My thanks to the comments. My issues before where with only a few people, not to the entire community, and I left because I was just tired of it all and it kept coming back no matter what. I no longer have that spark anymore to become active, it's a thankless job no matter what, and I owe it to myself and my son to be happy. I do care too much and that is the root of my problem as it will cause me to overreact, and I still do to a certain extent.
I think it is best that I do my part, what I can, and leave it to others. There is too much history here to overcome, and I never will be as effective as someone else. I do have my debts as well, and this is me paying up those debts by returning the favor and helping keep this site alive and going.
As to what needs to be done, these are the options available, and it is up to everyone what they think is the best.
1. Move to a new server. There is a very good chance the site as it exists will be broken, as I feel the issue is the forum software is too old to run on the latest servers. This version of VBulletin was first released in 2006, and has been completely rewritten twice since. The cost of the server would be 100 dollars per year, the one I like is all latest versions of everything.
2. If it is possible it is still working, translate and convert the forum over to phpBB3. It is the only other newer free forum software that can do it, but the process made me feel as if my brain was melting, it is very high end and tricky, and I haven't done anything like that in 8 years. Everything would be lost, it would preserve the threads, so all the content would have to be readded. phpBB3 is very difficult sometimes, and it would require experience from the admin. I have looked into SMF, the only version with a VB converter is very old, and I feel it is not capable of converting this particular version of VB. I am looking at myBB next, but so far no
3. Spend the money and buy a new forum license. The problem is VBulletin is dying, the latest versions just suck, and is now just not worth the fees. My suggestion is to instead of paying for VBulletin, it would be better to use the money (it's actually cheaper) for another forum software, that has the proper converters. I would suggest XenForo, for several reasons that members here would find appealing.
- XenForo was developed by the original developers of Vbulletin and after they sold VBulletin to Jelsoft. The software and use of it is very similar
- A very large amount of VB users have moved to XenFore, including a massive amount of plugin developers who have developed a few of the plugins used here.
- Because of that, the amount of support and additional resources is now greater than VB, and far more familiar to use. A lot of those plugins are now available for XenForo as well.
- and finally, because it is a very large old VB base, there is a converter available. It appears that far more things will be imported properly, like images and attachments, and it would be far faster process to get the site back up and running. Furthermore, I am looking at the possibility of free converters for some of the plug-ins as well, as they are available, but in paid packages (sigh, nothing is for free anymore)
https://xenforo.com/help/importing/
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/categories/importers.4/
the price starts at 140, but appears to have a option for 180 for two years support as well as other options, but we can do without them. There is also a demo there, I will get my sleep first before I play with it.
https://xenforo.com/purchase/
That's what I have so far. I see a pm (oops) so may have to update this.