The CFL Forum has died

Stats Junkie · December 13, 2025, 05:48:31 PM

The official CFL forums have died. Sometime in the past 2 days the CFL forums went offline. The moderating team was given a couple of hours notice before the site went dark.

This news is somewhat relevant to this forum. A number of years ago, (former) CFL tech guy Sully started posting here. He talked about plans to upgrade this site and many of us were excited to see what the result would be.

At the same time, Sully was working on upgrades to the CFL forums. When those changes were implemented we saw what his solution was. For a few days, this forum (the Extra Point) was re-directed to the Blue Bombers sub-forum of the CFL forums. That change was short lived because it required existing posters to re-register and all existing posts were no longer accessible.

The functionality of the CFL forums was very good, better than what we currently have here IMHO. That is the only positive comment I can make about those forums.

It seems that we dodged a bullet as this forum would have been scuttled along with the CFL forums.

Tecno · December 13, 2025, 05:57:17 PM

Quote from: Stats Junkie on December 13, 2025, 05:48:31 PMThe functionality of the CFL forums was very good, better than what we currently have here IMHO. That is the only positive comment I can make about those forums.

I've always liked this forum. Not great on phones, but a very nice arrangement on PCs. It's geared towards longer, more thoughtful posts as you can get more text per screen line. Contrast with Riderfans, where the format is really only used for one-liners or a paragraph. Nothing is discussed in depth.

Tecno · December 13, 2025, 05:58:24 PM

Quote from: Stats Junkie on December 13, 2025, 05:48:31 PMIt seems that we dodged a bullet as this forum would have been scuttled along with the CFL forums.

This doesn't follow from your comments. I think you missed a step when describing what happened?

Why would any of this CFL-site stuff scuttle the BB forum?

Tecno · December 13, 2025, 06:00:19 PM

Always sad to see another forum go. Did you or any mods get any word on plans for a different CFL forum in the future?

On the bright side, most teams have their own separate forums already. When I used to go forum hunting I think I only found 1 or 2 teams that didn't?

Tinfoil time: CFL shut down their own forum to subdue the Johnston/changes complaints...

Throw Long Bannatyne · December 13, 2025, 06:13:17 PM

Quote from: Tecno on December 13, 2025, 06:00:19 PMAlways sad to see another forum go. Did you or any mods get any word on plans for a different CFL forum in the future?

On the bright side, most teams have their own separate forums already. When I used to go forum hunting I think I only found 1 or 2 teams that didn't?

Tinfoil time: CFL shut down their own forum to subdue the Johnston/changes complaints...

There was some talk of an upgraded website, not sure if that was CFL.ca or something else.

markf · December 13, 2025, 07:33:08 PM

Another step in increasing fan interest.

gobombersgo · December 13, 2025, 08:07:06 PM

Quote from: markf on December 13, 2025, 07:33:08 PMAnother step in increasing fan interest.

Maybe its just the evolution of fan interaction.

How many active posters did CFL.ca have compared to 10 or 15 years ago?

Posters might rather use Facebook or Reddit or yell out their car window.

Jesse · December 13, 2025, 09:05:46 PM

Yikes. Hopefully not a sign that our forum will go down too.

There's not too many of use but what else would I do with my time? Talk to my wife and kids?

markf · December 14, 2025, 01:48:00 PM

Post at Reddit CFL

"For anyone who doesn't know, the official CFL Forums were shut down abruptly two days ago with only a few hours' notice from the league.

I was the forum administrator over the past year, and our volunteer mod team did everything we could to warn users in the limited time we had. Unfortunately, with such short notice, many longtime members likely never saw the announcement before the forums went offline.

The CFL pushed our members to continue discussions here on r/CFL, which is a great space and already home to a lot of strong CFL conversation. Many of us are regulars here already and will continue to be.

Some former forum members preferred long-form, team-based discussion and didn't regularly use Reddit, so a new fan-run forum has been set up to keep those conversations going;

The Canadian Football Fan Forum - https://discourse.cfl.forum/"

Not what I would hope for from the League office towards its most hard core fans.

Stats Junkie · December 14, 2025, 04:17:10 PM

Quote from: Tecno on December 13, 2025, 05:58:24 PMWhy would any of this CFL-site stuff scuttle the BB forum?

As I mentioned in my previous post, this forum (Extra Point) was re-directed to the Blue Bombers sub-forum on the CFL site for a short time. If that was the long term solution then we would have lost this forum with the CFL forums shut down.

Quote from: Tecno on December 13, 2025, 06:00:19 PMAlways sad to see another forum go. Did you or any mods get any word on plans for a different CFL forum in the future?

I only noticed that the CFL forums had shut down because of a post on social media (Bluesky). I went looking and found a similar post to this (possibly from same person):

Quote from: markf on December 14, 2025, 01:48:00 PMPost at Reddit CFL

"For anyone who doesn't know, the official CFL Forums were shut down abruptly two days ago with only a few hours' notice from the league.

I was the forum administrator over the past year, and our volunteer mod team did everything we could to warn users in the limited time we had. Unfortunately, with such short notice, many longtime members likely never saw the announcement before the forums went offline.

The CFL pushed our members to continue discussions here on r/CFL, which is a great space and already home to a lot of strong CFL conversation. Many of us are regulars here already and will continue to be.

Some former forum members preferred long-form, team-based discussion and didn't regularly use Reddit, so a new fan-run forum has been set up to keep those conversations going;

The Canadian Football Fan Forum - https://discourse.cfl.forum/"

Quote from: gobombersgo on December 13, 2025, 08:07:06 PMHow many active posters did CFL.ca have compared to 10 or 15 years ago?

15 years ago, the CFL forums were a great place to talk CFL. The sub-forums for BC, Hamilton, Montreal (French) & Saskatchewan were the official team forums with links on the team websites. Each of those sub-forums had its own moderator team.

10 years ago, those same forums had lost the luster as the CFL mod team did everything they could to alienate new posters (and at times existing posters). Only the Hamilton sub-forum remained as an official team forum.

The traffic on the CFL forums had increased up until about a year ago when the link to the forums was removed from cfl.ca. Unfortunately, the newer generation of posters consisted of a lot of Americans who liked the CFL because it was different but cherry picked the rules they liked and didn't like. There were also a number of Canadian posters who seemed to like everything about the CFL except the rules, the commissioner, the website, stats, etc.

Tecno · December 14, 2025, 08:32:10 PM

Quote from: Jesse on December 13, 2025, 09:05:46 PMThere's not too many of use but what else would I do with my time? Talk to my wife and kids?

Quote from: Jesse on December 13, 2025, 09:05:46 PMMy wife is amazing!

peg_city · December 14, 2025, 09:17:06 PM

Most forums (of any kind) have moved Reddit. Download the Reddit app, create an account and go wild.

The forum structure isn't great, but it's still good.

Jesse · December 14, 2025, 09:27:45 PM

Reddit just isn't the same.

Throw Long Bannatyne · December 14, 2025, 09:59:27 PM

Quote from: peg_city on December 14, 2025, 09:17:06 PMMost forums (of any kind) have moved Reddit. Download the Reddit app, create an account and go wild.

The forum structure isn't great, but it's still good.

Check that at the door, super easy to be banned for comments monitored by non-human bots that have no sense of humour.

DM83 · December 14, 2025, 10:26:41 PM

This is a great forum. Except geeks that use obscure abbreviations. I may be clueless, but the two universities have granted me Three degrees. I try and figure abbreviations out, but some only the guy who wrote it knows.

I check in here for Bomber updates. News that are posters gather from practice human interest stories. I.e How Strev. Came up and functionally made the team, became a folk hero, and plays with heart.

This forum posts great info. Worth reading.