We really have been needing to move our forums for a long time to get rid of the inconvenient ads. The sudden shift to a new forum was partly expedited by communication with the owners of the free forums. They will not provide a backup of the old forums so that I could move them here. So, I felt better sooner than later in shifting over. The old boards will remain active for the current play-by-post games, but any new p-b-p games will start on these new boards. In addition, the old boards will remain available as an archive of old posts, but how long they are available is to some degree out of my control. I recommend that if there is anything there you want to have a permanent record of that you save it ASAP.
This new forum is a work in progress. Let us know in the suggestions area for features you want or changes, etc. My knowledge of managing forums is slight but I'll do the best I can!