Dear Valued Users,
It's with a heavy heart that we announce the permanent closure of StepTalk.org on August 31st, 2025.
This decision wasn't an easy one. For over twenty years, StepTalk has been a source of support for stepparents around the world! However, over the years, the costs associated with maintaining and upgrading the site to remain secure, meet current standards and maintain availability have become unsustainable.
We are incredibly grateful for your support, contributions and the community you've helped us build. Your engagement has made StepTalk.org a special place and we cherish the memories and connections made here.
We would especially like to thank Aniki for volunteering to be a moderator and for caring so much.
Thank you for being a part of our journey and we wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Dawn and The StepTalk Team
Comments
good idea. You can bookmark a
good idea. You can bookmark a posting... or someones blog but it's hard to see what conversations you have posted on recently.
agreed, bookmarks don't work
agreed, bookmarks don't work the same
We want to install something
We want to install something to help with that. Exactly, what would you like it to do? Do you want to be able to track or have recent posts listed again? I need to figure something out.
There were two problems with the tracking feature we had. One, it used a ton of resources on the site and two, people could use it to track and attack others. Both of those facts are not good.
Thanks,
Dawn
Tracking recent posts on
Tracking recent posts on threads/blogs we've posted on, as it was before, would be great.
I haven't been able to keep up much. Bookmarking is fine for reading, but not for keeping up with new posts. Everything is getting lost, and I don't even feel it's worth it to post much of a blog if it's just going to be buried and forgotten by anyone who takes the time to reply.
You can still delete comments
You can still delete comments from your own blog. Instead of responding, you can delete. If problems continue, you copy the material and send it to me.
Dawn
I agree. There are several
I agree. There are several people on here that I would like to ignore.
I have actually been a member for about a year under a different name, but there were *certain people* who literally would post after EVERYTHING I said because they wanted to argue all the damn time.
I think there are about 4 people on this site who just LOVE being contrary, and if I could ignore them, then I'd probably have a nicer time here.
I understand the challenges
I understand the challenges but for those of us who are trying to participate by popping in during the work day both site wide recent activity and my recent activity tracking would be nice.
I think letting the OP eject vitriolic attackers from the thread may help with the attack folks.
Personally I welcome respectful debate from all perspectives but when it bets vitriolic I bail on the thread.
Thanks for your work in managing the site.
Regards,
Rags
general "recent posts", and
general "recent posts", and "new replies to threads I have posted in", would do it.
I haven't seen a forum without those features in a long time, until I came here.
I think that to get the
I think that to get the features we really want, the entire site might have to be moved to a different forum software.
My favorite forum EVER allows ignoring users, tracking a user's posts, tracking a user's posts within a thread, noting which post is being replied to and the replies, thread "watching" most recent activity and replies to YOU.
Of course, this is a home-grown forum and not available commercially. (if anybody is into crafts, the site is Ravelry) I know that the developer is on the site tweaking and running down bugs every day - it's his full time job. And even with over a million members, the site only supports three or four employees.
Out of the commercial forums I have seen, the most common format seems to be MyBB or phpBB - their sites claims it's free and open-source, but I suspect that switching over would take a LOT of time and energy, and I have NO idea what kind of toll it takes on system resources.
I'd like to close by telling Dawn and Admin that I appreciate all of the time, energy, and money they have invested in STalk.
I like to see the recent
I like to see the recent posts, & I really liked being able to track the posts that I participated in. When I participate in a certain post, I like being able to track the new comments that have been added.
I agree that bookmarking is more helpful than nothing, but it doesn't indicated whether or not new comments have been added. The only way to know is to keep track of the time of the last comment made & when it changes, scroll through the entire thread to find it. It just takes too much time.
Thanks for the work you (& your help) put into the site.