The Future of Tilt Forums

General
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In March of 2015 I announced the launch of Tilt Forums, with no real intentions other than offering a safer and more welcoming place to discuss pinball. In the 11 years since, much has changed, both in the world and in our community. One of the bigger things is the migration of discussion about pinball, particularly competitive pinball, from online forums to chat applications like Discord or Slack. As this shift happened, traffic and discussion here has slowed, to the point where it is now almost non-existent. Most posts are announcements of some sort, and the only major activity happens in the wiki rulesheets. In the meantime, the (small but not non-existent) costs to host this forum have not done anything but rise.

Therefore I have made the decision to shut down Tilt Forums, effective on September 1 of 2026. So here is what will happen, and what it means for you.

Closing

On 9/1 I will take down the forum software, and in its place put up a static archive of the site. This will ensure that the discussions and information here live on going forward. This archive will also be made available for download in HTML, Markdown, and JSON formats (the latter of which will include a bunch of metadata for each post as well.) Mine the data, train your models. This is a resource that belongs to the community, and I want it to continue to be so.

Your data

At anytime from now until the closing date, you can download an archive of your user data. This will include all your posts and DMs. If you wish to have this archive, here is how you do it.

  • Go to your avatar in the top right and click it.
  • In the icon list on the right side of the menu, go down to the bottom icon of a person and click it.
  • In the menu on the left click Preferences
  • Scroll down to the bottom under Export Your Data and click the “Request archive” button.
  • You will receive a DM with a link to your download when your archive is ready

The archive will be a zip download which contains a CSV file that you can open in Excel or import into any other spreadsheet / database software. Each row will represent a post you have made or a private message you have sent. Again, this will be available to everyone until 9/1.

Rulesheets

When I first started thinking about shutting down Tilt Forums, the one thing that gave me pause was the rulesheets. These are the only thing that have really remained active over time, and I do believe they provide real value to the community. So I will be migrating the rulesheets to a Github Pages website, where they will be community-editable by anyone with a Github account. For those who are unfamiliar with Github, it is usually used for maintaining code however it works great for pretty much any text format. The rulesheets will be stored as Markdown (which Discourse was using anyways) and the entire collection will be accessible for download by anyone who wishes. I’ll have more on this as the date gets closer, but the main message is that this valuable community resource and the contributions of those who have built them will not be lost.

Thank you all for your participation and support these last 11 years. I am glad I was able to provide something the community found helpful for as long as it did.

Best

Greg

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Thanks for the service you provided, Greg. And your willingness to preserve the rulesheets/archives.

I’ve enjoyed the discussion and forum you created for us here.

And the wiki rulesheets are both an invaluable resource, as well as fun to contribute to.

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Thanks for everything, Greg. This was just the tool and forum we needed when we needed it. I’ll miss it, but hopefully still see you.

Bob / BMU

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Thank you Greg. This forum has meant a lot to me over the years. The decision makes complete sense, and you are handling in a thoughtful way.

The other very active thing is the one streaming tech thread, which I only lerk on, but I will need to find where those discussions move. Anyone have an existing or new discord that becomes the defacto place

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Greg- Thanks for creating and maintaining Tiltforums. Incredible service to the community and one I’d check often for rules and non toxic information.

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Thank you for this very useful place. Aside from a few posts and lurking in various discussions, I very much enjoyed being able to read and refer others to the rulesheets built by the community here.
Thank you also for finding a way for these to exist in a living format that will benefit players into the future, and the thoughtful way you’ve handled user data portability.

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Thank you Greg

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Oh the sadness. My last resort. Thanks for running the site and preserving the content. Hosting the rulesheets on GitHub Pages is a great idea for a great price. Hopefully it will find roots and grow there.

If you find a place. Let us know! :pray:

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I’m actually pretty surprised there isn’t already a Discord dedicated to the streamers and content creators in the pinball community.

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There’s the “Pinball Media & Creators” Discord server. @colinize runs it.

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I have issues identifying as either media or creator. :man_shrugging: We need an “Unhinged Pinball Streamers” Discord. No shill and zero structure, but I mostly shriek at Discord to be fair.

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I mean, they didn’t kick me out even after I admitted I am neither the former or the latter. Shrieking at Discord is fair though :heart:

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Sad news, but completely understandable.

Thanks for making this such a fantastic resource for discussing competitive pinball. I wish more people were still here - I vastly prefer this format for discovering and discussing tips and strategies. In particular thanks to all those that contributed to the deep cuts thread which has been a particular favourite.

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The discords I have seen stream tech talk are rayday and The Pinball Community, I don’t really follow the conversation on TPC very closely (I have too many discords that I am on, and I waste too much time on the ones I do engage with).