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So long, Silverfish

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slavadov
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:12 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Nov 2008 Posts: 3192 Location: Michigan
I'm just popping my head in here to spread the word. Tomorrow, Silverfishlongboarding is going down. Traffic isn't what it used to be, and the powers that be just can't justify putting their resources into the site anymore. I know there are a few members here that used to frequent SFL, so if you need any information or threads saved, now's your last chance.

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brokenorderband
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:58 am Reply with quote
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Joined: 29 Oct 2009 Posts: 6560 Location: West of Mordor
It's a shame seeing all the forum traffic going to Facekook.

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eddies
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:42 am Reply with quote
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Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 4149 Location: East Bay, CA
brokenorderband wrote:
It's a shame seeing all the forum traffic going to Facekook.


I agree. I wasn't a frequent visitor, but would pop into Silverfish and OldKookSkating (also gone) from time to time.
It would be nice if the members of those forums joined/returned here, but I'm guessing most will just go to Facebook.



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slob-air
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 10:21 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 27 Oct 2001 Posts: 63453 Location: S&B HQ
Wow. I didn't see that coming. Those guys commitment was solid, they had a good sizable team and they had the fundage and a sizable membership. Shocking!

S&B will be encountering some serous issues in the near future as we will be losing our server mates, primarily the Public Skatepark Guide/Skaters for Public Skateparks which will be handed over to the Tony Hawk Foundation to administrate on their servers and we'll also be losing PG, our server admin, as his University gig leaves him with no time to do this anymore.

It looks bleak, to be honest as revenue from ads and donations will not cover the cost of the kind of server this site needs and finding another assistant to help with the servers with the skill level required is going to be very difficult due to the extremely limited compensation we pathetically offer.

Not giving up though. This site is important for a number of reasons and despite my own ever growing needs to spending more time making money to pay the mortgage and take care of my family amidst what has been a very bad year financially and health-wise with the surgery I'm still recovering from, I will endeavor to somehow keep this community alive regardless of how daunting the task may be.

Facebook hurt us a lot but I'm not so sure it is going to be around all that much longer from the perspective of world governments and the rash of people I see dropping it for a number of reasons. I suspect its going to be forced to undergo some serious changes due to the Russian thing and the proliferation of racist, nationalist and hate groups flourishing within it.

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rochambo
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:09 am Reply with quote
Joined: 01 May 2016 Posts: 140 Location: Minneapolis
It's kind of sad. Ive been a member on a local motorcycle board for the last 13 years. They are talking about shutting down due to facebook and all i can think of is all that motorcycle knowledge (and a lot of annoying crap) being deleted.
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surfmurse
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 1335 Location: Jax Bch, FL
Bummer, haven't been there in a long while but holds a special place to me cuz it got me into building my own boards which got me into doing my art on boards as well. RIP

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skateight
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:43 pm Reply with quote
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Joined: 05 Sep 2006 Posts: 2857 Location: Earth
Fuck Facebook.
And I felt that way before they got that cheeto colored asshole elected.
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slavadov
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 5:55 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Nov 2008 Posts: 3192 Location: Michigan
slob-air wrote:
Wow. I didn't see that coming. Those guys commitment was solid, they had a good sizable team and they had the fundage and a sizable membership. Shocking!

S&B will be encountering some serous issues in the near future as we will be losing our server mates, primarily the Public Skatepark Guide/Skaters for Public Skateparks which will be handed over to the Tony Hawk Foundation to administrate on their servers and we'll also be losing PG, our server admin, as his University gig leaves him with no time to do this anymore.

It looks bleak, to be honest as revenue from ads and donations will not cover the cost of the kind of server this site needs and finding another assistant to help with the servers with the skill level required is going to be very difficult due to the extremely limited compensation we pathetically offer.

Not giving up though. This site is important for a number of reasons and despite my own ever growing needs to spending more time making money to pay the mortgage and take care of my family amidst what has been a very bad year financially and health-wise with the surgery I'm still recovering from, I will endeavor to somehow keep this community alive regardless of how daunting the task may be.

Facebook hurt us a lot but I'm not so sure it is going to be around all that much longer from the perspective of world governments and the rash of people I see dropping it for a number of reasons. I suspect its going to be forced to undergo some serious changes due to the Russian thing and the proliferation of racist, nationalist and hate groups flourishing within it.


I'm not affiliated with the site in any way, but I have been in contact with Malakai over text message and email for the past few weeks while things whole thing has unfolded.

They rode the wave of longboarding popularity to become the most popular skateboard site on the internet between 2011 and 2013, as longboarding was out-growing skateboarding. Things hit a peak in 2013, bobbled a little in 2014, then the bottom fell out. Decreased pageviews led to fewer dollars coming in from Google, plus sometime around then, Google reduced their payouts period...fewer people buying longboard stuff meant that shops and manufacturers folded, so they stopped buying sponsored ads. And, sometime around then was also when over half of internet users began using ad-blocking software.

According to a Google trends graph that I referenced above, longboarding is searched in 2017 roughly the same that it was in 2004. Shit's really hit the fan if Google trends reflect anything.

Anyway, combine all that with a few malware attacks and server outages, and daily activity skidded to a stop. No new content was being generated, no new users were joining up. The writing was on the wall...and all this isn't even including the influence of Facebook and Reddit.

It wouldn't be a big deal if the site could be pared back to a circa 2004 size, but it's just not feasible to trim that much content. The site is astronomically big, and has TONS of webcrawlers and bots accessing everything, so if I understand correctly, the upkeep cost went through the roof.

The short answer is that it's about money. The long answer is death by a thousand tiny cuts.

I'm very grateful to have been a part of something so huge. I was a bit of a jackass, but then again, what 19 year old isn't? I can only hope that I left a positive impact on the thousands of eyeballs that browsed my posts there. Hell, without SFL, I wouldn't have joined here (please spare your jokes, I'm trying to be somber ).

After a few years of a self-imposed "ban," I thought I'd pop back in here to see what's shakin' and reach out to a few old contacts that I knew from SFL.

Sounds like you've had a bit of a rough patch there, Slob...thoughts and prayers are going out to you. If I recall, you had a youngster...5ish or so, last I knew, right?

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Put yourself on trial, all the time, get out of your comfort zone. Feel depression, feel anger, feel happiness.
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slavadov
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 5:57 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Nov 2008 Posts: 3192 Location: Michigan
skateight wrote:
Fuck Facebook.
And I felt that way before they got that cheeto colored asshole elected.

Oh man, I've got a few good rants worked up over that! Let me dig through my sources and get all worked up, and you might see one appear in the politics board.

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Put yourself on trial, all the time, get out of your comfort zone. Feel depression, feel anger, feel happiness.
-Duane Peters
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slob-air
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 9:33 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 27 Oct 2001 Posts: 63453 Location: S&B HQ
slavadov wrote:
slob-air wrote:
Wow. I didn't see that coming. Those guys commitment was solid, they had a good sizable team and they had the fundage and a sizable membership. Shocking!

S&B will be encountering some serous issues in the near future as we will be losing our server mates, primarily the Public Skatepark Guide/Skaters for Public Skateparks which will be handed over to the Tony Hawk Foundation to administrate on their servers and we'll also be losing PG, our server admin, as his University gig leaves him with no time to do this anymore.

It looks bleak, to be honest as revenue from ads and donations will not cover the cost of the kind of server this site needs and finding another assistant to help with the servers with the skill level required is going to be very difficult due to the extremely limited compensation we pathetically offer.

Not giving up though. This site is important for a number of reasons and despite my own ever growing needs to spending more time making money to pay the mortgage and take care of my family amidst what has been a very bad year financially and health-wise with the surgery I'm still recovering from, I will endeavor to somehow keep this community alive regardless of how daunting the task may be.

Facebook hurt us a lot but I'm not so sure it is going to be around all that much longer from the perspective of world governments and the rash of people I see dropping it for a number of reasons. I suspect its going to be forced to undergo some serious changes due to the Russian thing and the proliferation of racist, nationalist and hate groups flourishing within it.


I'm not affiliated with the site in any way, but I have been in contact with Malakai over text message and email for the past few weeks while things whole thing has unfolded.

They rode the wave of longboarding popularity to become the most popular skateboard site on the internet between 2011 and 2013, as longboarding was out-growing skateboarding. Things hit a peak in 2013, bobbled a little in 2014, then the bottom fell out. Decreased pageviews led to fewer dollars coming in from Google, plus sometime around then, Google reduced their payouts period...fewer people buying longboard stuff meant that shops and manufacturers folded, so they stopped buying sponsored ads. And, sometime around then was also when over half of internet users began using ad-blocking software.

According to a Google trends graph that I referenced above, longboarding is searched in 2017 roughly the same that it was in 2004. Shit's really hit the fan if Google trends reflect anything.

Anyway, combine all that with a few malware attacks and server outages, and daily activity skidded to a stop. No new content was being generated, no new users were joining up. The writing was on the wall...and all this isn't even including the influence of Facebook and Reddit.

It wouldn't be a big deal if the site could be pared back to a circa 2004 size, but it's just not feasible to trim that much content. The site is astronomically big, and has TONS of webcrawlers and bots accessing everything, so if I understand correctly, the upkeep cost went through the roof.

The short answer is that it's about money. The long answer is death by a thousand tiny cuts.

I'm very grateful to have been a part of something so huge. I was a bit of a jackass, but then again, what 19 year old isn't? I can only hope that I left a positive impact on the thousands of eyeballs that browsed my posts there. Hell, without SFL, I wouldn't have joined here (please spare your jokes, I'm trying to be somber ).

After a few years of a self-imposed "ban," I thought I'd pop back in here to see what's shakin' and reach out to a few old contacts that I knew from SFL.

Sounds like you've had a bit of a rough patch there, Slob...thoughts and prayers are going out to you. If I recall, you had a youngster...5ish or so, last I knew, right?


I can relate to that big time—though I have no partners that a lawyers and its been millions of cuts. And because we moved to a big enterprise server farm we were subjected to attacks on various corporations, government and CIA sites in the same farm and SPS also came under attacks foisted by shitty skatepark building companies that SPS pissed off.

Ebay hurt us bad too.

So has advertising—doesn't help when certain members attack your advertisers.

I haven't had the cash or time to produce sellable stuff for the site either while the fish churned that stuff out. I still have a shit ton of super high quality S&B stickers I haven't recouped off of.

She's 7 now and getting more and more expensive every day. She's worth it though.

The injuries and surgeries really fucked and most of my companies and me over —but so to has the strength of the American dollar. While I'm paying 30-cents more on the dollar for product my customers will not accept that increase on their end and the fact that I haven't been able to skate so I'm not out in the parks promoting the products has seen speed-dealer distribution and its online and mobile arms slam headlong into a brick wall in terms of sales and its too expensive to order new product too.

At least I can say I got a good fucking this last two years! LOL!

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