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Future of the Forum

RemieV said:
Irrelevant. Users made the choice to trust the JREF. They did not make the choice to trust icerat. The JREF is an organization with an official privacy policy (which, if they give out names, they are in violation of) and accountability should they break it.

Look - icerat doesn't even disagree that this is how it should be done; that all identifying information should be removed before the data is in his hands. I am responding to people asking why it is important. This is why.
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I for one am hereby making the choice to trust icerat with whatever personal information I have stored on the forum servers. Which as far as I'm concerned isn't a lot. I understand other people have hesitation on this score, but I do not believe that icerat has any malicious intent towards me or towards anyone else on the forum, and I believe that he will treat personal information appropriately.

I've seen a number of people state that they do not believe that the JREF - or in some cases individuals - are acting in good faith. I ask: What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean that you believe that they are acting maliciously, and with intent to harm or do damage to the community? What possible motivation would they have to do that? Acting incompetently (and I think we can all agree that there's been some incompetence demonstrated) is not the same as acting in bad faith.

I do not want to be seen as attempting to stifle discussion, but my suggestion remains as before - let's all calm the **** down and let the people who are working on this problem work. Nothing is served by throwing accusations about. It's going to take some time to get this mess sorted out and I think we should exercise a little patience.
 
lionking said:
The JREF forum is. Yes, the Foundation didn't take much notice, but the link gave credibility and status. I believe a new forum without that link will be diminished, even if all members remain.
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as per god knows where in this mass debate, there will continue to be cross promotion including links
 
Icerat,
Who (or what) is going to own this new forum? The hue and cry for Jeff's involvement is/was because there needs to be some form of direction. Do we really think that the forum is a living entity and it just "is"? At least with the JREF owning things there was a footing of some sort.
Personally, I'd move my lowly input to the TLDJ Skeptics Society (Terry, Lisa, Darat, Jeff) because... continuity. Meh? I'm an existentialist. The history exists but the pertinent questions are about today and tomorrow. The fact that my old posts and threads are on some board managed in Uzbekistan by a corporate entity doesn't do anything for me. I want to know who's actually running things, what their mission statement is, and what they represent.
The idea that you'd have to sign a NDA of sorts with the JREF is just silly. All that would be needed to void that would be a single line in the handover/sale contract. What can be made law by contract language can be unmade by contract language. Under what jurisdiction would that be enforceable, anyway?

In short, I want to know what sort of structure the organization behind the forums is going to have.
 
Foolmewunz said:
In short, I want to know what sort of structure the organization behind the forums is going to have.
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you and me both.

The floor is open for suggestions. For a brief period at least it will likely have to technically belong to one of my companies in order to more easily swat off the woolawyers, but ideally something new needs to be setup.

The challenge is it doesn't currently have the revenue or (once we fix the mess) expenses to justify anything that's going to cost a lot to operate independently. As well as deciding the legal form, we also need to think about the location of the entity and hosting.

ETA: Darat's on board for at least the transition and hopefully longer. Lisa's committed to stay on, so has Locknar and LashL and most (all? I haven't done a head count) of the current (And some of the past) mods. Terry and Jeff have both been actively involved in the discussions and offered their ongoing support.
 
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lionking said:
I've certainly posted things, sometimes when drunk, which I certainly would want not my family, friends or employer to know.
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Well I guess this sets us a bit apart, then. I have absolutely no shame or reservation about anything that I have posted in the past, though I have changed my mind about some of these things over the years or months. The rest, I would say in real life anyway (and frequently do, actually).

The stalking part is very bad, however, and is the only thing I'd be worried about: some ass wanting to hurt me because I disagreed with them on the internet. (EDIT: That's basically why I continue to use an alias, though since I've used the same everywhere for the last 20+ years, and my friends even call me "Belz..." in real life, it's not a super secret.)
 
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If people want to go whole hog, I have previous experience getting 501(c)(3) status for a charity. But I think that's getting waaaaaaaay ahead of things here.
 
arthwollipot said:
...
I've seen a number of people state that they do not believe that the JREF - or in some cases individuals - are acting in good faith. I ask: What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean that you believe that they are acting maliciously, and with intent to harm or do damage to the community? What possible motivation would they have to do that? Acting incompetently (and I think we can all agree that there's been some incompetence demonstrated) is not the same as acting in bad faith.
...
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These are interesting questions. I am not getting the impression that D. J. Grothe (the JREF president) and J. Randi (from the tops of their ivory towers ;)) have been genuinely pressed with questions.
 
icerat said:
as per god knows where in this mass debate, there will continue to be cross promotion including links
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I should have been clearer. I didn't mean web links. I should have used the word ownership or partnership. Being under the JREF umbrella (leaky as it has been) accorded the forum status. I'm absolutely convinced of that. Not having that status is not the end of the world, but without it I don't see how we will attract the same number of new, knowledgable members.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
If people want to go whole hog, I have previous experience getting 501(c)(3) status for a charity. But I think that's getting waaaaaaaay ahead of things here.
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I'm not sure it's THAT FAR ahead of things. So far, we have an entity... "The Forums" and apparently that entity is going to have a home or host. But that's sort of like having a kegger that everyone knows about but doesn't know who's actually throwing the bash and who's in charge. Great for a Friday night party, but not so great for a forum that's at least had a sense of direction and unity in the past.

I think this is what Lionking's also referring to. As I said, I'd be happy with a "board" that consisted of yourself, Darat, Jeff, and Terry if he's really been re-drafted and wishes to belong. The "mission statement" as it were could be the old banner from these forums as far as I'm concerned: A place to.... etc...

But if Admins and Mods need to be signed on to some sort of "agreement", they need to be signing with some entity, not carrying one forward from an entity that doesn't seem to know its ass from its elbow in terms of forum management.

If I was doing this in my former employment, the first thing is to establish the management team - the "board". You can do that concurrent with the pressing IT issues of moving the forums, but it should be worked on immediately.

As to the IT issues, particularly the migration of personal data, I would go with (I believe it was) Jeff's suggestion of sending out an immediate opt-in email. Opt-in may lose us a lot of the 35,000 (or however many there are) members, because they joined, logged in once and never returned. It's just an inflated body count. It may also lose us a member or twenty who do not want to have their actual name and email address handed over to any entity other than the JREF. So be it. But legally, an opt-in covers the old forums/JREF and the new forums. (And anyone who doesn't opt in could just join later if they're not comfortable with things being sketchy at present.)
 
Emily's Cat said:
Mostly, although I'm sure there is at least some financial cost associated with it as well. I am not at all privy to JREF's financial position, so I don't know how much the server fees and maintenance of the forum database are relative to the other organizational incomes. It may be minimal... but it may not. I don't know. The largest consideration is in terms of brand positioning, though, as RemieV suggests.
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I keep seeing that term. What brand positioning is the Foundation looking for?
 
Foolmewunz said:
In short, I want to know what sort of structure the organization behind the forums is going to have.
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Structure!!? We don't need no stinkin structure! :D

Have really enjoyed reading your posts Foolmewunz. Hope this forum survives intact, unlike RDF where as of a few months ago the archives are no longer available.

Are we destined to lose all the history from the cyber dawn, or can it be stored until the IT breakthroughs on speed and condensing combined with the 2020 vision of search engines make it easier to access the data than it is now? For me, that is the key question. :boggled:
 
Nay_Sayer said:
When the move occurs to its new home, Will I have to re eat a baby upon entry?
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Yes, a baby rattlesnake still in the egg. I am told it tastes like chicken. Scrambled. I have also been told the moon is made of green cheese. Yer pays yer money, yer makes yer cherce!!!!!
 
d4m10n said:
Evidently, host of the largest and longest-lived community of online critical thinking is not among the desiderata.

:boggled:
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A small quibble. While not nearly as large, and these days, shrinking, The Skeptic Friends Network is the longest-lived skeptical forum on these interwebs.
 
Belz... said:
Well I guess this sets us a bit apart, then. I have absolutely no shame or reservation about anything that I have posted in the past
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This isn't about shame or reservation. I'm going to try and explain this calmly because you saying that is making me furious.

I'm not sure how it is in other 1st world countries, but it is a very sad fact that (even in 2014) in the USA you can have real repercussions if you are outed as an atheist or as a homosexual. You can lose your job. You can lose your family.

But in some other countries it is worse. It is actually illegal to be either of those things and you can lose your life.

No one is claiming that icerat would blackmail someone. What people are claiming is that the JREF did not give two ***** about the possibility.
 
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