Who is moderating now?

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

Apologies for this delicate question, but who is moderating this forum now that JW is gone?  If I need to report AI spam, is there anyone to report to?  Does one of us need to step up, and, if so, how can we do that and also respect JW's family and successors who are in mourning?

[inspire]

Unknown answer, I hope the forum is in good hands. This forum is with a very good engine (in my opinion).

[Jim Feeley]

Like TDSG, I don't want to get ahead of people's mourning, but I can't tell if the staff page is up to date: https://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/staff/

 

And more directly, I'm willing to help. I've run fairly large email lists and forums for decades now. Though currently, I'm only moderating one, doculink.org. Not trying to brag, but mainly I've learned to keep a light hand on discussions and deal with various technical snafus.

 

I don't want to cut in line, but if I can help keep this great community resource going, I'm willing to do that.   

[Olle Sjostrom]

Same, Jim. I also live overseas so that way you'd have 24h surveillance, if needed. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I would love to see both of you help out.  I also have some limited capacity (I generally read every post on the site).  I could help, but not lead.

 

But ... from the silence, I worry that JW was the only person with keys to the site, and we may need to cross our fingers that the estate process will make it possible to keep the site going.

[DanieldH]

Has Jeff designated a successor for the website in his estate? Is there an administrator account with a password known to the person managing his estate? Is this person aware of the existence of this forum or relevance to its users? Is anyone here in contact to his children, or whoever is managing his estate?

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

5 minutes ago, DanieldH said:

Has Jeff designated a successor for the website in his estate? Is there an administrator account with a password known to the person managing his estate? Is this person aware of the existence of this forum or relevance to its users? Is anyone here in contact to his children, or whoever is managing his estate?

This is the delicate issue I was raising.  We don't know.  And if there is someone designated, they don't seem to be here.

I suggest we might want to send our condolences to the family.  Perhaps we can recruit martijn76, who posted the obituary and presumably knows where it came from.  Or surely someone on this site has had personal contact and would know how to contact the family.  The condolences could include a polite inquiry that lets them know we are wondering what will happen to us.

[Olle Sjostrom]

At the end of the site it says (technical assist by Laurence B. Abrams)
So maybe that's a clue. Never seen anyone with that name posting on here though..

[DanieldH]

I wrote @Laurence respectively @Laurence Abrams a message into the contact form at http://www.abramsnet.com

[Rory Reshovsky]

I had the same thought, and as a precaution, I've scraped and archived the entire site, so in the worst case scenario, I can host a mirror to keep the decades of information and discussion available. Hopefully there is a succession plan and the site can continue operating as-is, but I have enough data saved that I should be able to rebuild the entire database if needed.

[DanieldH]

As long as @Laurence or someone on his (or @Jeff Wexlers ) behalf does not make an appearance here and claim to have taken all necessary steps to keep the ship floating, my expectation is, that this site will just stop working at some point in the future without warning. Be it because some SSL certificate is running out or Jeffs contract with the web- or domainhoster is canceled by Jeffs estate management. 

[Jim Feeley]

The domain is registered through May 2027. No idea about the SSL certificate.

 

I vote we wait until the beginning of January (ie- after the holidays) and select one of us to reach out to Jeff's family/estate, etc. Mainly so they're not bombarded with well-meaning questions from all of us.

 

I could give it a go. But I in real life, I was only a casual friends with Jeff. Always enjoyed each other's company, but others here knew him much better than I. So I will gladly defer to someone like that (and then help however's appropriate).

[Paul F]

Yes, that is the way to go. One person to step forward as the contact to the family. The person contacting the family does not need to be the person that will manage the forum. Given your experience with forums, you look to be the best candidate to run it. 

 

It seems the forum software is quite good as the spam is almost non-existent. Hopefully, the fees to run it are low. I know it cost me virtually nothing to run one I set up. If not, I'm sure we can all kick in a few bucks to pay any software subscription and server fees. 

 

 

[Paul F]

Then again, it may all be taken care of and it just hasn't come to our attention yet. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

My guess is the hosting / software license will run out before the domain or the SSL cert.

The forum software is Invision Community, which starts at $89/mo & goes up from there, and I'd imagine as soon as payments stop flowing we'll lose the site.

It might be worth our while reaching out to Invision to let them know about the situation and see if they'll save the site long enough for us to find new management.

[Bouke]

16 minutes ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

It might be worth our while reaching out to Invision to let them know about the situation and see if they'll save the site long enough for us to find new management.

Since there seems to be no news from Laurence, I propose you do it, and asap.
 
If it's about money, just shout and I guess it takes half a day and the site is funded for at least a year to continue.

 

 

[Rory Reshovsky]

On 12/19/2025 at 6:14 AM, DanieldH said:

I wrote @Laurence respectively @Laurence Abrams a message into the contact form at http://www.abramsnet.com

Just to clarify, did you send his two profiles DMs on the forum and use his website contact form, or just the latter?

 

I don’t want to overwhelm him with messages, but I’m working on finding contact info for Laurence that may be more up-to-date. 

[DanieldH]

4 hours ago, Rory Reshovsky said:

Just to clarify, did you send his two profiles DMs on the forum and use his website contact form, or just the latter?

 

I don’t want to overwhelm him with messages, but I’m working on finding contact info for Laurence that may be more up-to-date. 

I did not send any direct messages to these accounts within this forum, however, obviously I technically mentioned them. Otherwise, I just did what I reported. I received an automatic confirmation of reception, nothing more. So, if whoever believes there is a chance to "wake up" Laurence by sending a DM, please do so (, and if appropriate,) report here publicly, so others won't spam his hopefully forwarded email account. 

[Paul F]

Anyone who knows Jeff or feels they are comfortable contacting the family, please say so. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I just sent this to Invision, the company the makes the software that the forum runs on:  

 

Quote

Hello,

I'm a user of a website called JW Sound (https://jwsoundgroup.net), which runs on Invision's software.

 

Recently, the proprietor of the site (Jeff Wexler) passed away, and, as users, we are concerned that the site will go offline and the contents will be lost. We have tried to contact the site's listed administration, and have been unable to get a response, so we believe we are waiting for, and are at the mercy of the proprietor's family and the executor of his estate.  We are concerned that the site's hosting and Invision subscription will lapse before the executor is able to properly arrange for a successor.

 

With that context in mind, and noting that I am not the owner of the account, nor do I represent his estate, would it be possible to find out how long the site is currently paid for, and, if it is at risk of lapsing soon, could I offer to pay the subscription fee to keep it in operation until such time that a proper successor is arranged?

In addition, would you be able to confirm whether the site is hosted by Invision (and thus whether the subscription covers hosting), or if I need to find the site's webhost as well.

I understand if neither of these things are possible. I hope you will consider the circumstances, and the fact that I am merely offering to pay to keep the existing account online. I am not asking for access to the account itself, just trying to make sure it can be kept in good standing.

 

Thank you!

 

Devon Cooke
The Documentary Sound Guy
and a concerned JW Sound Group user.

 

Based on a reverse DNS lookup, we probably also have to make sure the hosting is paid for.  The site's IP address is assigned by Rogers Communications (major Canadian telecom), which may be the host itself, or may also be reverse proxying the site for DDoS protection or as a CDN.  I think it's pretty unlikely that the site is hosted by Invision; I doubt they would contract hosting to a Canadian firm, but who knows...  I'd appreciate some technical help digging further on this, as I'm close to the limit of my knowledge in terms of how to trace ownership publicly.

[inspire]

We respect the situation and the people involved. At the same time, this forum clearly matters to many of us, and if there is a way to help it continue in the future, I believe the community would be willing to support that.

[borjam]

This is what I can dig:

 

The jwsoundgroup.net domain has been on Cloudflare since 2011.

 

The website is on the same IP address (192.211.125[.]163) since 2020-02-25. Previously it was on Cloudflare IP addresses.

 

That Canadian IP address, 192.211.125[.]163 belonging to Rogers, (CA) seems to be a hosting company. 

 

The default host name is pilot.smallvillages.com. I am trying to find contact information but they only show a default web page suggesting to contact abuse(at)smallvillages[.]com.

 

His son seems to be active on Vimeo, I see a video clip uploaded 4 months ago. 

Maybe someone can contact him through Vimeo? I would but I am a perfect nobody in this field, I am sure it will be easier if someone who mabye his son has met (or has heard of) can do it.

 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I wish I had better info about the hosting.  Rogers is the biggest telecom in Canada, so I'm sure they do hosting somewhere, but it won't be easy to identify who to talk to I think.

I'll try and have the same conversation about paying the account if I can find the right department.

If I understand correctly, the only thing with Cloudflare is the domain registration?  Which someone else said was good into 2027, so I'm not going to worry about that part.

 

[ronmac]

I did a “Whois” lookup on domain name. Link: https://www.whois.com/whois/jwsound.com

 

Seems to offer info not listed in this thread.

[Paul F]

I have Jeff's home contact information. I'm discussing contacting Jeff's home with another member privately. Not you Rory.