Let's proceed with UnstuckPolitics.com at Proboards

It looks like you just need to copy the link then delete the "?itemid=5020150" part at the end, let's post and check.

So, this seems completely unopposed. If anyone else with admin wants to do that, fine. What will take longer here is getting this happening with simplicitus. I'll PM him.

Cool.

Anyone who has an opinion on this, please weigh in and anyone with admin, feel free to take a look.

Options are we manage DNS or Proboards does. I don't think proboards managing the DNS is as scary as it sounds. To do this we/simplicitus just change the name servers where ever he registered the domain to point here. That's pretty normal imo. It's what I've done to point domains from GoDaddy to Linode. You can change that at any time. It's not like you're giving proboards control of the domain. Why wouldn't we want to just update the name servers to ns.proboards.com etc for now and change it to ns1.linode.com or whatever later?

Here are the instructions, cut and pasted - probably won't show up right:

▼I have an existing domain name
To link your existing domain name to your ProBoards forum, we must first ensure that your domain name is set up properly. You can have ProBoards manage the domain (most users prefer this option), or you can manage the domain yourself.

▼I want ProBoards to manage my DNS (recommended)
In order for ProBoards to manage your domain name's DNS, you must update your domain name's nameservers to point to:
ns.proboards.com
ns2.proboards.com

You will need to update this setting with the company you registered your domain name with. Here are links to how-to guides from some of the popular domain name registrars:

GoDaddy - Change nameservers
Enom - Change nameservers
Tucows - Change nameservers
Network Solutions - Change nameservers

▼I want to manage my DNS
Option 1: CNAME (Preferred)
This option is ideal for customers that use a subdomain, e.g. "forum.example.com". Warning: If you use a root domain, e.g. "example.com", this option may not work for you unless your DNS provider supports CNAME Flattening or ALIAS records.

To use this option, set your CNAME or ALIAS record for your forum domain to:

customdomain.proboards.com.

(The dot at the end should be included, unless your DNS provider won't accept it)

Option 2: CNAME through Cloudflare
This option is ideal for customers that use a root domain, e.g. "example.com" or "www.example.com", when Option 1 is not available.

Sign up for an account on Cloudflare (free).
Once registered and logged in, click on the Add Site button.
Enter your domain name (e.g. "your-domain-name-here.com") when prompted, then continue.
Select the Free plan (no premium feature is required for this guide).
You should be taken to your DNS settings following your confirmation of your plan selection. Add a new CNAME record using the information in the below screenshot and click on the orange cloud to change it to a gray cloud. The CNAME should be pointed at customdomain.proboards.com exactly as typed in the screenshot below — it should NOT be pointed at your forum's URL.
Example of adding a CNAME record in Cloudflare
Once you've successfully added the CNAME it should appear in the list, with the same data as you entered above. Ensure that "Value" says "is an alias of customdomain.proboards.com".
Example showing added CNAME record in Cloudflare
Continue to the final step. You will be asked to change your domain's nameservers to point to Cloudflare. This must be done through your domain's control panel provided by your domain registrar. If you're unfamiliar with how to change your DNS settings consult your domain registrar's help articles or contact their support team.
Click on Continue. Your nameserver changes should propagate throughout the Internet over the course of the next several hours.

Once you have set up the DNS records, continue down below.

For what purpose though?  Just changing the name servers with the registrar accomplishes the same thing for free, no?  

There might be a few hours where people are not going to the same place?  Not sure if that's worth any extra complexity.

Forwarded the link. Seems to be working. unstuckpolitics.com

I clicked on https forwarding as another option. I think it said that could take 24 hrs.

My experience doing this as a sysad/unix admin/whatever is all with Linode and they have a UI for it which comes with the hosting service.  I would guess Digital Ocean and the other competitors have that as well.  I set up phpbb on my Linode server with a custom domain and it was no problem.  There is some resistance to using Amazon to consider here as well, so if there's not really a good reason for it, we probably won't use it.

Ok, this works, but I think we probably still want to change the name servers (don't do it yet) because then people will stick on unstuckpolitics.com when they get here that way. The objective here is to transition to where exiledpolitics fades away and is seamlessly supplanted by unstuckpolitics.com for everyone - not just the people paying attention to announcements.

Or we could just change the nameservers once and leave notices all over exiledpolitics to go to unstuck and figure that's enough.

I think it's useful to start using unstuckpolitics.com immediately, even if you don't move to a new site right away. Maybe it's marginal but you get bookmarks, search engines learn about the domain, etc. If you can get everyone in the habit of using that domain then you will have less confusion when/if the site moves. It gives you time to try to coerce people into using the correct domain too, although I suppose if you do move this board will still exist and can have messages plastered everywhere to go to the new site, so maybe it's not that urgent.

But it's also just symbolic, IMO. It feels good to have your own domain. That might just be me.

Yes, they will permit it.  The long post I made a few up there is copy/paste from the freeforums/proboards page on setting that up.  It won't work straight off though.  The proboards settings have to be changed (and paid for, $13 I think) first, so hold off on that.

I'm happy to complete the steps zikzak proposes in his msg to me to share domain management access. The message noted that: "The first thing I'd like to do is move the domain to a different registrar, which will make it a lot easier for us to have a couple required email addresses for the new forum. I'd also set up a temporary subdomain for us to work on for the move, and then of course the final changes when the move happens. The registrar I'd like to move to is gandi.net. They've been around for a very long time and have an impeccable reputation among the nerds and EFF types."

I frankly don't see any need to change registrars away from google, but you seem more into the topic and I may be missing something. I also don't mind having a "co-manager". I'll wait until sometime tomorrow to implement, pending any other comments, but you are a long standing poster and I see no issues.