the use of forums. JTF lost a lot of activity of the forum when Trump first became President since the JTF position on Trump is not popular among most Right Wingers. The other reason is that there is no Ask JTF. The long time users wish there was Ask JTF. I don't usually watch all the new JTF videos. But Ask JTF is something viewers would be hooked to. I remember when the show was 3 hours before a limit on questions. Some of the new videos are like the old QPTV shows but it would be more interesting if people got to ask questions to. Of course the affirmative action story should be an important segment in the shows. A lof of the UMM HMM quotes are predictable on the current shows such as when quoting about the Mother Ship (UMM HMM) or something like that but it's less original.
בס''ד
1. We are moving onto a new and better server with a new and better company. So moving the outdated forum could create technical problems and might be impossible because the version we are using is no longer supported.
2. In 2016, we lost a lot of our supporters because we backed Ted Cruz instead of Trump, but that is irrelevant now and has not been relevant for many years.
3. Our new videos get far more views and far more support than the old Ask JTF format. You preferred Ask JTF because you liked to ask questions every week, which is fine. But our main concern is the Hilltop Youth, and we are getting much more support for them now with the new videos. We also had Ask JTF in Hebrew but our new format is much more successful. For example, our video clip from my debate with the atheists in Israel has 245,718 views, which for a country the size of Israel is huge. The second video on that YouTube channel was an interview I did on the Hilltop Youth which got 32,033 views.
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It would take some getting used to, but Telegram might be worth trying. Telegram is similar to WhatsApp, and I believe on Telegram you can keep your phone number private in your privacy settings if you want. It is possible to have groups with many members on Telegram. I don't believe they moderate or censor much on Telegram, but I'm not experienced with Telegram groups.
Also, I would have no problem starting the forum over.
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It would take some getting used to, but Telegram might be worth trying. Telegram is similar to WhatsApp, and I believe on Telegram you can keep your phone number private in your privacy settings if you want. It is possible to have groups with many members on Telegram. I don't believe they moderate or censor much on Telegram, but I'm not experienced with Telegram groups.
Also, I would have no problem starting the forum over.
We have two Telegram groups:
https://t.me/JewishTaskForceChat
https://t.me/JewishTaskForce
However, I doubt they can replace an actual forum.
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:usa+israel: :fist:
Dan Ben Noah, that would be great if there were
only a feasible way to effectively archive the posts
and perhaps also at the same time, somehow, in
“some way,” credit our great JTFers with their respective
posts as I am sure that would make everyone happy!
Meanwhile, all of us will, G-d willing, continue to gen-
erously support our noblest of causes!
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Why can't the JTF web administrator update from SMF 2.0 to 2.1x.
According to Simple Machines (the producer of this forum software), there is in fact an update path to the latest version that would retain all the old data:
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Upgrading (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Upgrading)
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Why can't the JTF web administrator update from SMF 2.0 to 2.1x.
According to Simple Machines (the producer of this forum software), there is in fact an update path to the latest version that would retain all the old data:
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Upgrading (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Upgrading)
בס''ד
I am not the technical person in this process and so my knowledge is very limited. But we are at SMF version 2.0.15. That means there were at least four upgrades that took place before you can get to 2.1. The upgrades that we did not do are 2.0.16, 2.0.17, 2.0.18 and 2.0.19. When we tried upgrading, our posts all disappeared. Moreover, because of AI there are now serious security problems with SMF. To keep our old posts, we would need to do patches, which in the era of AI, can lead to major security breaches. We are still trying to resolve these issues but so far have found no satisfactory answers with SMF.
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בס''ד
How about this x (twitter) account that the great Dan Ben Noah has maintained for us for years?
https://x.com/JewishTaskForce
Right now the account has our English weekly videos with few comments or responses. Can we turn this into an active x account? Would our JTFers here be willing to join x, comment, respond and create posts?
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בס''ד
How about this x (twitter) account that the great Dan Ben Noah has maintained for us for years?
https://x.com/JewishTaskForce
Right now the account has our English weekly videos with few comments or responses. Can we turn this into an active x account? Would our JTFers here be willing to join x, comment, respond and create posts?
My worry is that I have to contact you privately from time to time.
How would that work?
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בס''ד
I am not the technical person in this process and so my knowledge is very limited. But we are at SMF version 2.0.15. That means there were at least four upgrades that took place before you can get to 2.1. The upgrades that we did not do are 2.0.16, 2.0.17, 2.0.18 and 2.0.19. When we tried upgrading, our posts all disappeared. Moreover, because of AI there are now serious security problems with SMF. To keep our old posts, we would need to do patches, which in the era of AI, can lead to major security breaches. We are still trying to resolve these issues but so far have found no satisfactory answers with SMF.
Ok, thanks. I have faith in your web guy. He has come through before.
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My worry is that I have to contact you privately from time to time.
How would that work?
בס''ד
First of all, by mistake I clicked "edit" on your post. Of course, I did not edit your post.
To answer your question, you can send private messages on X.
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בס''ד
First of all, by mistake I clicked "edit" on your post. Of course, I did not edit your post.
To answer your question, you can send private messages on X.
Then I agree with the transition to X. If others agree, let's do it.
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I have already been posting JTF's videos on my own Twitter page, and I would be willing to become more active on JTF's Twitter page -- or at least until I get banned or censored. YouTube pretty much auto-deletes my comments now, so we'll see how long I can last on X.