Discussion:Important Service Announcement??

Important Service Announcement

The TaxAlmanac.org website will be going offline permanently on 6/1/14. The groups responsible for maintaining the content on this website are no longer able to provide the required maintenance and updates necessary to maintain the website’s on-going integrity.

I'm hoping this is a late April Fools joke...but if this is really going to happen, we are going to lose a great community here! Let me say right now I'd be willing to gen up a new forum if it would help keep the gang together. I lease a fairly high powered server today in a website hosting datacenter in Dallas, and can scale it as needed.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

I have actually created a Taxalmanac page on Facebook where we have some tax professionals gathered so we have a place to go to and meet and figure out what the next step is.

Chris, please find us there, or at least gather our emails and let's do something between now and then.

Plus, if they cannot maintain this, can they at least transfer it to us, or archive the pages for search capabilities.

So where do build the new community? How can all the threads be exported? The great news is that we'd no longer be chained to this stupid Wiki crap, which barely functions as a forum except for our willingness to make it so. Is there a geek among us who could set up a REAL forum, you know, one where the Search actually produced desired results?

But this is like nuking a village in the Crimea. *poof* (and then nothing.....) We've formed a formidable unit here and all of us, even Chris! have learned stuff. I can't imagine FB working terribly well for this.

We have six and a half weeks. The clock ticks. And of course, I'd pay money as most of us might, to make it happen. I've got a client or two who have set up forums...perhaps I should explore.

What is critical here is to maintain/archive the existing content. Does anyone know who at Intuit I can talk to, to make a proposal on a save? I really do not want to see this site disappear.

We must protect the Yellow Box at all costs.

In fact, the new site can be called YellowBox.com. lol

Chris, join the facebook group simply as a place for us to gather and assist you in this.

add an @aol.com to my screen name and you have my email sir.

Fred I will check out the FB page - thanks.

I can try talking to Mindy at intuit as well. Maybe if she gives us TA I will renew my Proseries.

I learned a little while ago that Riley2 (or R2) wasn't with us anymore... and now this!

I am also willing to pay to get this site or a similar one alive (and to keep the archives for searching). I am sure that 90% or so of the pros using this site are solo practitioners and this is our way to interact with other knowledgeable professionals.

HELP!

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/60707/accounting

If there is more interest/questions, let me know and I'll see what I can do to get answers. If the notice above holds true, June 1st will be here before you know it.

When CCH shut down the ATX forum, we started another and it's still going strong and has more features than this one does. This site is just archaic; but the data and users are priceless.

As the saying goes, "Avengers Assemble!" (from Wikipedia, for those young 'uns whose only knowledge comes from movies.. " although one theme remained consistent: the Avengers fight 'the foes no single superhero can withstand." The team, famous for its battle cry of "Avengers Assemble!", has featured humans, mutants, robots, aliens, supernatural beings, and even former villains.')

That sounds like TaxAlmanac, no?

This should be the new rallying cry: Preparers Propound!''

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Hope you all had a successful tax season.

I use servers from softlayer.com; the best cloud service on the planet. I would gladly do this on my own nickel - no subscription needed; I just need someone on the sending side to work with me.

I posted a question on stack exchange the first time this site went down. It is extremely limited in the length of posts that it will accept. IMO, the limitation is fatal.

I am more than willing to help transition us to something else.

Tom

Seriously, do you think more than, say, 42% of users of this site know what you mean by "fork the site"?

Preparers, Propound!

When it comes to a tax resource, I would pay an annual membership, as TaxAlmanac has proved as helpful if not more in locating answers with that nice yellow box, or just perusing the daily comments and questions.

Impressive, Chris. I would be happy to pitch in financially for this. The question is whether or not Intuit will allow us to use and retain our own public content elsewhere. Is this a possibility? I would love to save this forum.

With all that praise, its loss is relative and something will morph to take its place.

On February 12th, the day after my birthday, a local neurologist gave me a diagnosis of "Lou Gehrig's Disease" (ALS) and sent me to a specialist at Robert Wood Johnson. On the 28th of February, this man, Doctor Jerry Belsh, a doctor who has 34 years experience treating ALS, confirmed that diagnosis. Now I am with a wonderful team he has assembled at RWJ, and finding resources I never knew existed (e.g., turns out ALS patients have a large percentage of veterans, and there are benefits that can be had to help). So all is relative, but as Dr. Belsh says, my leg and arm weaknesses will not kill me......unless I fall under a subway.

I just spoke with Tim Doyle. He is working on some potential options, so at this point folks - please - the recommendation is to continue enjoying the site and let's not scatter just yet. As more information becomes available it will be shared here. Tim agrees wholeheartedly that the community and content is very important so he is pushing on this within Intuit. Anyone who works within a large corporation knows that decisions and plans take some time; Tim is working the process.

Stay tuned...

going.

D&T, you are in my prayers.

for tax professionals - for whatever new forum INTUIT is intending to succeed with?

I don't trust INTUIT. It's one entity that attempts to produce products and services for competing parties simultaneously and couldn't care about the ethics.

So I question the last words of the warning notice "on-going integrity"

Cheering for ChrisV2! Make something happen....

Praying for David/D&T. *sigh* Lord, heal. Bring peace.

Finally, if hold our subscriptions hostage....? lol

D & T, I am disheartened to hear of your diagnosis, but I'm glad you seem to have top notch medical care. May the disease progress as slowly as this site's pages load!

I take a pill, Riluzole, twice a day. Will the liver be able to take this medicine? Every month for the next three, I will have it checked.

I plan to drive the RV next week to PA Dutch Country and we have reservations at a campground near Bar Harbor for late September. I wear braces on both legs thru mid-shin to stop my drop-foot condition, but cannot drive with one on the right foot.

I plan to be more active as this site sinks slowly in the west. I love you guys (and gals, too)

My 2 cents...

I used it when TA went down last year. There is a small learning curve, but it has some nice features that I found useful. I came back to TA when TA was back online. The main reason I prefer TA is for the contributors that are here. If the same contributors went to that forum, I think we would all be OK with that.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/213070672214028/

There is also a closed FB group which started with a core of refugees from the old NAEA webboard, not sure if you have to be an EA to join:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/602744379759606/

There are many other groups that tend to be high quality:

Yahoo Tax Professionals

Yahoo Tax Chat

Kleinrock's TaxTalk (now CCH)

CalCPA's TaxTalk for Attorneys and CPAs (EAs can join but can't post unless they work for a CPA or law firm.)

Yahoo's Tax Pro Exchange

Misc.Taxes.Moderated Founded by refugees from an old CompuServe list many years ago.

The American Bar Association Section of Taxation's open listserve Not for the faint of heart, but a great place for estate, gift, and partnership taxation.

I think we should keep going and forget the other "tax" websites. This place has its own charm.

Tom

All good things must come to an end. Not since the days when Cervante's character Don Quixote roamed the land of Spain has such a journey been made as We have made on this site. It is time to return to the home, put the books of chivalry away, and die (hopefully not in the literal sense of the word).

Yes, we go out on somewhat of a low point (a very low point), but think of it as trading in an old car.

Let's face it, we're sick of the old car. True, it has been a trusty mechanical steed in times of need, and for our younger members perhaps even an occasion of sin, nevertheless, we are sick of it and it's time to turn it in for the "new car" smell: in the end, the human lives for the smell of the thing.

Oddly I sometimes come across my own past postings when I search on Google for an answer to some knotty problem.

More seriously this site has value; it generates lots of hits so it could be sold as a going concern by Intuit; rather than killed. Why are Intuit killing something they could sell to a third party? The existing site and archive could easily be hosted and monitored from a low cost country and make money for a purchaser who wanted to run this.

However, the Corporation, and particularly the publicly traded one, cannot...c a n n o t ....and I mean cannot let stand any loose ends and this site is loose at all ends.

Loose at all ends shall not be and the Corporation usually manages to strangle such loose ends in the crib. Well, they let us get a few years out of the crib, but again, it shall not be, and however they kill us (draw and quarter, gibbet, auto-da-fe, whatever) we will be killed and scattered to the ten corners of the known universe.

If you leave a wall blank in the city, some young hooligan will come by and put some art on it. From time to time it's good art. But, life is but a series of accretions, as an oyster builds his shell, so our lives are built. Sure as h*ll some laboring man will be tasked with painting over with gray or biege the work of the young artist.

Then, another young one will come along and do the same thing: make some art, and then the laboring man is tasked with wiping it out again; and so life proceeds: putting something good down, forgetting it, painting over it; and our memories are always Only Our memories: we can never remember It exactly as it was.

And for those looking for the facebook version of out Taxalmanac coffee shop style, simply put taxalmanac in the facebook search box at the top, their version of the yellow box and you will find us.

Or search me out Fred Stein and message and I can add you.

Chris, I found you on facebook, but that looked like your business page, i was off relaxamisizing yesterday but am now in the office for half-time work these days and will again try to add you the person.

David - my prayers are with you my friend - just keep on truckin' and the wind will always be at your back. Enjoy your vacation for all of us!

The first order of business would certainly be making that damn yellow box MUCH more helpful in searches!

There is a lot of work to do to develop something that will be a reasonable alternative. If you would like to make sure you hear of whatever alternative is developed, send me an email at taxalmanac.doomsday@gmail.com and I will send out updates if this forum no longer allows communication.

I haven't spent more than a minute thinking about this so it is way too early for that question. Apparently the operator of this site is still working on ways to continue it, so we shall see what happens. I think the vetting process of making sure people are qualified tax professionals makes the information that much more credible. You don't want a site with a lot of misinformation because the users aren't qualified.

So now thinking about it, I would probably do something similar.

We have a while to work through this. And both Tony <CaptCook> and Chris who currently have alternatives will both be members of the Facebook group.

Facebook just isn't a good place for a research and learn forum such as what we have here. This is the first place I come, the first place I search and the answer is usually here and the code sections supporting or the case law supporting is all there.

Facebook just doesn't provide that. Facebook is a coffeehouse. TA is different.

The nature of the discussions here are such that unqualifed users don't post. Misinformation is quickly refuted. It is self-policing.

Totally agree. My wife has an alleged orchid on our dining room table that she received in early March, she keeps on saying it's real, even though it has not changed one bit in the last 4 weeks.

A relative by marriage (OK, my mother-in-law) had a paper flower in a pot in her room for a year or more. Never watered. Never died. She insisted it was real. She had Alzheimer's.

Alleged orchid was a gift from our daughter. I can only assume that there is rampant orchid fraud going on in our country. Anyone who's innocent enough could be fooled.

June 1 will come quickly like a thief in the night and all of this content, some valuable -- or is it invaluable, will go poof!

It does seem incredible that a money-making juggernaut like Intuit cannot find a way to make money on this. How much does this site really cost to run? The traffic is incredible. Do a Google search on most tax subjects and TA is either at the top of the list or on the first page. You can't sell enough ads to pay the registration fees plus $30K/year for site maintenance?

Again, just my opinion and not based on any conversation I've had with anyone, except with myself.

I want to give Tim time to vet what I asked him through Intuit and solve this within Intuit -- or agree to let us have the content for archiving/preservation. I already have a brand new site up and running on my test server, with modern forum software installed. I want to style it to look as much like these forums as possible since this simple layout seems to work well for us. I'll be doing that over the next few days. Once ready, if you want to you can register there and at least we will be able to keep this community together. I respectfully ask that you guys give me a shot at this. I run a very large automotive community/forum today which I've spent hundreds of hours writing custom code for, and in general I have a skill set that lines up pretty well with this type of challenge.

If Intuit lets us have the content then I can easily migrate it to the new site, for preservation. We'd have that as reference, along with a modern forum environment that would be more or less future-proof.

I won't create one til I get a yes, go ahead from you though.

I thought I posted the other day in this thread saying my partner and I would also be willing to pay an annual fee to help maintain a successor to this site (one hopefully incorporating the entire archives from here). Can't find that posting now, so I'm saying it again. My partner this morning went further even, suggesting we ought to agree to assist whoever (or the several whoevers) who have the technical skills and commitment to build a new site. I'm not sure what help we could give (programming isn't our strong suit), but the offer is there if those of you more technically proficient think you can use some assistance.

Over the last 8 years or so we've repeatedly found TaxAlmanac to be a fantastic source of information and professional succor. I've tried to contribute back, within my modest abilities, by posting useful replies both in Tax Questions and Business Development. I would really hate losing this community.

P.S. -- As I was writing the comment above, Chris posted his update, including the fact that he's personally created similar forums, and has a beta for this one already on his server. Not public, but poised for implementation. Chris, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, and I suspect that feeling is one virtually everyone shares! Thank you, thank you for your efforts.

Fred - that's a great idea but before we do that I think we should get to the new "whatever" we will be doing. The biggest killer to any SW development project is scope creep, so for this I'd like to take a crawl-walk-run approach. If we can get the old content saved someplace and have a new forum environment to begin using, to me that would be a huge 'win'. Then you guys can start making your demands :-) :-)

Again, pure conjecture on my part so nobody should interpret that as anything I've heard or discussed with anyone from Intuit.

Also I have seen examples of forums that start out on sites like that then once they get too large the person who founded the forum wants to move it to a dedicated site, and the Ts & Cs disallow it. So the content is basically hostage. A simple test is to ask them if they provide either a Cpanel or database backup you can FTP somewhere else. Things could have changed recently but I would research this carefully before going down that path. Personally I would never put one of my sites under their control but given their popularity, I'm sure a lot of people don't have an issue with it.

And Chris, tis why I asked as I do understand how scope creep can halt productivity.

Does it make sense, and I imagine it probably does, to get the new one up and running as a place for new things and threads?

I am actually looking forward to having our own non intuit site.

I worry right now about two things: (1) the old content here and how it can be preserved and (2) getting the word out to every member here about the migration plan, if in fact Intuit does give up on this site as they have indicated.

Setting up the new forum on a new server, etc. is the least of my worries...it's pretty much 'done'...

They won't be able to import TA unless someone from TA is willing to work with them. I would rather keep a single conversation going with Intuit on this right now; if you guys disagree with my approach please let me know...

Regarding costs, I already have a large server in place that has some headroom. Initial cut-over to a new site would not drive a tremendous amount of traffic so I'm not too worried about it. As it ramps I might need to move some things around, onto another server perhaps -- or scale the existing one (it's an elastic system, so additional compute nodes, memory and disk space can be dialed in instantly). Hard to say exactly what the costs would be, but nothing I would ever expect to have to charge a subscription for...I really don't like that model anyway.

The way I look at it, someone needs to do something. You guys have been really nice to me over the years and I like this community so I want to try to preserve it.

This is weird to me, mixing my two worlds but if you guys want to see the other site I spent hundreds of hours building... autobody101 dot com

Someone buy a spray gun or an air compressor...please (just kidding!)

+1 Vote for ChrisV2

Let's rock this out, and pray that Intuit allows him to scrape off everything here.

+2 Vote for ChrisV2

+3 vote for ChrisV2!

I had a productive evening last night.

I have not heard back from Tim yet, so I am continuing on the assumption that the current site will be shut down. I would also like to speak or correspond with Kevin and Trillium since they did so much of the heavy lifting on the existing site and would appreciate some guidance. If you are interested please contact me via info at chriscappo dot com. If not please let me know that as well.

Who is going to set the ground rules for participating in this new website (whatever and whenever it will be up and running), who is going to monitor the behavior of the participants, what subjects or practices will be prohibited, who is going to take care of mechanical breakdowns, will there be "Trusted User" screening credentials, and so forth? So before you set out to start this new venture - as generous and as it may seem - a number of facts need to be established first.

2) If this site goes down, I might have to retire <w>. I haven't posted much recently, but it's a go-to source for reinforcement/research. Dave Fogel single-handedly got me up to speed (in English) on foreclosures/short sales several years ago when that debacle hit. 3) I will help/contribute/pay fees/etc to keep this resource going. Unfortunately, I don't have ChrisV2's skill set; but will do any grunt work that I can.

Thanks to all for keeping this moving forward!

Thanks Belle...and there would never be a fee or subscription model for any new site (that I create, anyway). I really don't like that model.

I also encountered what might be one of the problems that's afflicting the site. I found an "A-Z index," another feature I'd never used. So I clicked on it, then clicking randomly on "F" to see what topics were hiding under the hood. Whew! Hundreds. But when I started looking at them, they were odd, many if not most with no discernible tax association. I clicked on a few and it was spam. Tons and tons of spam. I wouldn't be surprised if 95%, maybe 100%, of those links are spam. Who's taking time to post those here? What are they gaining by it? Is it possible the entire site often runs poorly precisely because all that garbage is down there, clogging up the system? ChrisV, you might want to take a look, and if/when the day comes that the contents of Tax Almanac are ported over, perhaps it'll be possible to leave that all out.

Lhesscpa, I too am a member of several Yahoo Groups. It's a useful took they have there. But my suspicion is that Yahoo Groups isn't remotely capable of doing all that we are used to seeing here, nor what ChrisV has in operation at Autobody101. Not designed that way, not robust enough for the intense use we would want to give it.

I have two sites running right now, a development site and a production site.

The site is running wordpress as the main content system. I need to do some surgery on wordpress to hide the fact that it is wordpress, so that part is not quite ready yet. This content system will be able to support article writing, news feeds, etc.

I also have the forum up and running and it is configured for user roles and permissions. This took a fair amount of time, and it is in line with my overall security strategy that helps eliminate abuse from spammers. PDX is right, this current site is full of spam activity that you guys don't see. The registered users here that are pure spam ids number in the 10s of thousands and I suspect part of the reason this site was down for several weeks at one point. There is just no easy way of cleaning it up.

I block many "problem" countries right at the server so my sites will not even come up on the user's screen in Russia, for example.

I have a solution for the old content (discussion threads) at taxalmanac. It can be saved, I have tested this and it works. I just need to talk to Tim to find out status on the shutdown plan.

I need some help:

I need a few folks to check out the new forum software and register, so I can test the process. http://www.taxprotalk.com/forums/

You will need to get past the HTACCESS block I have on that site right now, so when you get the pop-up in your browser as you go to that site, respond with the user "taxpro" and password "citizen". You may have to do this twice. Once you are in, it will allow you to explore the new forums.

Anyone from here who wants to register there can do so at this point and fill out their user profile (you can copy/paste from your profile here if you wish). This data will not be lost, the remaining work on the forum is aesthetics. I did a lot of that today, shooting for a simple style that is easy on the eyes and not too 'busy'. This can always be updated later when I have more time.

Work to be done:

- testing

- complete wordpress integration

- finish the style/colors work on both the forum and wordpress so they are seamless

- figure out how we are going to handle the old content from this site

- more testing

The critical part is over now, so the rest of this can happen over the next couple of weeks. Once initial testing is done we can start letting more people into the new forum and start the discussions going. I see no reason that we would not be ready for the June 1st termination date.

Include me in for paying a fee or whatever it takes to keep this brain trust together.

As a lone CPA, I can't tell you how much help I have received from TA over the years, how much I have come to rely on it.

This is scary.

I can access the site via Mozilla but not through my other browser (outlook?).

Then I finally got through, but I got to an error message that says,

This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied to the wrong credentials… Your browser doesn’t understand how to supply the credentials required.

Additionally, a 401 authorization required error was encountered while trying to use a ErrorDocument to handle the request.

JAD - there is a temporarily password challenge on the site, this is the "taxpro" userid and "citizen" password I mentioned -- when you get that windows security box pop-up those are the credentials you need to put in to get access to the site. Then, the forum registration userid and password is of your choosing and will work normally. It probably hit you again from Outlook because you clicked on the activation link for forum registration. Looks to me like your registration went through fine.

As soon as a brief testing phase is over I will remove that site-wide block and it will behave like a normal site.

After looking through the content here and the massive amounts of false registrations I'm convinced this is exactly what has destroyed this site. Unfortunately when running mediawiki as your foundation the only way to really keep them locked out is to lock the site down to new registrations, which is basically where TA is right now.

I can help. I have a few things to do, but I need a distraction.

David, while your journey is different than mine, I can sympathize. Let me know if you need anything.

Tom

I sincerely hope most (all) of the valued posters on this site migrate over there. I am looking forward to a site with better performance (e.g. page-loading speed) than this one. Though I rarely post and occasionally ask a question, I do visit frequently and enjoy reading the posts and the invaluable information that has been stockpiled here.

D&T - David, my thoughts and prayers are with you pal.

I'm techno challenged, but if there is "grunt" work to be done, let me know.

I'm techno challenged, but if there is "grunt" work to be done, let me know.

www.taxprotalk.com