I’m kinda torn on this.
On one hand I really love what this place has become and I love seeing all the responses here as I can tell a lot of you feel the same way. It’s been nice to get my hosting fill here without all the bants and drama associated with other dark corners of the internet. And even when differing opinions arise, it very very rarely gets to a point where admin action is needed – which is a nice change as admining at another place could be considered more akin to babysitting, while here it’s more of a “hey how you doing, how can we make your experience better” type of arrangement. Better for everyone involved, I think.
On the other hand, I think the name of the community (and to a lesser extent the forum software) have stunted our growth a bit. HostBalls doesn’t have a ton of name recognition and those that do recognize it is really only a byproduct of seeing it mentioned in other hosting forums. LowEndTalk, LowEndSpirit, WebHostingTalk, hell even VPSBoard all have names that an outsider would see and somewhat know what the community is all about. Someone not familiar with HB will take a look at the name and not know if they’re strolling into a porn hosting palace, a biggest balls competition, or a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit.
I don’t want to lose all of our past history, discussions, tips, jabs, and Taylor Swift adorations, so if we did move forum software, I’d only want to do it if we can bring our old content. We have enough smart people here that a few of us could probably write up some quick and dirty scripts to move most of the content over. If we did move forum software, I assure you it won’t be a LET clone, because seriously… fuck Vanilla. NodeBB is solid and I’ve used it in the past. But perhaps keeping Discourse is the right move since we’re nice and settled here, but at the same time, I’d rather the forum software not cripple us from being able to acclimate new members into the community. Whether NodeBB would alleviate the concerns people have with Discourse, I’m not sure. I’ll have to think more about that.
Anyways, I think a full rebranding (at least name-wise) is in order and will only help us grow and continue to be awesome. And by doing that, HostBalls certainly won’t die. HostBalls will live on as long as we all call this place home. We didn’t come here for the name anyways (well… maybe some of you did 
), we came here for the people, the atmosphere, and the content that interest us. I think a name change will make us more marketable and be able to attract new community members. “HostedTalk” is a step in the right direction. I’m not 100% sold on it yet, but we certainly welcome any recommendations. And if we don’t move forward with a software change, then maybe some other changes could be made – more competitions, polls, code reviews, etc.