The (Non-Technical) Version

A couple of days ago, I was contacted by the owners of the software that runs Inward Quest that this site is going to be shut down in two weeks.

There is no possibility of us continuing on this software because it is privately owned and cannot be bought.

I've given this situation much deep thought over the last couple of days and I am of the view that the wisdom already accumulated here and the community spirit that thrives here should be preserved and allowed to continue as much as possible.

So in order to keep Inward Quest going, I am going to move the community to another piece of website software (this time on our own private web server) that will mimic to some extent how the existing software works.

I am hopeful that the existing questions, answers and user profiles here will be preserved though the "look and feel" of Inward Quest may be forced to change.

There may be a period of disruption while this transfer takes place and Inward Quest may be offline for a while during this period. At this moment, I'm not sure how long that will be or exactly when it will happen.

There may also be more disruption afterwards while users (and moderators) figure out how to use the new software and while I attempt to make the new site look and behave similarly to this one so please bear with me while these unavoidable changes take place.

I'll update you with more details about these changes when I have them.

In the meantime, you can continue to use Inward Quest as normal.

More (Technical) Information

Up to now, Inward Quest has been operating using some privately-owned software called "Stack Exchange" which, at the time Inward Quest was set up, was available for individuals like myself to use for their own specialist purposes.

Stack Exchange 1.0 was a fork of the Stack Overflow software and the idea was that people such as myself would pay on a monthly basis to rent the software to use for their own private sites.

The software has always been hosted on Stack Exchange servers and there has never been an option to privately host it. So any users of the software have always been subject to the terms and conditions laid down by the owners.

Several months after making Stack Exchange 1.0 available, the owners realized that this business model was not going to work and this option to use Stack Exchange 1.0 for private purposes was withdrawn. But the owners were gracious enough to allow existing successful private sites, such as Inward Quest, to continue for a period of time.

Unfortunately, I have now received notice that this site will be terminated on August 1. It was originally going to be early next week but I have managed to obtain a short extension.

I have decided to move the site to the "open source" platform called OSQA. A number of other existing Stack Exchange 1.0 sites, that have been previously terminated, have already migrated there successfully.

Looking at the existing OSQA sites, it looks like there may be some upcoming CSS styling issues in trying to mimic the Stack Exchange "look and feel".

And given the short timescales involved and the fact that IQ is a fairly active community, the move may be a little tricky since there will be limited time for testing, checking and domain transfer.

So if you have any technical experience with OSQA already and are willing to help/advise on the site transfer, please could you make yourself known to me? Either email me privately at simon@PsiTek.net or comment/answer below.

UPDATE

Further news and questions/answers about the upcoming move will be posted on the new IQ Meta forum.

I suggest you sign up there if you wish to keep up to date on what's happening.