Future of the Forum

[dasmiller]

Someone needs to be in charge, but who and how are they selected?

I would like to say upfront that, if nominated, I will not run, and if elected, I will not serve. Of course, a second term would be out the question. And it would be the height of absurdity to change the constitution to allow me to be in charge for life.

Just sayin'




(with apologies to Pat Paulson)

 

[Spindrift]

The California law you cited doesn't state that it's illegal for the JREF to transfer ownership of the website and thus the private information. In fact a proposed amendment implicitly acknowledges that the information can be sold, which is in the link you cited. "include a statement indicating whether the personally identifiable information may be sold or shared with others, and if so, how and with whom the information may be shared."

If it can't be sold, then why have a statement saying that it can be?

Your interpretation of the privacy policy does not pass legal muster. "Does not sell" personal information is not the same thing as "will not sell the whole thing including your info incidentally." Their policy describes what they do with the information. It does not prohibit them from selling the whole shebang. It's not like your info is being sold to marketers. which is really what these policies are about.

A case can be made that transferring ownership and maintaining the same privacy policy is not really a violation of the policy of not selling the info. In effect you gave the information to the people who run the forum. It is a reasonable expectation that if the forum transfers ownership that your info goes to whoever will run the forum next. The privacy policy is really about the owner, who needs the info, not sharing it with people who don't need it.

It is not a reasonable expectation that a forum will never transfer ownership.

Absent an explicit contract lawyers will argue what the intention was. There is nothing explicitly prohibiting the JREF from simply transferring ownership of the board.

More importantly contract violations are not "against the law" like you claimed. They're just contract violations that can be remedied in civil but not criminal court. The simple remedy is what the JREF will probably do, which is send out an e-mail telling people what's going on and giving them the opportunity to have their names and location scrubbed from the database and their accounts disabled.

When Google bought YouTube, I'm pretty sure the user accounts went along with the sale.

 

[Spindrift]

May I suggest that as the new caretaker that you not speculate publicly about what might happen? It's more likely to do harm than good.

I disagree, I want to know what he's thinking.

 

[icerat]

Besides the privacy issue, the biggest problem I foresee is that we lose our benevolent dictator. Decisions that many may disagree with but were probably for the best could just be chalked up to: "That's what JREF wants. It's their forum, their rules." I always felt that JREF having the final say was a needed safety valve.

Where it's hosted and how privacy laws are followed are some of the lesser issues really. Those are just technical problems. We are going to have political issues. I agree with Wolfman, we may be heading to a battle royale over the direction of the forum. Someone needs to be in charge, but who and how are they selected?

I suggest we run it like a modern western democracy and offer voting rights proportional to $$$ donated.

More seriously I hope Darat is willing to continue in his role. We've exchanged several messages and I know he very much would like the forum to remain a part of JREF and believes it has value as part of JREF. I think most of us, as participants, agree with him. The JREF board clearly doesn't and I can also see their perspective - financially, legally, and politically it's more likely a burden than a blessing.

The first thing I hope to improve (along with getting things stable obviously) is communication. I get the distinct impression the forum admins (and to a lesser extent mods) have felt out of the loop and uninvolved in the decision-making process. Not just now, but for years. I can perfectly understand how they'd feel saddened and perhaps betrayed by the board's decision, given the years of work they've put in.

So again, I encourage everyone to throw in their 2 cents. We'll never make everyone happy, but we can at least make an attempt!

 

[Michel H]

...
More seriously I hope Darat is willing to continue in his role. We've exchanged several messages and I know he very much would like the forum to remain a part of JREF and believes it has value as part of JREF. I think most of us, as participants, agree with him. The JREF board clearly doesn't and I can also see their perspective - financially, legally, and politically it's more likely a burden than a blessing.

...

So again, I encourage everyone to throw in their 2 cents. We'll never make everyone happy, but we can at least make an attempt! ...

icerat, do you think you could convince D. J. Grothe and Rick Adams (respectively, President and Secretary of the Randi Foundation, according to wikipedia) to join this discussion on the Future of the Forum, and explain their point of view?

 

[Cleon]

The JREF board clearly doesn't and I can also see their perspective - financially, legally, and politically it's more likely a burden than a blessing.

Sure, if they take a short-sighted view and forget that the forum helped create TAM and transformed the organization into a community.

I get the distinct impression the forum admins (and to a lesser extent mods) have felt out of the loop and uninvolved in the decision-making process.

That might have something to do with the fact that this thread was the first inkling any of us had that this was going on.

Not just now, but for years. I can perfectly understand how they'd feel saddened and perhaps betrayed by the board's decision, given the years of work they've put in.

So again, I encourage everyone to throw in their 2 cents. We'll never make everyone happy, but we can at least make an attempt!

My $.02 is that this is a slap in the face to all members, mods, and admins.

 

[abaddon]

I suggest we run it like a modern western democracy and offer voting rights proportional to $$$ donated.

More seriously I hope Darat is willing to continue in his role. We've exchanged several messages and I know he very much would like the forum to remain a part of JREF and believes it has value as part of JREF. I think most of us, as participants, agree with him. The JREF board clearly doesn't and I can also see their perspective - financially, legally, and politically it's more likely a burden than a blessing.

The first thing I hope to improve (along with getting things stable obviously) is communication. I get the distinct impression the forum admins (and to a lesser extent mods) have felt out of the loop and uninvolved in the decision-making process. Not just now, but for years. I can perfectly understand how they'd feel saddened and perhaps betrayed by the board's decision, given the years of work they've put in.

So again, I encourage everyone to throw in their 2 cents. We'll never make everyone happy, but we can at least make an attempt!

I agree. The personal data issue is easy to deal with. The fact of a new "regime" is irrelevant if the same mods and admins are doing the very same thing that they have always done.

There remains the question, though, that if the forum is no longer fettered by JREF, can or should the rules be changed? That is a question outside the remit of the practicality of sustaining this forum.

 

[Francesca R]

It might work out. Don't know.

It was the governance policies that made this forum so worthwhile IMO, and by implication those who policed them. If that stays the same all well and good but I doubt that it will since all that has to be stitched up again on the fly by presumably different folks.

 

[temporalillusion]

It smells indeed like a software scaling problem, which is best solved in the application, but you could improve a lot with better hardware of course.

Nice input on the stats, thanks! The only difficulty is that the application itself is a commercial product and getting into it and making custom changes is definitely doable, but then you rapidly create completely custom software that can no longer be upgraded.. and I've seen forums that do that; run on highly customized versions of really old forum software that manually patch in security fixes and such, but you need developers who can and will do that kind of thing.

But it is a good point, for very large forums I followed one forum admin through his large forum changes with different versions of vBulletin and then his migration to Xenforo, and one of his findings was that Xenforo used about half the resources of vBulletin(EDIT: Rather he could serve pages twice as fast on the same hardware). His forum was larger than this one and was scaled properly before the move so the resource usage difference on this forum's hardware might not be the same, but your point is still valid.

I would concentrate on the disks first, no the CPU. Any chance you can take some "top" snapshots at peak load, or more vmstats, maybe that will show a different picture?

Yeah a single 10k Raptor for the MySQL database seems like it would become a bottleneck especially if images are being stored as blobs in it.

Another thing: while vmstat is good for immediate problem solving, it's useful to setup permanent monitoring, which gives you a picture of your system over time. An example is http://munin-monitoring.org/ (there are many others).

Heh I'd never heard of that one before but just got off a conference call with a client and they use it too, the systems guy I work with likes Zabbix.

 

[icerat]

May I suggest that as the new caretaker that you not speculate publicly about what might happen? It's more likely to do harm than good.

I disagree, I want to know what he's thinking.

I thought it might be best to come up with a strategy privately with the people who've been most invested (admins/mods etc) and then put it up for discussion, but the way the thread has gone I think it's best now just to be out in the open with all members.

icerat, do you think you could convince D. J. Grothe and Rick Adams (respectively, President and Secretary of the Randi Foundation, according to wikipedia) to join this discussion on the Future of the Forum, and explain their point of view?

Sharon, ball is in your court on that one.

 

[abaddon]

It might work out. Don't know.

It was the governance policies that made this forum so worthwhile IMO, and by implication those who policed them. If that stays the same all well and good but I doubt that it will since all that has to be stitched up again on the fly by presumably different folks.

What governance policies were those?

 

[Francesca R]

The forum conduct rules and their implementation.

 

[Spindrift]

Personally, I am flabbergasted that the JREF would give up an asset this valuable. Most non-profits would be thrilled to have an active board this size (or of any size for that matter). The fact that they haven't figured out how to leverage it to further their goals reflects poorly on those in charge.

Value is relative. I remember JREF saying that there is very little conversion from forum membership to JREF membership. I'm not a JREF member, are you?

A non-profit very often has to make very difficult decisions. With the Challenge pretty much dormant that lessens the need to JREF for this forum. It sounds like they are trying to narrow the focus of JREF and in doing so, the forum will fall outside the new focus.

As far as TAM goes, isn't it at the point where it can survive independent of the forum?

There have been lawsuits and threatened lawsuits over the years because of the forum. Getting a lawyer to just respond to the threats is not cheap and never mind the occasional lawsuit. No matter how ridiculous (yes, I'm talking about you George), it still costs money.

This forum is the only one I participate in on a regular basis. And as much as I love this forum, I can still understand JREF wanting to jettison it. We should stop worrying about that since it appears to be a fait accompli. We need to worry about the future. We've been handed lemons, so let's sell the lemons and buy some crack. Is that how that saying goes?

 

[Patricio Elicer]

I'd rather wait and see what the JREF's position regarding the forum is, before making plans to go solo. As I understand it, TAM would not have happened without the forum. Certainly I would not have heard of TAM otherwise, nor attended half a dozen. The forum provides the volunteers and TAMbassadors that help run TAM, as well as providing scholarships for those unable to afford the cost. Of course, some of could still happen without the forum, but I think participation would be lower.

Indeed. The forums started in mid 2001, and it rapidly gathered a lot of people avid of socializing with like-minded folk (skeptics were a rather rare species by then). It soon became clear that we needed to meet up IRL, and if IIRC, Girl6 played a major role in giving ideas and volunteering in that direction. TAM was born.

 

[Lisa Simpson]

In case anyone is curious:

I have deleted every PM and every email I have ever received including those I have received over the years from people who have had to prove their identity. They are all gone.

 

[Rat]

We've been handed lemons, so let's sell the lemons and buy some crack. Is that how that saying goes?

When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

 

[Chaos]

Sure, if they take a short-sighted view and forget that the forum helped create TAM and transformed the organization into a community.

Maybe old age is playing havoc with my memory, but I rather clearly remember JREF - not sure who it was or under which circumstances - deny that the forum community had any meaningful part in making the TAMs happen or turning them (or JREF) into what they became.

That might have something to do with the fact that this thread was the first inkling any of us had that this was going on.



My $.02 is that this is a slap in the face to all members, mods, and admins.

But is it really all that much of a surprise?

What interactions there were between JREF proper and the forum have for many years made it clear that the forum was something JREF allowed to continue to exist as long as the forum did nothing to displease JREF in any way (such as daring to suggest that the arbitrary rules Randi allegedly insisted on ought not be treated like they were handed down on clay tablets at Mt. Sinai), and definitely NOT in any way an asset to JREF´s mission. Maybe it was just Darat´s way to shut up any voice questioning his authority, but the message has always been clear: if the forum were ever to become more work to JREF than they thought it was worth (and he made it clear they considered it worth no work at all) then it would be closed down.

 

[Michel H]

... It sounds like they are trying to narrow the focus of JREF and in doing so, the forum will fall outside the new focus.
...

I think it is important for a Foundation like the Randi Educational Foundation, which claims to be "educational", to remain open, and to possibly expose itself to criticism and possible disagreements. This is important for its credibility, in my opinion. Otherwise, there is a risk of sliding into dogmatism, somewhat like religions, that skeptics sometimes criticize.

 

[Klimax]

When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

Johnson. Memories of that salt mine in Utah... (I think)

 

[Spindrift]

I think it is important for a Foundation like the Randi Educational Foundation, which claims to be "educational", to remain open, and to possibly expose itself to criticism and possible disagreements. This is important for its credibility, in my opinion. Otherwise, there is a risk of sliding into dogmatism, somewhat like religions, that skeptics sometimes criticize.

You do realize that people from JREF itself almost never participate in this forum? So whether or not it exists really has little bearing on the operation of JREF and whether or not it slides into dogmatism or anything else.