Widescreen Gaming Forum

I want to share with @everyone an issue that has beset the WSGF over the last week or so. Google has decided that the files we host (exe files, patchers, etc.) are malware. Thus, they have flagged the entire WSGF as hosting and/or linking malware, which inhibits site access and search rankings.

Both the WSGF and our older media server (WSGF Media dot com) have been flagged. We have found a solution for our hosted files, via our friends at PC Gaming Wiki. However, we still have an issue with the forums linking to the old WSGF Media server.

There is no feasible way to go through the forums and edit the possible thousands of posts that reference the WSGF Media server. And there is absolutely no guarantee that Google won't ping some future post attachment and flag the entire site again.

The forums are much quieter today then they used to be, with just 1 or 2 active posts per day on average, on top of this we continue to have issues with bots or humans creating accounts to post spam. Additionally, the forums have hampered our ability to enable HTTPS and update the site to be more modern and mobile friendly.

The internet itself has also shifted, with sites like Reddit and services like Discord, YouTube and Twitch being where most discussion happens. Given all of the above we are exploring the idea of "archiving" the forums into their own domain so that everything could be read, but no new posts or accounts could be created. We would then direct all new discussion to a Reddit community and/or our Discord server, which we hope will make discussing and working on fixes more practical.

We are really at a crossroads where the forums have gone from being a minor or moderate inhibitor to growth of the WSGF, to now a major roadblock (thanks to Google). We need a road forward, and wanted to reach out to the community to socialize the issue and our ideas, and to get your feedback.

I'd love to hear your feedback in our Discord Server - https://discord.gg/FcVYWgh