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Future of the Forum

steenkh said:
Icerat has more than 4000 posts under his belt. How much is needed to be "known on the forum"? Just what sort of presence must one have to be qualified for taking part in the discussion?
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...its the very nature of those 4000 posts that has made many question his suitability to be in a position to make such important decisions of the future of these boards. The members here are under no obligation to hold hands and sing kumbaya. Lionking's questions are entirely reasonable and actually answerable: rather than attack the question it would be much more productive to let those that can actually answer the question answer them.
 
Childlike Empress said:
In case you missed it over all your whining, icerat has posted his LinkedIn profile. He seems to have some experience with the topic of his last post, and the JREF seems to provide him with information to enable him to give sound advise. And he's sharing the basic line with us.
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I've missed nothing, thank you. The JREF has no interest in the future of the forum. The fact they have provided information to someone who simply said he could help on the technical side, and gave him virtual control of the forum is quite telling. Telling of the disregard of people who have supported the JREF mission.
 
banquetbear said:
...its the very nature of those 4000 posts that has made many question his suitability to be in a position to make such important decisions of the future of these boards.
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So now you are saying that he is in fact known to the forum, which is the exact opposite of lionking's claim.

I have no knowledge of Icerats posting history, other than he is claimed to support multi-level-marketing, which I regard as a kind of legal way to relieve naive persons of their money. It is not something that is touching on skepticism, and does not make him a bad administrator. So far he has not made a single post about the future of the forum that I have disagreed with.

And in any case, the JREF seems to be in a hurry, so I would much rather have Icerat catch it before they drop it.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
301 is the HTTP response code for a url that has been permanently relocated.

In other words, he wants JREF to hand the board over to someone rather than trash it entirely.
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Yes, and that means that the old links must still work, so the JREF must set up some kind of relocation to the new site. In fact, if we will not be running vBulletin, I doubt that 301 can be avoided at all: the links will all change, though the content will not.
 
I agree with Jeff Wagg running things and having control...100%..and i don't kiss no ones ass..I just think he is the right person..

DB
 
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steenkh said:
So now you are saying that he is in fact known to the forum, which is the exact opposite of lionking's claim.
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...I hate it when people use the phrase "are you saying."

I'm saying what I said. Go read my words.

I have no knowledge of Icerats posting history, other than he is claimed to support multi-level-marketing, which I regard as a kind of legal way to relieve naive persons of their money. It is not something that is touching on skepticism, and does not make him a bad administrator. So far he has not made a single post about the future of the forum that I have disagreed with.
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It actually does touch on skepticism, in a rather important way. I've had one discussion with Icerat, concerning his belief that Flight MH370 went north not south, was hijacked by terrorists and is either in hiding or crashed. Under the JREF banner I was confident that this messageboard stood for critical thinking. With Icerat at the helm, we honestly don't know what the new boards (if they eventuate) will stand for.

And in any case, the JREF seems to be in a hurry, so I would much rather have Icerat catch it before they drop it.
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You are entitled to feel any way you like.
 
steenkh said:
Yes, and that means that the old links must still work, so the JREF must set up some kind of relocation to the new site. In fact, if we will not be running vBulletin, I doubt that 301 can be avoided at all: the links will all change, though the content will not.
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Nothing wrong with a 301. Those happen all the time. 401 is what you want to avoid. Certainly, the domain is going to change. So any external links to the forum itself will have to be 301'd in some manner.

At minimum, all JREF would have to do is look at any requests that are going to the forum and redirect them to the homepage of the new site.

Another alternative is to have any requests for the current forum get forwarded to something running on the new forum that attempts to translate the request to something useful and 301's to the new page; if not it just goes to the homepage. It's basically what we did with the site I work on - we totally rebuilt the site from the ground up including how navigation works. So we had to build a servlet that took requests for our old site and translated them into the new system. Of course, we couldn't count on being able to translate EVERYTHING, so we fall back to the home page.

That translation would be up icerat or whoever runs the new forum. JREF would just need to know where to redirect to.
 
Foolmewunz said:
We can pull out anecdotal evidence all we want, because I've seen people turn their backs and never come back. "Never" is a long time, but when was the last time anyone saw a post by:

The Atheist
Lothian
CF Larsen
Marquis de Carabas
Slingblade
Schrodinger's Cat
FLS (Linda)
Central Scrutinizer (oh wait... he's just on ignore)

None of those are banned. They are self-exiled. To the best of my knowledge each of them had an issue with either management or treatment by other posters(and thus management).

I agree with Lionking and I posted the same commentary already. Changing the rules is something that can be tackled separately later. At present, by the very fact that we're still here, it's fairly obvious that we live within the MA and do not find it so repulsive that we've stormed off. Leave it be for a while. There are much larger issues that need addressing.
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That's a handful of people. out of thousands. I don't see what the big deal is, it's like people feel personally insulted because Randi doesn't consider the forum that important to his Foundation.

And well yes some people have contributed to the "Educational" part of the forum but the forum is often filled with people pulling debates out of their tukus and not reading a damn thing that's actually been posted. Thus the "threads" turn into circular arguments and eventually deconstruct into personal attacks and ganging up on posters. LOL

I can see how the forum could have been considered an "educational contribution" to the foundation if people had attempted to be educational in their posting. But if it's not doing that then it's a drain and liability on the foundation.

I'm sure plenty of skeptics on other sites not affiliated with this forum ALSO found out about TAM and Randi on other skeptical forums.

I seriously don't understand the issue. Someone else will own and run the forum and if you don't wanna come, then don't. :confused:;)
 
truethat said:
I seriously don't understand the issue. Someone else will own and run the forum and if you don't wanna come, then don't. :confused:;)
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That's my opinion too.

Alternatively if the whole lot was tipped into the bin then I'd have wasted a bunch of time but then again I'd have found other ways to waste it and I'm not arrogant enough to think that my posts are somehow indispensable to the total of forum knowledge.

Then again there are people who have a lot more to lose than I who have some significant concerns.
 
truethat said:
And well yes some people have contributed to the "Educational" part of the forum but the forum is often filled with people pulling debates out of their tukus and not reading a damn thing that's actually been posted. Thus the "threads" turn into circular arguments and eventually deconstruct into personal attacks and ganging up on posters.
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Perhaps we need to tighten the rules, then.
 
Either this forum finds a new home or it goes down for the count. It seems to me that icerat is in a position that would be mutually beneficial, has the confidence of the powers that be, and is well qualified to do what needs to be done to save the forum.

If it doesn't work out, nothing further is lost because if nothing is done all is lost anyway.

If icerat has the trust of Darat, Lisa, Jeff, and the JREF; that's good enough for me. :)

If we, the forum members, are apprehensive about the coming changes, that's entirely understandable to me.

If we, the forum members, are dissatisfied with the way things are being handled, we can move the hell on to greener pastures.

If we, the forum members, have constructive criticism to offer, we can do that right here.

No good can come of fretting over what we can't do anything about. Even less of insulting or offending each other.
 
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smartcooky said:
Nor is there, I believe, any liability risked by JREF for anything said by a poster on the forum, because...


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98915197/JREF/disclaimer.png
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It can cost a lot of money and wasted time to find out though, should some super wealthy entity like some MLM's decide to go after certain posters' identities who have published even remotely libelous material about the person/business in question.

It's probably a good idea to be extremely cautious and circumspect in threads that purport to demolish the public's perceptions of a particular product which appears to have considerable financial backing. Opinions and judgements of a product's worth or usefulness based on physics are one thing, but accusations of fraud by it's promoters can be asking for trouble.
 
zooterkin said:
What are you counting as "direct"? The four years of JREF membership and TAM attendances I made would not have happened without the forum. I suspect I'm not the only one.

There are also the forum scholarships for TAM attendees, well into double figures each year. Since TAM is a fund-raiser for the JREF, at least some of that $10,000 this year was income (I believe there were around 20 scholarships this year, at around $500 each).
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Yeah, that's why I termed it "direct". To the best of my knowledge indirect revenue has not been measured. I'm purely talking about the adserve to guests.
 
The Don said:
That's my opinion too.

Alternatively if the whole lot was tipped into the bin then I'd have wasted a bunch of time but then again I'd have found other ways to waste it and I'm not arrogant enough to think that my posts are somehow indispensable to the total of forum knowledge.

Then again there are people who have a lot more to lose than I who have some significant concerns.
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I think this is why it's upsetting some people, they feel they have some sort of "seniority status" on an online forum.

Reminds me of two brothers I knew who went to a local pub in Brooklyn. They cornered the seats and the end of the bar and were crap tippers and rude to the other patrons.

A friend of mine and I were often mistreated by them. We just let it slide because they were the drunk regulars who knew the owners husband. When the bar closed down and a new one opened up the block, my friend and I headed over there. When we got there we were sitting at the end of the bar and they walked in expecting us to "get up" and "give them their seats"

She was floored when I wouldn't do it. I pointed out that their crap behavior at the other place would not be stood for long at the new place. The gravy train was ovah! And what do you know? They got banned from the new place for being jerks.

They then spent the better part of the fall trying to find a new place that would let them do whatever they wanted like the old place. Threats of never coming back were responded to with "Good, good riddance!"

And then finally they became sad saps at another bar where their glory days were over. It was amusing to watch, to be honest. :cool:
 
This thread has ranged across a wide number of topics. You know what's not on topic? Malaysian airplanes. Thank you.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Loss Leader
 
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