It was built by the third part of the old pin triumvirate (Pinpics, Dizpins, and the Reference Center). It shared the Dizpins branding, but the hosting/coding were handled by a completely different individual (Ralph). When the site broke Bev (the old Pinpics moderator) and Docfish tried to contact him but no go. Anyway, it's dead and a reference center would have to be built anew.
But this all illustrates the biggest problem with these sites. For fun, I looked up my comments from when the last time Pinpics was sold. My issues at the time were A. Time in the hobby (which I believe Molly Anne has a longer history than the previous group did) B. All the pin world DRAMA C. The way this hobby chews people up and spits them out. Even DPF and PTDB are ultimately dependent on how involved two ex-pin people want to continue to be. We could wake up one day and find out that Bryan and Ryan have ran off to Tahiti and dancecats and starry_solo can't get in touch with them. The more involved people get, the more C starts to take a hold because all the crap just keeps coming.
B. Is probably a bigger issue, given the fragmentation of pin people between Facebook, Instagram, here. There is a lack of trust, which lead to the diminished willingness to keep Pinpics current, that will need to be fixed once the technical issues are resolved. A database is only as good as the data contained within it, and Pinpics has a lot of incomplete, incorrect and disappeared information (I hope eventually all the European non-Disneyland Paris finally get their Origins returned after they got zapped into oblivion from an early New Pinpics attempt to discard "irrelevant" information) that will take a community effort to repair.
It is super hard to find active members trading when everyone is still listed, even if they haven't signed on for years.