RefStripes
 

What happened to the RefStripes forum and website? I was a lurker for several years, and saw that the forum had a lot of valuable content on things at the different levels of football. The user and moderator named Rulesman died relatively recently. Maybe that has something to do with it, because he was a big contributor to the forum.

I have joined the website this year, and was active on it for a few weeks, until I found out this week that it no longer worked, and the domain was "parked" at GoDaddy.com. I also noticed that some RefStripes topics, like "Here we go again", about instant replay in high school football, started appearing here. Will RefStripes get back on its feet, or will former denizens like Ralph Damren and ElvisLives migrate here instead? I'd like to hear your takes on the issue.

Domain owner died.

That's sad. I didn't realize that Rulesman was also the domain owner. Maybe another former moderator can buy the domain and keep the website running. Until then, both Rulesman and RefStripes will be sorely missed!

The deadline to renew the domain is 6/27 at which point they will put it up for auction. If it goes up for auction, all of the posts and data will be lost. If anyone knows the family of Bob Dunham, that would be the best way to get it back up and running.

I spoke to GoDaddy and they gave me 3 options.

1. Send in Bob Dunham's death certificate. Then the domain ownership will pass to the family, who can then appoint a new admin.

2. Ask the family for Bob's email credentials. Then have someone reset the GoDaddy password and login. From there, the admin can be changed on the site.

3. Get the last 8 digits of the credit card used to pay fot the site. Then call GoDaddy and set up a new admin.

Otherwise, it will go to auction.

My condolences to the Dunham family.

What is the likelihood that this is going to auction? Is there anyone that would likely save the site? Does the family want to save the site?

Sounds like an easy fix unless they want to let it end.

Peace

That's just it JRut, I don't know what the family's intentions are. I was thinking a forum member might want to take on the admin role and someone might be close to the family and could help facilitate it.

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Someone is attempting to reach out to Bob's family to see about taking over the website. If I get any other updates I will respond.

Thanks for your initiative.

Refstripes.com will go up for auction on Thursday, June 21st. We need to get Bob's credentials before that date or else we lose all of the data at the very least. After that, it goes up for auction and we would need a quality admin to win it and start the site fresh.

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What exactly is going up for auction? Is it just the domain name at GoDaddy? If it is, then all the data is stored on somebody's web server somewhere and could theoretically be retrieved even if another person purchases the domain name.

Now, I suppose it's possible that if GoDaddy is hosting it in addition to being the registrar, they could also be auctioning off the webhost portion as well. But, that seems very unlikely. Data like that is usually considered to be the property of the customer (in this case, Bob). It's much more likely that the webhost company will simply delete the data after the subscription runs out.

Hopefully someone can get a hold of them and save the site!

I agree with Mbilica - even if we buy the domain name at the auction - the data will probably be DOA

We could certainly recreate what would be needed here if efforts fail with RefStripes / GoDaddy -- various subforums, etc.

Not that I'm trying to do something here other than make an offer if needed.

I agree Rich. This would be an appropriate alternative if the need arose.

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As you know, the value is in old discussion topics that you can look back to. So it's more of the historical data that's more valuable than anything.

Would the site be online if someone made a payment or can only the account holder make the payment?