The end of Kboards

For the last few days, I've been editing & removing over 900 of my posts in Kboards Writer's Cafe.
A place (forum) I've recommended to other new & not so new authors from other forums over the last year or so, I loved that place, I've learnt so much there about so much to do with self-publishing, interacted with so many lovely authors from around the globe (sorry flat-earthers) & my books have improved so much regarding formatting thanks to the lovely community & its members.

I've been directed to so much help with making my own book covers & all things writerly, I've found & been involved with book promos, I've had laughs, lots of laughs, interesting discussions & just generally really felt like a part of the community & everything that goes along with that.

The end is near & I'm sad to see what it has become since being bought out by VerticalScope.
VerticalScope slipped in a new (hidden) TOS (terms of service).
The fact that it was hidden meant that none of us agreed to it, we wouldn't even know about it now if an eagle-eyed forum member hadn't found it & alerted the rest of us to it. 

The resulting discussion has been going on for days with most of us wanting to leave but guess what? We're not allowed to, go figure!
We've been instructed to email VerticalScope in order to request an exit & our data to be purged, which I did 2 days ago.
With 1000s wanting to leave at once & VerticalScope not wanting that to happen, there's no telling how long it will take to actually leave.

This post is aimed at warning other authors thinking of joining there that you will be signing away your rights to everything, your name, your profile pic, your content, possibly even your privately held data.
I can't speak for the accuracy of this bit but people are reporting more email spam (since the forum was sold) than ever before with an email address that's only used for that forum.
These people believe that their details are being sold.

I asked on the forum if anybody had a blog post that I could copy/paste onto my page as I didn't think I could explain everything without leaving out any important info.

Julie pointed me to the following from her blog & it makes for very interesting reading if you're an author...

Tales From the Sith Witch  (Julie's blog).

Thank you Julie. 💖

Julie has also added a timeline of events that are important & that may be added to as more nefarious dealings present themselves. 

I've joined a new forum that's being set up by another Kboards member & a lot of my fellow authors are migrating there, so all is not lost but it's a sad day/week for Kboards & everyone that made it the place it was.
It will never be the same again.

Apparently, (from people doing Google searches) VerticalScope have a habit of buying out successful forums, running them into the ground but adding so many adverts that get them a far-reaching revenue as people still find the dead-ish forum from searches etc.

Kboards, you'll be missed by so many.