• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Future of the Forum

Belz... said:
Facebook is really not my thing.
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Yeah, well if you only use it for the skepti-forums, its pretty much like logging in to the forums here, right? There is no law that says you have to have any friends and go around liking things and posting cat videos...
 
OnlyTellsTruths said:
That can be turned off. I do not remember if it is on or off by default.
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That'd be new. It's been long since I last checked.

I've checked again. There's a selector in which I can select:

"Hide Age and Date of Birth"
"Display Only Age"
"Display Only Day and Month of Birth"
"Display Age and Full Date of Birth"

I don't infer from any of these options that the "happy birthday" sign is hidden. It seems to control what is displayed in my profile page.
 
pgimeno said:
That'd be new. It's been long since I last checked.

I've checked again. There's a selector in which I can select:

"Hide Age and Date of Birth"
"Display Only Age"
"Display Only Day and Month of Birth"
"Display Age and Full Date of Birth"

I don't infer from any of these options that the "happy birthday" sign is hidden. It seems to control what is displayed in my profile page.
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It is not new. It's been there as long as I've been a member of this forum. Hide Age and Date of Birth means you do not get the sign.
 
It appears the Foundation proper only cares about the one percenters who keep the Foundation going. The proles who hang out at the Forum are non-entities.

The Foundation is about sustaining itself for the benefit of those who derive an income from it, with Education barely being a tertiary concern. Since Forumites don't contribute much financially, they are like so much lice which are now being treated and washed out of the Foundation's hair.
 
Jeff Wagg said:
I feel it's important to say this:

I believe Rick Adams, Sharon Hill (idoubtit), Icerat, and all the Admins and Mods of the forum are acting in good faith. All these people want the forum to move off from the JREF and have a new home, preserving as much of the history and legacy as possible. From what I've seen, you can trust them to do what's best.

It was described to me that the JREF had washed its hands of the forum and given it to icerat, who had complete control. Yesterday's events have shown that that wasn't entirely true.

When the JREF is finished doing what it needs to do, we'll see if there's a role for me to play.
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The forum remains under JREF control for now, as I posted. There are many things to sort out. Thanks to Jeff for mentioned that Rick, Icerat, and I are trying to do the best thing. The forum is not "going away".

I don't think that any entity needs to spell out all the ins and outs of what goes on with staff or activities behind the scenes but let me clarify a few things that I believe I understand.

Darat was the forum admin that did most of the upkeep along with the mods. From the vitriolic emails he sent, he was very angry about the forum being transitioned. But it was not news that the forum was funded by the JREF who was not involved much in day to day moderation or care of it. It was left to its own devices for years. It has turned into a large database that contains a huge amount of content that is unrelated to skepticism or education or the purpose of the org. It makes no sense to continue in this fashion when it needs greater attention to function technically. Thus, the decision was made, like it or not, to disconnect the forum officially from the organization. Darat has submitted a resignation from the forum.

There were some shenanigans yesterday where a former admin eventually locked the forum. I can't say who that was or for what reason since we don't know who logged into the account for sure. The only way to correct that was to go in with the master account and delete all the other admins. This has been done and it was brought back up online. However, registrations can't be processed.

So... to put a very long, confusing history in perspective, YES the JREF did not direct staff to adequately monitor the forum over the years as it continued to grow independently; YES, in hindsight, things might have been done differently, and YES some people have acted less than professional.

I'm not sure what can be done at this point to fix any of that past stuff. To solve it, some hard feelings must be put aside and just get the job done. I remain perplexed as to why members would throw up their hands and walk away. There is still a forum, there are options on how to proceed, members will be kept informed of what's going on but it's impossible to make everyone happy. The quality of a forum is dependent on the people who contribute to it, not what the name or affiliation is.

While I expect people will press me for details, that's pretty much all I have to say. I will continue to post updates on status as needed.
 
The Shrike said:
Is there a place where we can pin a statement of key developments?
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...that would be hard, because there has only been one official announcement which is here.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/jref-news/2384-regarding-the-jref-forum-status.html

Apart from that: all the other information we have has been relatively cryptic. Apparently Icerat is the new boss. And we are moving. And there was a public call for Jeff Wagg to get involved so he did: but now he isn't. Yet. And the Admins don't have any powers any more. And it appears a lot of strange things are going on behind the scenes which (understandably) no one privy to those conversations will talk about.

Thats about it. If you keep refreshing this thread, you'll get updated. Because no-one else is talking.
 
G6000 said:
The Foundation is about sustaining itself for the benefit of those who derive an income from it, with Education barely being a tertiary concern. Since Forumites don't contribute much financially, they are like so much lice which are now being treated and washed out of the Foundation's hair.
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Surely I am not the only one. I contribute to the JREF annually *because of* the forums. I found the JREF through the forums, and added it to my annual charitable contributions through my employer as a result (and, specifically because I found the forums such a wonderful resource).

Am I a 1%er and don't even know it?
 
Klimax said:
Third, is moderation working at all?
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Moderation is working normally.

Some routine admin functions (such as approval of new memberships) are not currently (as of the past ~20 hours) being done. I don't have any information about the reasons for that but as far as I can tell there's no technical reason why those couldn't resume at any time.
 
idoubtit said:
I'm not sure what can be done at this point to fix any of that past stuff. To solve it, some hard feelings must be put aside and just get the job done. I remain perplexed as to why members would throw up their hands and walk away. There is still a forum, there are options on how to proceed, members will be kept informed of what's going on but it's impossible to make everyone happy. The quality of a forum is dependent on the people who contribute to it, not what the name or affiliation is.
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Thank you, Sharon, for stepping in to be the moderator between two dysfunctional groups ;)

I'll be a part of the forums wherever they land and whatever the affiliation. But, that doesn't say much for the ongoing quality...
 
Lisa Simpson said:
It is not new. It's been there as long as I've been a member of this forum. Hide Age and Date of Birth means you do not get the sign.
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Thanks. Again that's not clear at all from the options list, which seems to be about what's displayed in the profile, e.g. your full DoB and age is displayed in the top right of this page: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/member.php?u=2308

I apologize and take back my accusation. I just hope that DoB is not made mandatory in the new forum, and that if it is, it's made clearer what other side effects may it have to show what information in the profile. I'm not going to post mine online anywhere, anyway.
 
pgimeno said:
Thanks. Again that's not clear at all from the options list, which seems to be about what's displayed in the profile, e.g. your full DoB and age is displayed in the top right of this page: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/member.php?u=2308

I apologize and take back my accusation. I just hope that DoB is not made mandatory in the new forum, and that if it is, it's made clearer what other side effects may it have to show what information in the profile. I'm not going to post mine online anywhere, anyway.
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At least software (VB) required it. It wasn't requirement for membership.
 
I find the whole "It doesn't matter what name is on the forums" thing to be a tad bizarre, bordering on disengenious. It just reeks of the people throwing us away trying to make themselves look better by now telling us not to worry because that association never mattered. The association of this forum with an organization as large as JREF and a person as high profile as Randi, even if that associate did literally begin and end at a token name drop as it abundantly clear now, did mean something. It gave the place a core meaning.

But then again it's apparently the user base who has "thrown their hands up and walked away" despite JREF being the one that has cut ties not the user base so I guess Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia.

So basically we've been kicked to the curb, the best defense the people that kicked us to the curb have come up with is "Oh stop whinining we never really had anything to do with you anyway" and the most basic questions of who/what/where/when/how or why this forum is going to be run in the immediate, short term, mid term, and long term future have all be answered with a shrug.
 
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I do not believe that Darat has acted in bad faith. He is angry, but his ethics remain firmly in place.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
I didn't realize Darat had left in a huff.
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...he's been extremely polite on the forums, but you can't blame him for getting angry behind the scenes. Because as I've already stated: this whole thing is an unprofessional trainwreck, and this is the reason why people are throwing their hands in the air and walking away.

And I'm not sure if we can accept the claim of "vitriolic emails" as a given to be honest. One person's vitriol is another person's mild rebuke. If Darat is still around, I'm sure he will give us his version.
 
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