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Future of the Forum

macdoc said:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org
Put it up on FB as an option.
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A forum running on phpBB? No way, José-eeh! It strains my poor eyes and sprains my aesthetic muscle. I am a poor Thirdworlder and I have a bought but unused licence on vBulletin 5 which includes multiblogs. I'll wait and see for a while and think it thrice before saying "I love you all so much but I choose to miss you". Mods and admins of these fora, who kept them running 'warts and all' at great personal expense -who can compare the thou a year tops that costs buying and hosting a forum like this one with the value of the time they have put into it-, deserve at least that.
 
lionking said:
I knew a lot about Randi before I joined. I know nothing about icerat. As I said, I'm happy with him providing technical assistance, but not running the forum without knowing a lot more. Call it whinging if you want. I don't care.
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Wasn't your trust in Randi misplaced? He has had nothing to do with the forum, and he has never expressed an interest in it?

If icerat (or whoever it may be) is doing a bad job, forumites will just stop posting. It is as simple as that. With new ownership we have a chance that the forum survives, and without it JREF will just close it down.
 
Olowkow said:
Reading between the lines, I think someone mentioned a new JREF lawsuit a while back, what seems to underlie most of JREF's concerns about the forum is legal liability for what some people may say in their posts. This is certainly an understandable concern, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to take on such potential legal nightmares without some possibility of compensation. My question: is it possible to "lawsuit proof" a forum? Can courts be told that the forum has no records of anyone's identity and no control over their opinions? [ . . . ]
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The vague mention of the forum as a litigation magnet, the mention of lawsuits, potential or otherwise because of opinions expressed here has me concerned.
In a galaxy far far away I was on a forum whose plug was pulled from one minute to another due to the 'suggestion' of one that planet's most powerful law firms.
A chilling and unsettling experience, to be sure.
But educational. Definitely educational.


If there were real litigation problems related to the JREF forum, we'd know about it.
Why are there these suggestions about vague and unspecified legal problems and how are they pertinent to this divorce between the forum and the JREF?
I've asked for specifics and get no reply.




Michel H said:
I think it has to be admitted JREF's reasons for wanting to transfer the forum still seem somewhat obscure at this point.
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sadhatter said:
You know, what i would like is a blunt, straightforward answer to the reasons as to why this is happening. We are are grown folks, I'm sure we can take it. The use off very vague statements concerning the situation, is not what i would expect of the jref.
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This.

ETA.
Ah.
I've just read this post
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10156950#post10156950
That makes sense to.
Now, why the smoke and mirrors about litigation problems?
 
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pakeha said:
The vague mention of the forum as a litigation magnet, the mention of lawsuits, potential or otherwise because of opinions expressed here has me concerned.
In a galaxy far far away I was on a forum whose plug was pulled from one minute to another due to the 'suggestion' of one that planet's most powerful law firms.
A chilling and unsettling experience, to be sure.
But educational. Definitely educational.


If there were real litigation problems related to the JREF forum, we'd know about it.
Why are there these suggestions about vague and unspecified legal problems and how are they pertinent to this divorce between the forum and the JREF?
I've asked for specifics and get no reply.







This.

ETA.
Ah.
I've just read this post
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10156950#post10156950
That makes sense to.
Now, why the smoke and mirrors about litigation problems?
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The standard get out clause in any MA is something like this:

While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore, you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the people posting them and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people). Neither <insert forum name>, the moderators, administrators, or technical staff will be held liable for any content posted on this forum by persons other than themselves.
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IOW, the forum itself is not responsible for what users may post. Each member is personally responsible for what they post themselves.

Now, while this technically covers the forum as an entity, it does not obviate the cost of vexatious litigation. The whole Corn Gods saga being a case in point.

With that in mind, I will make two points.

1. Most of the vexatious litigation stems from the association with Randi.org. It follows that whatever is developed after must be carefully separated from Randi.org, the MDC and so forth in a legal sense.

2. Many fora live on the intertubes and have no litigious issues at all, but it would be unwise not to provision for such. That said, I have known some where the provision was simply death and reincarnation. In the event of litigation, the forum would dissolve and re-emerge elsewhere under a different guise.
 
Hokulele said:
Depending on the interest level, it could be something as simple as a series of conference calls via GoToMeeting or the like set up through e-mails. This would work for a smallish group of people who know each other, such as Jeff, icerat, Lisa, and/or anyone such as they. It could be something more complex such as a WordPress blog where a page is set up with a draft of the bylaws, etc., and the comments kept open, but moderated solely to prevent spam and the like.

Based on Sharon's post of this morning, we do have a week to come up with (constructive) suggestions, so I am hoping that means we have at least a week of access to the forums here before anything drastic happens.
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I think your idea has a lot of merit, and as one of the forum's Top Posters, I am willing to serve on that committee.
 
Hokulele said:
Depending on the interest level, it could be something as simple as a series of conference calls via GoToMeeting or the like set up through e-mails. This would work for a smallish group of people who know each other, such as Jeff, icerat, Lisa, and/or anyone such as they. It could be something more complex such as a WordPress blog where a page is set up with a draft of the bylaws, etc., and the comments kept open, but moderated solely to prevent spam and the like.

Based on Sharon's post of this morning, we do have a week to come up with (constructive) suggestions, so I am hoping that means we have at least a week of access to the forums here before anything drastic happens.
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A week? To do what? Is it a week to come up with a plan, or a week till the plug is pulled?

I would propose the current admins look at the all the proposals made, in consultation with Sharon, who has asked for specifics, and put it to a vote.
 
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Orphia Nay said:
Thanks very much for that.

Can you confirm that you are keeping VBulletin and the existing data?
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The plan is that initially it will transfer as is to new hardware under JREF control, however the software does need to be updgraded at some point. The core people involved with the original vBulletin left some years back and more recent versions of vBulletin are fairly universally condemned. A team of original vBulletin developers started a new project called XenForo which is on the other hand fairly universally loved. We will almost certainly move to XenForo at some stage, the timing is what's in question.

If so, why is Sharon talking about "streamlining" the forum?
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I don't know. All these plans may be thrown out the window.

Jodie said:
I would prefer the format stay the same, would that change if you move to a new server?
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In stage two of the transition there will be changes, but hopefully not too significant.

The key point is the existing admin and mod team will remain in place.
 
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icerat said:
The plan is that initially it will transfer as is to new hardware under JREF control, however the software does need to be updgraded at some point. The core people involved with the original vBulletin left some years back and more recent versions of vBulletin are fairly universally condemned. A team of original vBulletin developers started a new project called XenForo which is on the other hand fairly universally loved. We will almost certainly move to XenForo at some stage, the timing is what's in question.



I don't know. All these plans may be thrown out the window.



In stage two of the transition there will be changes, but hopefully not too significant.

The key point is the existing admin and mod team will remain in place.
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Good, once we get this sorted out, we can start complaining about the mods again. I'm not finished yet.
 
icerat said:
The key point is the existing admin and mod team will remain in place.
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Not to beat this into the ground, but would that be the existing admin and mod team we have right now (sans Rick Adams, of course) or the existing admin and mod team we had a week or so ago?


Oh, one other thing, is the vBulletin license transferable?
 
jsfisher said:
Not to beat this into the ground, but would that be the existing admin and mod team we have right now (sans Rick Adams, of course) or the existing admin and mod team we had a week or so ago?
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Sorry, yes to be clear, the team of a week or so ago

Oh, one other thing, is the vBulletin license transferable?
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No, and in fact JREF doesn't own the current license. We can continue to use it, but it's another reason to upgrade.
 
But will we really have the "same mods" seeing as how a great deal of how this forum is moderated has come down via decrees from "the higher ups."

The rules on smut especially seem to exist only because JREF dictated so.

Honest question how much of the moderation here was JREF dictated?
 
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icerat said:
Sorry, yes to be clear, the team of a week or so ago
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Excellent.

No, and in fact JREF doesn't own the current license. We can continue to use it, but it's another reason to upgrade.
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I think you may be thinking license to the current version. JREF doesn't have a license for the current version of vBulletin, but it would still need a license to use the version it has been using.

From what I can find in the way of vBulletin license agreements, though, transfer is perfectly acceptable. So, I retract the original question.
 
JoeBentley said:
But will we really have the "same mods" seeing as how a great deal of how this forum is moderated has come down via decrees from "the higher ups."

The rules on smut especially seem to exist only because JREF dictated so.

Honest question how much of the moderation here was JREF dictated?
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I think that some of the MA needs to be revisited, but I agree with the rules and their application in general, so I think that so long as much of the same staff remains in the early going, things should run as usual at least in theory.
 
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