Problems with the board

[_Lemmie]

(Dr. Shades here, posting under our "Temp. Admin." account.)

Who knows, maybe behinds the scenes ordinary posters are disparaged regularly and laughed at for not being more important, but it’s very bad form to use it to publicly mock posters. . . He must have heard how awful I am from one of those insider group meetings he mentioned.

I can assure you that there's no such thing as an "insider's group," at least not that I'm aware of, and not one that mocks other posters (again, not that I'm aware of).

Thank you for sharing that, Dr. Shades.

There is nothing secretive about our offline discussion of this topic. I suspect an email thread was created so Shades could share the proposal with us and get feedback. It shouldn't be any surprise that efforts have been made behind the scenes to resolve this issue. If you're pissed off because you weren't included, oh well.

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 9#p1237739

There is nothing against the rules in saying I had a talk offline with other people here. You're just pissed because you view yourself as Queen Bee, and weren't included. That decision wasn't up to me.

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 3#p1237743

It was a deal set up by Gad, Shades, Dr. Moore and a couple other posters who typically hang in the terrestrial forum. I was included in the email exchange.

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 0#p1237730

the proposal was pitched to me by numerous people who were fully aware of the past incidents you're trying to exploit for your own personal gratification....

I can also tell you that no one who is actually informed on the details of how things actually went down, and doesn't have an ax to grind, agrees with you.

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 4#p1238144

... I can now understand why the powers that be decided not to involve Jersey Girl in any of that, given how emotional her approach is to everything. Good Lord, just look at what she's done in just a few days of gossiping behind the scenes.

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1238205

:rolleyes:

[_Gadianton]

The "inclusion" here is pretty circular. I decided personally that the root cause of the boards problems are ultimately ownership related and started a thread here voicing my opinion that somebody needs to try and buy the board from the current owner and/or start a new board to migrate to. Dr. Shades didn't protest the point. Icarus volunteered, therefore, Dr. Shades being the only person who even knows who the owner is, broached the idea with the owner. I was part of it only because I'd volunteered for the tech work. DM I'd asked for basic advice given his in real life experience with transactions.

At any time, anybody else here with an idea to save the board could email shades about it and start a new trajectory. If I wake up tomorrow to a new board put into place by other insiders who didn't involve me, I'll be very happy.

[_Lemmie]

The "inclusion" here is pretty circular...

And certainly not an issue with me, thanks for your efforts Gad. It’s becoming clear that only one person sees the “inclusion” as an “exclusion” that he can use to try to insult a fellow poster.

[_Jersey Girl]

I've deleted a couple of specifics from two of my posts here. I would like to say, though, that whether or not this board can be updated or a new board is created, I would want to see a queue feature re-instated.

[_Kishkumen]

Are there any updates on the offer put before the current owner of the board? Where are we at?

[_Gadianton]

the offer was nullified given the present thread, but it doesn't matter since the owner never responded.

I think people should consider the following:

'let's not specify the new owner(s) for the moment, but consider the possibility of moving to a new forum without the present database and starting over. Is that a deal-breaker for anyone? In other words, if we can't move with the database, would anyone simply go their separate way and cease participation?

With a new forum in place, the ball can get rolling with new registrations and better posting experience, and absolutely nothing prevents anyone from linking back to this board for previous content, nor copying posts from here or threads and transplanting, nor using phpBB scrapers to pull content from this site and transplanting.

Then, if we can get the main contributors on board to agree to move forward and not look back, we (or whoever) can continue to try to get a deal made for the database, and if successful, transplant it as an archive to the new forum.

With every day that we post good content to this forum we may be banishing it.

[_Doctor Scratch]

the offer was nullified given the present thread, but it doesn't matter since the owner never responded.

I think people should consider the following:

'let's not specify the new owner(s) for the moment, but consider the possibility of moving to a new forum without the present database and starting over. Is that a deal-breaker for anyone? In other words, if we can't move with the database, would anyone simply go their separate way and cease participation?

With a new forum in place, the ball can get rolling with new registrations and better posting experience, and absolutely nothing prevents anyone from linking back to this board for previous content, nor copying posts from here or threads and transplanting, nor using phpBB scrapers to pull content from this site and transplanting.

Then, if we can get the main contributors on board to agree to move forward and not look back, we (or whoever) can continue to try to get a deal made for the database, and if successful, transplant it as an archive to the new forum.

With every day that we post good content to this forum we may be banishing it.

Dean Robbers:

If you or someone else will get the new board rolling, I will announce this year's Sampson Avard Golden Scepter recipient on it. Let's get to work!

[_Jersey Girl]

the offer was nullified given the present thread, but it doesn't matter since the owner never responded.

I think people should consider the following:

'let's not specify the new owner(s) for the moment, but consider the possibility of moving to a new forum without the present database and starting over. Is that a deal-breaker for anyone? In other words, if we can't move with the database, would anyone simply go their separate way and cease participation?

With a new forum in place, the ball can get rolling with new registrations and better posting experience, and absolutely nothing prevents anyone from linking back to this board for previous content, nor copying posts from here or threads and transplanting, nor using phpBB scrapers to pull content from this site and transplanting.

Then, if we can get the main contributors on board to agree to move forward and not look back, we (or whoever) can continue to try to get a deal made for the database, and if successful, transplant it as an archive to the new forum.

With every day that we post good content to this forum we may be banishing it.

I have some concerns and preferences that I'd like to express here.

1. Starting a new board and moving forward is something I would like to see happen in the very near future if possible.

2. I have concerns about transplanting posts and threads largely having to do with feuds. I would not like to see those go forward. I

3. If we can get a new board up and running, I would like to propose establishing at least a temporary rule that prohibits transplanting threads from here to the new board or if at all possible, this board locked until we are underway, in order to prevent the carrying forward of old feuds or if nothing else, to serve as a cooling off period. If posters develop new feuds on the new board, that's okay with me so long as they function within the board rules. I just don't want to see old feuds dragged along with us if at all possible, particularly those that involve rule violations.

4. In the future, I would like to see whole threads nominated for transplanting. Posters send the links to Shades where he has the final say and does the transplanting starting with the Hall of Fame threads and adding to those if Shades is willing to take HoF threads and move them forward as a beginning to a new HoF thread. I realize that if the board could be locked that would mean opening it back up for nominations and transplanting.

5. I would very much like to see this board archived to serve as a board history. Otherwise, I'm all for a clean slate.

Gad, I trust you implicitly. Just tell us how to donate for the new board and if you will, give us a time frame with a drop dead date to collect the amount needed.

[_Gadianton]

The main takeaway on moving content is that Shades doesn't own the database and so anyone with creative content such as top 10 lists, novels published to the board, threads like the "greatest guesser" thread, threads where apologists were supremely humiliated -- anyone who has content they care about in particular should save it so that it can be restored elsewhere in the future, because another round of php upgrades at the host and this board might disappear for good. The owner has no vested interest in the board and so the DB, what he could/would/will do with it is up in the air.

As for donations, that's the easy part, we have enough offers for donations we could build a new board plus a bronze statue of Dr. Scratch. The sticky points aren't money related. Oh, there is one sticky point that is money related that nobody would guess. I disclose this for the good of the community, and hopefully Dr. Shades won't take offense. Dr. Shades has a couple of quirks. One of those quirks is that he doesn't quite understand that people gladly pay for things that matter to them, and that make their life easier. Shades is so hell-bent against imposing a financial burden on anybody, that he can't bring himself to take 5$ from the wealthiest among us, even if that means forcing the person to suffer through hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of posting inefficiency and mental trauma dealing with either board problems or board uncertainty as indirect or intangible costs.

[_Res Ipsa]

Gad, your proposal sounds reasonable to me.