For Hidden Answers:

I pretended to care about the site for months. I have neglected to upgrade the Question2Answer software that runs the site; I have not focused on features that users and moderators want; I have not been willing to babysit the Spanish and Portuguese versions of HA. I know that there are a lot of people who appreciate HA's existence, who appreciate a place that is relatively free of censorship and available for asking and discussing any questions anonymously, who dedicate their own time in moderating the site and contributing their own knowledge. However, I feel far removed from whatever community may exist on HA, I feel unqualified to run such a community, and frankly I have little interest in heading such a website in the first place.

I like open communication platforms, but I'd rather focus on federated platforms such as Matrix, XMPP, fediverse (ActivityPub, Mastodon, Pleroma, GNU social, however you may have heard of it), and even NNTP/Usenet. Platforms that are resilient to server takedowns, to shitty admins, to censorship. With Hidden Answers, there has always been a single point of failure: me and the moderators. If we decide to kill the site, it's gone. And this is the perfect example of that, the fact that I shut down this website for a while -- possibly forever, but optimistically I want to at least update the software, test it with the HA database, and give the site to a trustworthy host, thus exchanging it from my hands to someone else's.

Aside from my lack of interest, I have been worried about the legality of hosting a service such as Hidden Answers. I want to focus my efforts toward clearnet, going forward, even as far as to start a nonprofit organisation by getting a lawyer and filing all the paperwork for that. It's a project I wanted to focus my full attention on for a while, and stuff like HA has been distracting me from it. So, if HA does come back up, I want it to be in the hands of an administrator who understands and can handle running a site such as this.

I'm sorry I had to announce this news in such a way. I was hoping to transparently get the site ready for a move, instead of shutting it down entirely. But life happened, I'm running on fumes, and I need to cut some of my responsibilities and have time to myself. I need to focus on my job, my hobbies, my projects.

You can follow my blog for updates on my own projects: https://wowana.me/blog/ or http://opalwxdqzyuwo2vbipp3facjuuztfjwauai7fghh2ggbcl7enuvfg6yd.onion/blog/

I plan to set up an NNTP server, open to anybody, so once it is configured, I will announce it on my blog and people will be able to use it. For people who simply want an uncensored forum for discussion, feel free to keep on top of that development.

The Hidden Answers MUC is still on XMPP, if you want to regroup there and chat with others: xmpp:answers@muc.volatile.bz?join