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I do not think the the MCCH site has closed down as when I visit the site it just says that it has been hacked and will soon be on air again.

Mark Curtis must still have all the records as he sent me A Happy Birthday message yesterday 13-5-15, which is more than I got here

George T.

Here you are George:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3662

kerbside wrote:I do not think the the MCCH site has closed down as when I visit the site it just says that it has been hacked and will soon be on air again.

Those gateway pages were not on the same server as the site.

The mcch web site is definitely down and destroyed. Even if he continues to pay for the server, he has to do the following:
Buy and install the latest version of the software he uses.
Up load any back up files he might have.
Recreate the forum layout so it looks similar.
Tweak the software and his back up data (if he has any data worth using).

It's pretty likely that he does not have all of his data backed up (which he never has done in the past). If he does get the site up and running, everyone will have to come back, meet his strict guidelines as members and sign up again. The archives will be gone and everything there will have to start from scratch. His big hack from 10 or so years ago was very minor compared to this one which was pretty much total destruction of his data.

The big problem facing Curtis is his inability to do anything in the last couple of years. That combined with the fact that he has quit caring about and stopped participating in his own web forums. He seems only interested in the shallow and frivolous content of a face book based presence. Face book costs him nothing and he claims that server for the web based forum is expensive, he has no other reason to retain that server. Not to mention, his interest in the hobby has declined a great deal.

If he continues to pay for the server, if he can afford the new software and if he's willing to dedicate all the time required to reconstruct the site and if he is willing to pay for additional tech help ... he can go back live online with an empty forum that is waiting for members. Since the place was a ghost town prior to this and most collectors had already "left town" I don't see any rush to go back there. Those that might sign up will find no archives and will have to generate discussions from scratch.

It's been down for two months now and there is virtually no news being generated about any possible return. That blurb on the gateway pages was put up pretty early on and I suspect he learned exactly how bad the situation was shortly after putting up that announcement. Even if he does get thing up and running in June he will simply turn the site back off for a week in July. So, why would he even bother to work on it until after the Gathering?

The reality of the situation is that the site actually died a couple of years ago. It has spent the last few years wasting away on total life support. It's time for him to pull the plug.

kerbside wrote:Mark Curtis must still have all the records as he sent me A Happy Birthday message yesterday 13-5-15, which is more than I got here George T.

What he has is the same calendar that you and I have, which lists your birthday along with mine.

One also should be reminded that the same computer that hosts Curtis' "down for a few days" gateway page (which has now become a very old and stale message) also hosts another page that proudly announces the mcch Members Only Gathering. That page went up in 2013 and the announcement of his failed event is still up on the web.

See that old announcement here: http://www.mcchconvention.com/

That's not the only abandoned announcement for failed events or past problems. He put's these things out there and never removes them or updates them.

Curtis was already on a downhill decline when he had his big melt down with Jim G. over the Gathering and burned that bridge. From there on out he became even more self destructive and his personality seemed to grow darker by the day. Several of the Admins attempted to make him aware of the effect that his dark behavior was having. My attempts to do so made him decide I was no longer needed as an admin or a mod. When Mark Curtis dropped to gutter level and hot linked porno photographs to other web sites (including this one), I called him up and gave him a real piece of my mind.

That was the end of it for me and I wanted my name and posts removed from his forum. I was banned from the mcch by way of Curtis changing my password. Curtis chose to continue to show me as a member and kept all my posts and sticky posts intact up until the site collapsed. In the final times of the mcch, Curtis continued to ban members by changing their passwords and claiming this or that member had "abandoned" the mcch, but were free to return any time they wanted. One of his many outright bald faced lies.

For those who hung on to the bitter end and saw Curtis as a good guy ... the only reason for that is "ignorant bliss." Had they any idea of what was really going on, or got a glimpse of his true persona (which was eventually exposed), they would be among the many who were banned, who left in disgust and whom were alienated by Curtis.

There is no sense to be made of his decisions and actions, no excuse and no rational reasoning that explains it. Manipulation of others, laziness, sloth and greed driven by a giant ego is the real portrait. It ended like it always does for people like him: Failure and shame over public exposure of their dirty deeds, with a string of victims in his wake.

Many collectors really dislike conflict mixed with their hobby. For the last few years, "conflict" was the man's middle name. The number of collectors he outright banned, default banned, censored and alienated is alarmingly huge in this fairly small community. The mans personal actions eventually brought total collapse to his once good forum. Along the way, he became such a blight on the hobby that he created many collectors who have strong negative feelings about him. I dare say that more than a few glasses will be raised to toast the end of his forum and very few tears will be shed. As I've mentioned before, the mcch actually died some time back and the final collapse was merely another day which passed without notice.

Seems odd that the mcch is down but Christians site is still live ???.

As you say, strange Nick. If the server got hacked then the whole lot should be down. If Christian's is up and running as per normal then there is something else wrong. Maybe it wasn't hacked and he just took it all down, who knows.

Regardless of the truth, Christian really should move now to avoid down time.

I have just run a Sitemap of the MCCH website. It currently consists solely of the single page with the “hacked again!” message (N.B. even the Mark C. mailing link is dead.)

The following websites are hosted on the same server:
www.mboxcommunity.com
www.mcchconvention.com
www.coldprofessionals.com
www.idtags.biz
www.mboxcommunity.com (this is where Christian’s site resides).