Hobby with “features” is the rule, but… I’m a firm believer in “if it works don’t tinker”. Until last week when someone hacked the place and inserted a post about male body enhancements.
Oooops, now I’ll switch from phpbb2 to phpbb3. Had some fun this week getting that job off the plate.
BTW whenever I got 
I’d head for the garage and glue down some more ties for the next turnouts.
Two philosophies… don’t upgrade until forced to, or a crisis…
Or upgrade in anticipation of issues and on your own schedule.
Sounds like you have picked the former… I cannot afford not to pick the latter.
Greg
There was no reason to upgrade 'til …
Naturally it all depends on the type of forum e.g. becoming a member happens by a request via email, a questionnaire to be completed and then evaluated. In other words it’s quite a cozy group. 
Hans, I understand. I used to spend quite a bit of time each day disapproving posts on a website I moderate. The owner of the site eventually changed the CAPCHA settings and questions, so now I can deal with the important questions on the forum.
Hah, I guess I proved my point, “there was no reason to upgrade until” you were forced to… we do seem to have opposite philosophies.
I have a web site too, and upgrade with regularity, mainly because of security and reliability.
Was hacked once for 4 hours, my ISP now is more aggressive about keeping up with the latest security and bug fixes.
Greg
You’re right … I didn’t update the forum software until it became necessary. Touching wood … so far there have been no instances on the content of the hobby website.
Not a forum but a website/page that I stumbled across last year when revisiting possibility of purchasing a DVD.
To me an example of what can happen when you don’t police your net-based assets !?
This website/page seems to have been hacked at least once maybe twice !
copied url; http://crest-electronics.com/
Arrived at from the link in this thread;
Yes i did send the info and link to the previous president of the ‘parent’ corp. but obviously still nothing done to sanitize or shut it down.
I recognize that Forums/websites are certainly high maintenance … and I’ve never bothered trying.
Kudos to all of ya that do !!
doug c
Many years ago we had a German version of the RhB Forum running in parallel. Too much bickering and too many “cute” registrations from the “Fatherland” … swoosh 
… history.
And that was before I decided that life was really too short. 
It was “let them learn English” time.
Greg, yes your point has been proven. But I live on the downstream side of technology. Anytime that an IT person talks about an “upgrade” or “improvement”, I know I will be dealing with the “unintended features” of that change for a while.
Allegheny county (my primary account) “upgraded” their print servers, and I spent 2 weeks fielding service calls for off center prints. My company moved the company email to the cloud. The cloud must have been a rain cloud, because all emails had a 2 to 3 hour delay.
So yes things do need to be upgraded before they fail or are compromised. But I just wish that these “upgrades” were fully beta tested first. That’s all I am asking.
Dave,
I regularly read the fora of the publishers of the software that “I really should update”. And that is the main reason for my attitude. The horror stories about this or that not working, the delays to get problems resolved, patches published and all the other “extra features”. When I run into snags I press Google into action, absolutely amazing how many others run into the same snags. Has me conclude that there are a lot more dummies like me out there. 
Having some “clown” hack some “interesting” post into the forum is a very minor inconvenience by comparison.
I’ve heard/read it many times: “Hey, it’s a hobby, not a job!!!”, I fully agree when it comes to the RhB Forum.
Hehehe sometimes we dont have any choices. Last weekend at work I dun got an “uppgrayedd” from my reliable XP to fabulous Windows 7, which is like going from a Toyota to a Buick. So many glitches had to be ironed out this morning (like astonishing transfer speeds of 9kb/sec) I spent the whole day and lots of words Popeye would blush at, just to get my 'puter running… I still don’t have a working cad program. Gonna be a long week.
Hans, I too use my search engine to find fixes. I also hold off on my personal type upgrades until the fixes can be figured out by other people. But at work, I have no say in the matter. As I said, I am on the downstream side of that stuff, and we all know what runs downstream.
Evolving is a fact of life. Either things evolve or they die out. I suspect most forums are like this. Either they evolve or die out. I just got here and I sure hope this place stays around. I think its terrific. Trains, Tracks!
What’s not to like? LOL
Stacy
Stacy,
It isn’t the evolving that is a pain, some of us just wish that all the dumb ideas are gotten rid of by the time we decide to upgrade. It’s like wishing to win the lottery i.e. what are the chances, eh?!
BTW the forum in question has been running for ten years and this was the first hacker incursion. Ten years in the cyber field is like an eternity … or so I’m told.