FamiTracker Forums

The FamiTracker Forums are two forums created by jsr for the purpose of aiding FamiTracker discussion and development.

The FamiTracker website itself exists since October 2005 as shown by the visitor count on its homepage. It was initially hosted on tninet.se before moving to famitracker.shoodot.net some time between Febuary 12th and August 26th, 2006. The site acquired its own domain in 2012 after the Shoodot site shut down.

Creation
The First FamiTracker Forum was created between late 2005 and early 2006 with the idea of providing a place where jsr, FamiTracker's developer, could communicate with his users and get feedback on the program itself, as well as bug reports and development. It later allowed for songs made with it to be posted in a dedicated forum section. It uses Forum Senaculum, a custom forum package created by Slize106, who hosted the FamiTracker website from 2005 to 2012. The exact creation date for the first forum is unknown, but the oldest thread available was created on April 23rd, 2006.

Sections
At first, the forum consisted of 3 sections: In October 2008, the Show Off Your Work section was added, after being suggested by forum user furrykef six months prior. Its earliest thread dates back to October 17th, 2008. This section was used for posting music and receiving feedback from other members. It is the section that saw the most usage as old and new users shared their creations in there.
 * FamiTracker Talk, for general discussion and help about the program. Its first thread is the very first thread on the forums.
 * Bug Reports & Feature Requests, for reporting issues with the program or requesting new features. Its first thread was created on April 24th, 2006, and it's the second thread ever created on the forum.
 * Source & Development, for discussions about the program's or its NSF driver's source. Its first thread was created on June 27th, 2006.

The last section to be added was Site Maintenance, with its earliest thread dating back to November 20th, 2010. It contains discussion about the FamiTracker website, including the forum, but it is only accessible to users with an account. This section did not become publicly accessible after the new forums were created.

Closure
The old FamiTracker forum was replaced on April 2015 with an installation of phpBB after at least 4 years of a replacement being in the talks. New accounts could no longer be created after the new forum was introduced, but it remained open for new threads until being completely phased out on May 13th, 2015.

The old forum was replaced due to Forum Senaculum, the forum software it ran on, not being in development anymore and presenting important vulnerabilities, usability issues, and bugs. Common problems mentioned were the presence of bad moderation tools, issues with sending and receiving PMs, and duplication of threads and posts, among others. One of its most important vulnerabilities was the ability to read other people's PMs, which was promptly patched after it became known.

Creation
Plans to replace the old forum were being discussed since as early as 2011, with jsr announcing setting up a new forum on January 6th, 2015. A preview was posted 8 days later. The forum preview did not allow signing up nor making new posts, as it only served to showcase the new forum software and the new sections arrangement.

On April 20th, 2015, the New FamiTracker Forum was opened for registrations and became the new place for discussing FamiTracker or posting works made with it. It initially required administrator approval in order to activate accounts, with this limitation being lifted the next day and allowing people to register accounts freely.

Sections
The new forum rearranged the sections available on the previous forum and separated some of them for better categorizing. The following list details those changes: The purpose of every board remained the same, but with better organization due to some of the sections being separated.
 * FamiTracker Talk became General Talk
 * Bug Reports & Feature Requests became two separate boards named Bug Reports and Feature Requests respectively
 * Source and development remained unchanged
 * Show Off Your Work was separated into Original Music and Cover Music
 * Site Maintenance became Site Issues & Suggestions

In addition to the previous sections, an Off Topic Discussion board was added on May 14th, 2015, by popular request. Such a section was being discussed since at least October 2011, with jsr initially expressing reluctancy to add one due to the main focus of the forums being support and discussion for FamiTracker, in addition to being too much to maintain. Eventually jsr was convinced to add an off-topic section to the forum, which in part was made possible by the new features offerred by phpBB that Forum Senaculum lacked, and new moderators being assigned. The Off Topic Discussion board is hidden from public view and it is only available for registered forum users, in an attempt to prevent the focus of the forum from deviating.

Future
The future of the FamiTracker forums is uncertain, in part because jsr has not released new versions of FamiTracker since 2015, and because staff members do not seem to be active on the site anymore, with one of them resigning. It has been observed that many of the older members of the forums have started to leave while only new members remain, which has had a negative effect on the quality of the feedback that can be received when posting music.