Quick update: today I moved the website to a new web server and upgraded the phpBB forum software we are running. The previous version was 15+ years old. I don't like to make changes unnecessarily, but with old software like that there tends to be bugs and sometimes security issues. So I figured it was time for the upgrade which I finally did today. There's also some boring technical changes (moved to Docker, setup recurring backups, etc) that will ensure the site and its content will be more resilient long-term.
I had to re-implement our custom site design. Did my best to keep the old aesthetic intact, but you will probably notice some changes here and there. Hopefully nothing major. If you do see anything wrong, let me know and I'll try and fix it.
One benefit of the upgrade is that the site now works a lot better on mobile. Another benefit is that now everything is safer, I was able to remove the annoying "Verifying you're human…" check you'd see on many visits. It might still show up on some secure pages like login, etc, but most of the site should be free from it now.
Oh, and anyone new signing up (with the $9.99 one-off payment to block spammers and bots) should see their account activated automatically and almost instantly. I've also activated any paid-for older accounts that weren't activated yet.
Finally, I noticed some of the download links in https://sp-forums.com/music started 404'ing which is very unfortunate. I've gone ahead and downloaded what I still could hosted those on our own server instead so even if those download-sites go offline, we still have that music here.
Thank you all for your patience with the site and keeping it active
Marc aka keesj