In his post near the start of this thread @drcongo states “Complying with it would require expensive technical considerations (like scanning uploaded files, private messages etc.) as well as actual staffing”
if private messages were no longer supported and uploading files was prohibited I don’t think too much of what’s great about this place would be lost.
so, @drcongo, what would have to go to enable this place to continue, possibly as a paid for site, and free you of the threat of OSA transgressions? And most importantly would you even consider that with some additional admin help?
And if it’s to be closed, I’ll add my thanks for all you have done.
Life was so much easier in the era of pen friends.
Mad that a law could be so problematic for a forum like this, while Facebook and the like make a fortune serving up unsolicited illegal content on a minute by minute basis. But then legislators have always excelled at passing laws they don’t understand.
Fingers crossed someone can patch something together and thank you @drcongo for years of sterling service.
Genuinely can't imagine supporting Wycombe without the Gasroom. I don't post here prolifically but I feel like I know so many of you despite never having met a single one. What a wonderful community this site has been.
I really hope we can find a way forward to create a Gasroom 3.0. The Dr mentions there is someone having discussions about potentially taking on the batton. Whoever you are, thank you, and please let us know what you need as I'm sure many of us would do whatever we can to support a new site.
@drcongo I can only add my thanks for all you've done. Gutted you're stepping away as this site is genuinely perfect, but I understand your reasons.
If the worst came to the worst I would welcome the opportunity to keep in touch with anyone interested in an occasional chat either by telephone, text or email.
The great thing about this place is that there is no clutter - no adverts, no pop-ups, no tasteless 'news feeds' - just like the original Gasroom I guess.
Would be really sad to see it go. To be honest, I can't really keep up with all the threads, so I missed whatever it was that caused the recent upsets. In the end though, most of the time, it's just football, a welcome diversion for most of us, so it's a shame that occasionally things do turn and have turned a bit unpleasant.
Let's hope that some solution can be found. In the meantime, many thanks @drcongo for starting it all up and keeping it going for so long.
Sad, frustrating and challenging times. @drcongo I'm interested in exploring options to keep the Gasroom going in its next evolution, I've dropped you a dm
I’m relatively new here, and it’s clearly, one of the, if not the best football forums anywhere.
I thank you @drcongo for your time, money and resources in setting up such a brilliant forum.
I appreciate your main point of contention is regulatory frameworks and the minefields they have created, but I echo what most others have said, if there would be a subscription model I would be very happy to pay. Surely a model can be found if the subscriber him/herself sign up, they should take responsibility for what they post and not the forum, but I appreciate it’s not that straightforward.
Anyway, thank you and hopefully this forum is around long enough to all at least see us out over Wrexham at minimum.
@drcongo a huge thank you for all your work on setting up & running this place, as others have said I will miss it when it is gone.
As you say the OSA is a bag of spanners, yet another example of a dreadfully drafted piece of legislation that will spectacularly fail to deliver what it set out to do.
I, like you, am struggling to see how to create a decent forum that easily complies with OSA at minimal effort & cost & minimal risk to whoever is managing it. Whilst there is a plethora of options out there for the software to run it & hosting it, I am struggling to find a decent managed service offering that provides the support & protection needed.
I suspect we will probably end up on Reddit or Discourse at some point & if we do I hope to see you all there.
I’d never really looked into the new act but it does seem that it is not worth the hassle. The ofcom 79 page risk assessment to be done and kept up to date is a job in itself!!! Thanks for all your time and effort @drcongo and feel happy that for every hour you put in, 100s of hours were enjoyed (mostly) by fellow fans
I've been taking a mini break from the interwebs for a couple of days and this springs up.
@drcongo - you have my total respect for stepping in to provide a new (and vastly improved) forum when the administration of the original Gasroom became too much for the Gasman. I can fully respect any decision to pack it in because of the disastrous new legislation that will make hosting an internet forum unviable for any independent operator.
Obviously what makes the Gasroom special is its contributors, but your work is even more crucial. It may have been taken for granted, but it has been appreciated all the same. This forum is a excellent antidote to the increasingly "enshittified" social media, and were it to disappear would make the internet a poorer place for Gasroomers.
The future may (in the short term) be moving to a forum or group hosted on an existing social media platform, which is far from ideal but may be a necessary evil.
What a shit sandwich. You love us really Dr, most of us anyway...
Something like Proboards looks like it might be a useful next home for whoever it is that has the time to have a go at taking over should it come to it.
On the legal side things like that ruling usually don't stand up to much scrutiny and get repealed eventually but some poor sod generally gets ruined financially taking the government to task first .
Not read all the OSA in detail (Ofcom stuff is hard reading), but would making the site subscription only, with payment by credit card/paypal registered to the subscriber, be sufficient to prove that, as under 18s could not register, the due diligence/reasonable steps on ensuring that minors cannot see the type of content OSA seeks to protect them from have been taken?
Add no person to person messaging other than to alert a team of mods to posts that might breach OSA and so getting those posts removed as quickly as possible be sufficient to say the Gasroom conforms to the new legislation
This is dismal news, I last felt this way when I lost both my dogs in 2022. Bollox, actual grief. I too have been wide-berthing a lot of the discussions for about a month now, but I did think that things would get better rather, now it seems for various other reasons the whole extra-curricular part of my Wycombe Wanderers experience (which being unable to attend regularly for a lot of the season is actually the major part of the experience) hangs in the balance. Cripes. Down with the OSA.
I hope to contact a few more Gasroomers via the Gasroom DM facility over the next few days to swap email addresses and mobile numbers so do tap your profile pictures to check if @micra “wos there”.
Been looking at a few conversations from the past ten years and came across a wonderful exchange in February 2015 with someone who delighted under the username of AlgernonFudgebucket - a highly articulate person who, sadly, appears to have ceased visiting in January 2016.
I’m having difficulties with the DM feature. I type in the username in the recipient box - not sure if the @ is needed - but as soon as I start typing the name of the recipient disappears.
Comments
Thank you @drcongo
In his post near the start of this thread @drcongo states “Complying with it would require expensive technical considerations (like scanning uploaded files, private messages etc.) as well as actual staffing”
if private messages were no longer supported and uploading files was prohibited I don’t think too much of what’s great about this place would be lost.
so, @drcongo, what would have to go to enable this place to continue, possibly as a paid for site, and free you of the threat of OSA transgressions? And most importantly would you even consider that with some additional admin help?
And if it’s to be closed, I’ll add my thanks for all you have done.
Life was so much easier in the era of pen friends.
Mad that a law could be so problematic for a forum like this, while Facebook and the like make a fortune serving up unsolicited illegal content on a minute by minute basis. But then legislators have always excelled at passing laws they don’t understand.
Fingers crossed someone can patch something together and thank you @drcongo for years of sterling service.
Genuinely can't imagine supporting Wycombe without the Gasroom. I don't post here prolifically but I feel like I know so many of you despite never having met a single one. What a wonderful community this site has been.
I really hope we can find a way forward to create a Gasroom 3.0. The Dr mentions there is someone having discussions about potentially taking on the batton. Whoever you are, thank you, and please let us know what you need as I'm sure many of us would do whatever we can to support a new site.
@drcongo I can only add my thanks for all you've done. Gutted you're stepping away as this site is genuinely perfect, but I understand your reasons.
If the worst came to the worst I would welcome the opportunity to keep in touch with anyone interested in an occasional chat either by telephone, text or email.
My email address is [email protected]
The great thing about this place is that there is no clutter - no adverts, no pop-ups, no tasteless 'news feeds' - just like the original Gasroom I guess.
Would be really sad to see it go. To be honest, I can't really keep up with all the threads, so I missed whatever it was that caused the recent upsets. In the end though, most of the time, it's just football, a welcome diversion for most of us, so it's a shame that occasionally things do turn and have turned a bit unpleasant.
Let's hope that some solution can be found. In the meantime, many thanks @drcongo for starting it all up and keeping it going for so long.
Sad, frustrating and challenging times. @drcongo I'm interested in exploring options to keep the Gasroom going in its next evolution, I've dropped you a dm
I’m relatively new here, and it’s clearly, one of the, if not the best football forums anywhere.
I thank you @drcongo for your time, money and resources in setting up such a brilliant forum.
I appreciate your main point of contention is regulatory frameworks and the minefields they have created, but I echo what most others have said, if there would be a subscription model I would be very happy to pay. Surely a model can be found if the subscriber him/herself sign up, they should take responsibility for what they post and not the forum, but I appreciate it’s not that straightforward.
Anyway, thank you and hopefully this forum is around long enough to all at least see us out over Wrexham at minimum.
Relatively new to the forum will be very sad to see this place go.
Even though I hardly post, I seem to read most of what's on here. Furthermore, I can only echo the thanks for all that DrCongo's done.
Unfortunately, even though I believe that the model of this country is broken, it comes to something when it reaches this forum!
@drcongo a huge thank you for all your work on setting up & running this place, as others have said I will miss it when it is gone.
As you say the OSA is a bag of spanners, yet another example of a dreadfully drafted piece of legislation that will spectacularly fail to deliver what it set out to do.
I, like you, am struggling to see how to create a decent forum that easily complies with OSA at minimal effort & cost & minimal risk to whoever is managing it. Whilst there is a plethora of options out there for the software to run it & hosting it, I am struggling to find a decent managed service offering that provides the support & protection needed.
I suspect we will probably end up on Reddit or Discourse at some point & if we do I hope to see you all there.
Just a thought - what are other football club supporters groups doing?
Is it worth contacting the Football Supporters Association for advice?
Like others, would be sad to see the end of a Gasroom, but like them too I am not technically minded enough to know what to do
I’d never really looked into the new act but it does seem that it is not worth the hassle. The ofcom 79 page risk assessment to be done and kept up to date is a job in itself!!! Thanks for all your time and effort @drcongo and feel happy that for every hour you put in, 100s of hours were enjoyed (mostly) by fellow fans
This is very sad. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep this community alive in some way shape or form.
Thank you @drcongo for the countless (and thankless) hours you’ve invested to make all this happen.
2025 has been nothing but personal family trauma.... this is the icing on the fucking cake
Does 'uploading files prohibited' mean no posting pictures?
I am so fucked if that happens.
I've been taking a mini break from the interwebs for a couple of days and this springs up.
@drcongo - you have my total respect for stepping in to provide a new (and vastly improved) forum when the administration of the original Gasroom became too much for the Gasman. I can fully respect any decision to pack it in because of the disastrous new legislation that will make hosting an internet forum unviable for any independent operator.
Obviously what makes the Gasroom special is its contributors, but your work is even more crucial. It may have been taken for granted, but it has been appreciated all the same. This forum is a excellent antidote to the increasingly "enshittified" social media, and were it to disappear would make the internet a poorer place for Gasroomers.
The future may (in the short term) be moving to a forum or group hosted on an existing social media platform, which is far from ideal but may be a necessary evil.
What a shit sandwich. You love us really Dr, most of us anyway...
Something like Proboards looks like it might be a useful next home for whoever it is that has the time to have a go at taking over should it come to it.
On the legal side things like that ruling usually don't stand up to much scrutiny and get repealed eventually but some poor sod generally gets ruined financially taking the government to task first .
Not read all the OSA in detail (Ofcom stuff is hard reading), but would making the site subscription only, with payment by credit card/paypal registered to the subscriber, be sufficient to prove that, as under 18s could not register, the due diligence/reasonable steps on ensuring that minors cannot see the type of content OSA seeks to protect them from have been taken?
Add no person to person messaging other than to alert a team of mods to posts that might breach OSA and so getting those posts removed as quickly as possible be sufficient to say the Gasroom conforms to the new legislation
This is dismal news, I last felt this way when I lost both my dogs in 2022. Bollox, actual grief. I too have been wide-berthing a lot of the discussions for about a month now, but I did think that things would get better rather, now it seems for various other reasons the whole extra-curricular part of my Wycombe Wanderers experience (which being unable to attend regularly for a lot of the season is actually the major part of the experience) hangs in the balance. Cripes. Down with the OSA.
I hope to contact a few more Gasroomers via the Gasroom DM facility over the next few days to swap email addresses and mobile numbers so do tap your profile pictures to check if @micra “wos there”.
Been looking at a few conversations from the past ten years and came across a wonderful exchange in February 2015 with someone who delighted under the username of AlgernonFudgebucket - a highly articulate person who, sadly, appears to have ceased visiting in January 2016.
Hopefully a solution can be found to keep this fantastic forum going in some form or another. Thanks for all your hard work!
I’m having difficulties with the DM feature. I type in the username in the recipient box - not sure if the @ is needed - but as soon as I start typing the name of the recipient disappears.
Advice would be appreciated.
I just tried it, seems you don't need the @ symbol.
Just start typing the recipients name and an box appeared with possible matches ...
Maybe you have mistyped the name?
Ah what a sad time this is. A wonderful thing taken away by ill-thought out legislation that has thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Thank you @drcongo for your tireless work in making this the finest football forum.