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Future of the Forum

This forum will go down in history as probably the only internet forum outside the former Soviet Union nations that ever required people's real names to register.
 
Sideroxylon said:
What we need is to take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week with all the decisions of that officer having to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major decisions.
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But the Lady of the Lake thrust Excalibur into my hands, signifying that I am King by divine authority.
 
G6000 said:
This forum will go down in history as probably the only internet forum outside the former Soviet Union nations that ever required people's real names to register.
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So does Facebook. And, of course, we all know there are no fake facebook accounts.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Guess I should have left the 'AB' off? There's more on that site than the other.
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I found the URL through the eMail given as contact address on the license page of the Amway Wiki (that prominently and several times shows up on Olowkow's google search), which starts like this:

TribeTech AB grants the public rights to reuse the text in Amway Wiki as long as it -

(1) is attributed to Amway Wiki, with a link back to the original article and this copyright notice

(2) in no way reflects negatively on Amway Wiki, TribeTech AB, or the subject of any article.
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So I'm not sure if I'm allowed to reprint that here and say what I think about it. ;)
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
You just click, yes translate, it's at the top of the page.

It's a pretty standard business registration, there's not a lot there.
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Oh, I've been through the translation pretty closely. Even noted that the business has 1 employee and negative income. Net assets of less than $10,000, (converted from TKR).

Also, The business called "TribeTech AB" is in the business of "body care", it seems.

The Linkedin page for icerat (David Steadson) shows the TribeTech AB site to be: http://www.fittogether.nu/
The site if confusing, but it looks like the total membership is 8.

This is just one of the projects that are listed on the site provided by a couple of posters up thread.

Owner
NeDaMi
1997 – Present (17 years) Australia, Sweden, Poland, United Kingdom, United States
Building consumer networks
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When accessed one gets:

This web site is still under construction.

Hosted by TribeTech - Building Communities.
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Olowkow said:
Has anyone asked Randi if he would mind if the new forum keeps his namesake: JREF Forum? It could have a banner stating in clear boilerplate language his disavowing any connection with the JREF.org.

I'd feel much more sanguine about all of these changes if Sharon's "official word" took the form of quotes attributable to someone in charge. But if the main admins who have been here for so long are buying into this plan, that's good enough for me.



Who is JREF these days?
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You mean James Randi Educational Forum?

:D
 
Klimax said:
You mean James Randi Educational Forum?

:D
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Sure, why not? A clear banner with a winky emoticon with a white beard stating "Not to be confused with the James Randi Educational Foundation which in no way supports this site" would be displayed prominently.
 
Donn said:
The site is pretty thin on substance and full of clip art. It leaves me feeling .. unsettled.
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Personally, I feel better this way. The Internet is full of insignificant, half-assed "business" websites that don't mean much. If the host of the forum wants to dabble inconsequentially in such things, they're welcome to do so. Everyone needs a hobby. You don't think James Randi spends all his time managing the forum, do you?

I'd be a lot more worried if the forum was being hosted by a thriving business that had a sound model and an owner who insisted that everything in his portfolio find a place in that model.

Even if the host wanted to find a place in his model for the forum, based on that website, nothing much would come of it, and the forum would probably muddle along same as before.
 
Olowkow said:
Oh, I've been through the translation pretty closely. Even noted that the business has 1 employee and negative income. Net assets of less than $10,000, (converted from TKR).
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You think I'm going to put this lawsuit magnet forum under a business that's got assets? Deliberate choice. TribeTech is a startup, it has no assets outside IP and we just pump in cash and spend it :) So go ahead, sue!

Also, The business called "TribeTech AB" is in the business of "body care", it seems.
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Health, we've undergone a name change (changed from just FitTogether, which is a health community/app and is now getting set up as a daughter company). Apparently we forgot to change the business code, thanks for the headsup :)

The Linkedin page for icerat (David Steadson) shows the TribeTech AB site to be: http://www.fittogether.nu/
The site if confusing, but it looks like the total membership is 8.
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FitTogether is still under development, all members are fakes or staff tests. Apparently I also changed the name on my profile but not the link. We were supposed to have the site and app launching a week ago. I got distracted (guess by what). :cool: The mobileapp programmers are harassing me ... :boggled:

This is just one of the projects that are listed on the site provided by a couple of posters up thread.

When accessed one gets:
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We have a bunch of projects in process. SingleMingel and NeDaMi were live sites. SingleMingel is another concern we've taken over and it was a disaster so we've taken it offline. NeDaMi is a actually a site of mine for another business, I moved the servers it was on and haven't put it back up yet. It's a private network.

Anyway, what we're doing with TribeTech is merging my background in community development and intervention research with my internet business interests to develop communities that exist both offline and online. In health for example there are many website communities around "health & fitness" but very few (can't find any of note) that actively work to make those communities work offline as well. Many of the new "wearables" companies (fitbit etc) have tacked social networks on the side, but their focus is selling the gadget. Sites like SparkPeople in the US have online communities, but leave the members the job of trying to get together and support each other offline. With FitTogether, our current major focus, we're going to be actively working with local communities and local sports and activity providers to help people find activities they like to do and people they like to do them with. Also got some very cool projects in mind with FitTogetherKids and wearables, amongst other things. Anyone know any jewelry fashion designers for kids? FitTogether should be launching in Australia and Sweden by the end of the month.

We're doing similar things with ExpatLink, we're working with local business networking organisations to help businesses and expats like myself connect, so that, for example, a swedish company wanting to expand to India can tap in the expertise and contact network of Indians living in Sweden. We'll also be facilitating expat networking events. Think Facebook meets LinkedIn meets MeetUp, except we actually proactively organise and arrange meetups.

Another project is HappAttack, it's a mobileapp and website for tracking local events in your community - I don't think we've posted on that anywhere yet so don't tell anyone. Most of these projects are in startup phase. There's a lot going on at the moment. Right now it's 1.15am and I'm supposed to be getting messaging specs to my app developers by the morning. In other words, I'm not looking for things to do, JREF is a sideline hobby. For now it's been put under TribeTech as it gives legal cover. What happens later, we'll see.

ETA: Sorry for the tl;dr but I could talk about this stuff for 6 pages, I'm pretty passionate about what we're doing ...
 
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ExpatLink seems to have 6 male (among them "test") and 5 female members.

No offense, icerat. I can see how this came just at the right time to put something you are passionate about to a level beyond previous failed attempts, without any bad intentions, but we want all of that on the table here.
 
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Childlike Empress said:
ExpatLink seems to have 6 male (among them "test") and 5 female members.

No offense, icerat. I can see how this came just at the right time to put something you are passionate about to a level beyond previous failed attempts, but we want all of that on the table here.
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There have been no previous failed attempts, CE. First employee dedicated to marketing ExpatLink was interviewed last week and coming on board next week. FitTogether is currently all programmers, we'll be opening the site in the next couple of weeks but it will essentially be in beta for a while before we start marketing.

I quote from my linked in profile -

TribeTech AB
January 2014 – Present (8 months) Sweden

TribeTech is a startup working at the nexus of the online and offline, using modern technology to help strengthen and improve communities and build a better world.
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We're a startup, with everything that entails.

This forum is going to be set up and running on new server hardware and a new name, and that's it. At some stage we'll update the forum software (sooner or later, undecided) but there are currently no other plans than that. I have a few idea we might test out at some stage, and which i've already floated here, like easy geographic identification to facilitate offline meetups. We're working with a geospatial company and an events app company to try and realise our vision. Maybe it fails, maybe not. If it doesn't I think we might be able to take some of what we learn in to helping the "skeptic" community organise and grow it's influence.
 
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I should have said "unsuccessful" instead of "failed". Other than that, I think you shouldn't be shy about this being a great opportunity for you to work with what you feel passionate about beyond the scale of what it had evolved into before. With or without direct "profit". There's nothing wrong about it.
 
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Childlike Empress said:
I should have said "unsuccessful" instead of "failed". Other than that, I think you shouldn't be shy about this being a great opportunity for you to work with what you feel passionate about beyond the scale of what it had evolved into before. With or without direct "profit". There's nothing wrong about it.
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You mean with the forums? I see this as an opportunity to be more involved in the skeptical community, which I've wanted to do for years. I think the stuff we learn working with other communities may be beneficial down the track.

Profit isn't my motive with any of the projects I'm pursuing.
 
icerat said:
You mean with the forums? I see this as an opportunity to be more involved in the skeptical community, which I've wanted to do for years. I think the stuff we learn working with other communities may be beneficial down the track.

Profit isn't my motive with any of the projects I'm pursuing.
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For what it's worth I trust your motives and appreciate your efforts (and others). If my trust proves to be misguided I know where the door is.
 
G6000 said:
This forum will go down in history as probably the only internet forum outside the former Soviet Union nations that ever required people's real names to register.
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I am a member of a sport officials' forum that requires not only your real name, but your bonafides as well, in order to join.
 
idoubtit said:
Here's the official word:

After considering all the comments and proposals from forum members, JREF has decided to transfer operation of the forums to TribeTech AB, a Swedish company founded by forum member icerat which specialises in hosting and developing internet communities. Icerat, together with the current forum admins (Darat, Locknar, Lash_L, and Lisa_Simpson) have developed a transition plan which JREF believes protects the privacy and interests of all forum members, as well as the ongoing existence of the forum community. All of the current admins are supportive of the transition plan and will continue their roles at the forum’s new home.

The transition team will post a message outlining the procedure in the next few days.
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THANK YOU ADMINS!
 
Sherman Bay said:
I ran a message board for $500/yr out-of-pocket. Where are your $6500/yr extra costs?
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One of the major expenses can be internet access. For example, a T1 line can easily cost $12,000 - $18,000 a year for 1.544 megabits/second.

Operating system, software, and hardware are generally figured on purchase cost divided by replacement schedule. If you spend $2,500 for hardware and software with a five replacement schedule (which is pretty reasonable) then that alone would be $500 per year. If you split your systems with separate servers then your costs can double. Costs can also depend on support and upgrade contracts for software. Hardware costs can be much higher depending on things like RAID and backup systems. And, then it depends on if you pay for someone to do systems administration, software support, and hardware maintenance. This is in addition to forum administration.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I ran a message board for $500/yr out-of-pocket. Where are your $6500/yr extra costs?
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As the other's have said that's JREFs costs (actually more). We expect to up and running for about a third. The site is of the size that simple shared hosting isn't enough, there's a blend of server costs, software licencing, firewalling and CDN.
 
OnlyTellsTruths said:
Yes. We know it is in fact. But two points:

#1: Another larger and more active forum is using the exact same relatively inefficient version of vBulletin that we are and it loads just fine. No seemingly random several hour long sessions of slowness.

#2: Because of the add-ons used on this forum and because of a few other reasons, transferring the content of this forum to another version of vBulletin or to another forum software entirely would be a gargantuan nightmare of a task.


Because of those two reasons, and if there is a simple hardware fix, the hardware fix is the obvious solution for our needs.

If the forum is moved to a dedicated and sufficient server and it then still has problems, then and only then should one consider a nightmarish (and possibly forum life altering) software transfer.
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If the primary driving urgency to make this change to the forums is the hardware needs upgrading, one would assume that installing the most upgraded software would accompany this "clean install"? Are there good enumerable reasons why this should not happen??
 
The latest version of the software would be a much worse "experience" for members (full of noticeable bugs that impact usability) and would see no improvement in regards to utilising the hardware. Also the primary urgency is actually a combination of updating hardware and for the JREF to divest itself of the forum.
 
barehl said:
One of the major expenses can be internet access. For example, a T1 line can easily cost $12,000 - $18,000 a year for 1.544 megabits/second.

Operating system, software, and hardware are generally figured on purchase cost divided by replacement schedule. If you spend $2,500 for hardware and software with a five replacement schedule (which is pretty reasonable) then that alone would be $500 per year. If you split your systems with separate servers then your costs can double. Costs can also depend on support and upgrade contracts for software. Hardware costs can be much higher depending on things like RAID and backup systems. And, then it depends on if you pay for someone to do systems administration, software support, and hardware maintenance. This is in addition to forum administration.
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I bought no hardware and the only software was vBulletin, about $250 for a perpetual license; a little different if you want updates on a regular basis.

The hosting company has the Internet access, backup and storage, and it is getting cheaper all the time. 1.544 mb/sec -- you gotta be kidding. That's so 1970's. I don't know the size of randi.org's message board database, but I'll bet it pales in comparison to the 500 full-length videos I had stored on my site once. We're not talking about a challenging or expensive site -- this is trivial in traffic, processing and storage.

Here's GoDaddy's pricing. For $15/month, unlimited everything. (This is shared hosting, but dedicated isn't that much more expensive IIRC.)

hosting.jpg
 
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Sherman Bay said:
I bought no hardware and the only software was vBulletin, about $250 for a perpetual license; a little different if you want updates on a regular basis.
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Sherman, just as an FYI. Rick Adams of JREF, who has been looking after this site was founder of UUNET, one of the first internet providers in the world. I started one of the early internet providers in Australia and later moved to dedicated hosting before selling. I later started another hosting provider in Europe before selling it. (for a lot less than Rick made, alas!)

Anyway, we kind of have a bit of knowledge in this area and I and some others have spent a deal of time looking at the requirements of this site. Storage of 500 videos is in fact easier to deal with than a database with nearly 10000000 posts. I can guarantee you that we do not want to put it on GoDaddy shared hosting.

But yes, we also don't want to be looking at dedicated links to our own equipment. The current plan, at the recommendation of member Ben Burch and after I've done some testing is to be moving to cloud hosting with Digital Ocean.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I don't know the size of randi.org's message board database, but I'll bet it pales in comparison to the 500 full-length videos I had stored on my site once. We're not talking about a challenging or expensive site -- this is trivial in traffic, processing and storage.
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You can't compare just by the size of the data, storing and serving videos is trivial compared to the CPU and memory requirements of a database and application server for a forum of this size.

To suggest that you could run a forum this size and usage on $15 a month shared hosting and have it usable (and not get kicked off entirely) is laughable, sorry to say.
 
icerat said:
I can guarantee you that we do not want to put it on GoDaddy shared hosting.
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Why not? :rolleyes: It would be a fair destination if you are looking for a provider that proportionally matches the real knowledge, education and wit of a lot of members here who like starting threads about magnetic universes, reincarnations and how obamacare blew it again... I mean, how many clowns may you pile into a tiny car parked at GoDaddy's lot? Is there any forum software running on a flat(-earth) file database?
 
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