Sorry that I have let the forums go for so long. Last year I let it go because it was getting little use and it took huge amounts of time to administer. I just couldn’t keep up with it.

It wasn’t the users who were the problem, but the spammers. I finally installed a good anti-spam plugin, but by then I had other problems with the software. After a couple of updates to WordPress, things on the phpbb forum got goofy. I spent untold hours trying to figure it out, but couldn’t, so I just let it go.

I started trying to look into it again this week and was discouraged to see that I got hit with another round of Russian and Chinese spammers. I have spent the past two days deleting more than 4,500 spam comments and over 1,500 spam users from the forum, all of whom hit since about mid-December 2014. On top of that, I still can’t get the integration between phpbb and WordPress working.

I looked for help this morning, after getting the spammers cleaned up last night, only to find that the integration plugin WP_United has been abandoned. Their support forum hasn’t been maintained since about last May and even their forum has been taken over by spammers.

So, I’m looking for other software to try to integrate the forum, gallery, and the main WP website.

I’ve installed a plugin that is supposed to allow integration of the memberships of the website and the forum, such that registering on one automatically registers you for the other, but I’m not sure whether it’s working, or even whether I have been able to successfully remove WP_United, and I don’t know whether it even recognizes the Coppermine photo gallery. So, we’re in a rebuilding stage.

I may end up having to completely take down the forum, and maybe even the website, and install new software altogether. Hopefully I’ll be able to save the information already posted, because there is some good information there.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Had I know this was going to be such trouble and such a time-sink when I started it, I don’t think I would have even attempted. I figured it would be a good learning experience and be good exercise for my gray matter. I find that nowadays it’s not the learning that is difficult, but the remembering what I learned from one day to the next.

Still, I’m trying. I still believe there could be value in this website and forum for those of us who enjoy spending time out on the western trails for pleasure, as well as for those with business interests – those who make their living as guides, suppliers, and outfitters. The vision was to make this website a clearinghouse for information specific to horse and mule packing in the western United States, whether for people who like to go it on their own, like I do, or to get those who would rather have a guide and outfitter in contact with people who can supply their needs.

It may never get there, but it won’t be for lack of trying on my part.

Thanks for following along through this ordeal. I’d much rather be out riding my horse in a snow storm than sitting in front of this computer trying to make sense of software programming.