Important Announcementt: End of the show...

[Starfox]

Hi all,

This is an important post, possibly the most important regarding The Foxhole, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

I come forward to announce that Starfoxweb.com and all of its affiliated assets -- including The Foxhole, of course -- will definitely cease to operate on December 6 2025 (12/6/2025). The date was not chosen at random. It's simply, for technical reasons, how things have to be.

Running The Foxhole has been for me quite an adventure with many ups and downs that spanned almost 20 years (it would have been 20 years next February). Starfoxweb.com itself has been in existence for more than 21 years.

The Foxhole was created in January 2006 and started its full operations in February 2006. It was created following the sudden and unexplained demise of another site, Hangar 16 which back then was dedicated to everything Half-Life, especially mods. The Foxhole was meant at first as a temporary measure to mitigate the loss of Hangar 16, so people could regroup around something. As you can say as we're nearing its 20th year of operation, that "temporary" got a vast prolongation.

The only reason of this post is that The Foxhole doesn't vanish as the Hangar did, without any explanation or forward notice whatsoever.

Operating a personal site over 20 years is not a small thing. During this time countless other sites came and went because this is more or less the nature of the web. Unless it is supported financially, a site is generally not meant to stay long. The sites you see today that were already there 20 years ago have huge financial backup, for the most part -- huge enough to even pay their staff.

I could tell you that the financial aspect is the reason why The Foxhole will disappear but it would be a lie, even though the cost of running the site was multiplied by 5+ since 2004.

I could tell you that it's because everyone has moved to social media and that forums like ours have become a thing of the past. Well, it would certainly be a viable reason as the number of forums has been declining over the years across the board with the ascent of a new generation more attuned to Facebook, X, Youtube and others... (I have nothing against those BTW, all of them have pros and cons, and all of them will cease to exist at some point, at least as they are now). Truth is though, if I've had the incentive to move The Foxhole to being "social", I had the tools for that, it's even an option I was working on in my spare time. So "irrelevance" or being "out of date" is not a reason either.

Nope, the real reason is that life is life and sometimes life dictates us what to do without giving us an option to do otherwise. You'll have to content yourself with that piece of knowledge because further explanations won't be given.

In 20 years I've cross "virtual" paths with many people, some I remember fondly, some I'd prefer to forget and a few that are still with me today (you know who you are). The list is too long to give here. Still some special mentions deserves to be given when it comes to The Foxhole.

Starting with bobs who left us a long time ago for what I hope were better skies. He was a B17 then B29 pilot during WW2 and when I met him for the first time he was... 80 and still gaming. I helped him through a French acquaintance of mine (specialist in WW2 bombers) to renew contact with the crew of the B29 he piloted during the war -- with for only information the serial number of his plane. It was great to allow him this closure. And without him The Foxhole wouldn't be The Foxhole because he is the one who came with that name. So RIP wherever you are bobs. I always have a thought for you.

Then there are the common culprits, the guys who remained with me to this very day, whether it was through clear weather or tempest, through all these years: Silver Sorrow and Doc_Brown. Well guys, you were guides of sort, to help me manage my sanity (even though Silver tried his best to bring it down more than once ).

Those are the only people I will care to mention. As I said, the full list would be too long.

But well, that's it for this post. You still have several months if you want to, I dunno, print some messages from the forum (including the archives) to frame or laminate so you can keep them preciously. Don't wait until the last minute though, because on December 6, POOF, it will all be gone. If there's one very simple thing on the web, it's to make a website disappear.

I wish you all a prosperous future (granted, the current situation worldwide doesn't point to a particularly bright one but you do what you can with what you have), good gaming and above all... Have fun, because what is life without fun?

Starfox
The Foxhole administrator (still).