Transfer Of Material From PSF

The bad thing is that PSF has been erased, if it was still under maintainance every user could have exported his data from the pro-boards network with a click at the very bottom-right of this page on the "account settings" (or here: www.proboards.com/account/settings) then "export data" and select PSF. After a while, I received an email with a link to download my data. I did it (luckily this morning when PSF was still there) there is a folder containing csv files with everything you did on PSF (posts, likes and so on).
Of course, it's a csv.. that means text is not properly formatted but you can fix it with some text editors.

I wanted so much to help with these tips... but PSF is gone.

Nah, I went over to the 'archived' Pet Sounds board today looking for a lot of reference materials (mostly magazine/paper articles/reviews that Steve Mayo posted) and they weren't there. The last archived update was around April/May 2018. The stuff I was looking for was posted within the last 6 months. I took a lot of stuff off the Pet Sounds board last night before it was taken down, but I shoulda taken a lot more when I had the chance. Not all of Petsite's stuff is there either.

OK, cool. Then I'll move Mayo's stuff over and maybe Petsite's material if I have time.

What did "PSF" stand for and what was it exactly?
I can tell that it was obviously a predecessor of sorts to this forum.
Any more details?
Why is it gone?

Also, why are there so many "Departed" members here? Am I correct in assuming they are merely no longer members, as opposed to being dead?

Edit: I see Mikie got there first. If my post gets deleted as a result, so be it. 

The Pet Sounds Forum (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I veer off course here) was called into being when things got unpleasant at the Smiley Smile Message Board and a large number of dissatisfied members moved out, or were kicked out.

PSF thrived for at least three years until its owner inexplicably erased it, deleting thousands of often invaluable posts in the process. It was then resurrected (in the winter of 2018) under new management and with a new name, Endless Harmony.

Later still, a number of its members left to begin a splinter forum (Beach Boys Today!), which stabilized after a rocky start and has since remained on good terms with this one. Indeed, some EH members post there too.

The "Departed" members are hopefully all still alive, although there is generally no way of telling. The fact that there seem to be so many is that at least one of them was very prolific -- 560 posts! Others have left (occasionally more than once!) and then rejoined with a new account, myself included. 

Well, that's about the long and the short of it.    

It's kind of funny that a website called 'Smiley Smile' would get "unpleasant" and have members "kicked out". I mean, it was obviously a site where people talked about their musical tastes, basically, so it's all subjective.
I've been online since 1992, 32 years, and I've been on my share of forums and have gotten banned from probably more than my share, but oddly, I've rarely if ever been banned for talking about the main subject matter of a site. It's always been the off-topic discussion that get me.
Most of my online activities have revolved around gaming, both computer and "analog" (board games, and wargaming in particular).

Again, "splinter groups", and "remained on good terms" are funny in the context of musical discussion. I hope you guys never get into a real-world "low intensity conflict" of car bombings and assassinations, otherwise I'm outta here. 
I'll have to check out that 'Beach Boys Today!' website.

I just think they wanted to do their own thing, as BB fans but also as fans of other musicians and genres.

It did mean that the non-BB section at EH took a tumble when they left. It's basically just me these days.