Where are we going to go if the forum will be shut down? What about photo.net ?

-- Toan Nguyen (toan.nguyen@videotron.ca), December 06, 2001

Answers

What makes you think the forum is going to be closed soon?

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), December 06, 2001.

Philip Greenspun has notified me that the demise of Greenspun.Com is immanent. I do not have a shut down date at this time. Philip has suggested that I contact Photo.Net and have all our accounts and archives transferred there. I have sent Photo.Net a letter requesting just that and will post further information as I receive it. Apparently, this has to do with the implosion of Philip's company, ArsDigita, after being taken over by a bunch of venture capitalists who don't know shit about software. See http://www.waxy.org/random/arsdigita/.

-- Ed Buffaloe (uneye@hotmail.com), December 06, 2001

Picked this up over on B & W net. paul nelson

-- Paul Nelson (clrfarm@westnet.com.au), December 07, 2001.

Leica-Camera also has a forum, which I visited a couple nights ago. It did not seem as user-friendly as this forum. I did not make a post there, but I did see a couple familiar names from this one. Perhaps they might compare it with this one for us. I've tried to download info from Leica"s site. It is in PDF form and though I am told that I am supposed to be able to download that PDF stuff, I have yet to be successful at doing so. I have Adobe Acrobat, but when I try the PDF stuff, I get a flashing window that shuts me down. All I can do is use the button on the tower to shut off the computer. When I turn it back on, it has to scan itself for a couple minutes and I get a message telling me to use the proper method to shut down! Duh...

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), December 07, 2001.

Apparantly this is not just a rumor. Has Tony been contacted about it? Is there any deadline set for when greenspun.com will be off line?

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 07, 2001.

There may be another alternative that would not subject participants to the same sort of "harvesting" by marketeers that often accompanies the more commercially-motivated portals.

I've made the gentleman who runs the alternative site aware of the potential situation with Greenspun to see he might be interested in hosting some of the photography-related forums. If there's an interest, I'll get him in touch with Tony.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), December 07, 2001.

I moderate 2 LUSENET fora, but have heard nothing of this. In the Ask Philip forum we are discussing the future of the free services and Philip has some suggestions. Please take a look.

-- Niels H. S. Nielsen (nhsn@ruc.dk), December 07, 2001.

Niels,

Read this thread in the LF forum

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007HYj

Tony, its probably time to drop Phil Greenspun an email. Who knows, maybe there is a home there. In any case he will be able to speak to the technical issues and future better than most of us.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 07, 2001.

As Mani notes, the large-format forum (a couple of ticks up from Leica at www.greenspun/bboard) has been debating its future for the past couple of days, after Phil G. notified that forum's host that its days are numbered.

I buzzed right over here to this forum after the LF homepage's host announced the impending change and was surprised to see no discussion of this forum's future until Toan's posting of this thread.

--------------------------

P.S. I would say the demise is "imminent," not "immanent" (if it were the latter, the truly insightful would have seen it coming).

..........

-- Terry (tcdvorak@aol.com), December 07, 2001.

Hello All, There is another site which may proove to be an alternative, if only as an interim measure. At least it may keep us all in contact with each other until something more permanent can be arranged. It is a MSN site at:- http://communities.msn.com/leicausers/messageboard.msnw

-- David Seaman (Lincolnshire,England) (david@leicam.freeserve.co.uk), December 07, 2001.

That is why I suggested set up a shadow site at yahoogroups

-- martin tai (cg081@torfree.net), December 07, 2001.

My two cents: the MSN forum was FAR too slow loading for me to tolerate the last time I tried it before giving up completely; I prefer Topica's interface to Yahoo's, myself. I have participated for a couple of years on both sites, and have never had any problem whatsoever with spam from either.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), December 07, 2001.

Delphi.com has a reasonable interface, runs fairly fast and has been reliable in the one forum that I use...advertisement supported, have not noticed an increase in spam since I started using the Kiev forum over there a while back.

-- Craig Zeni (clzeni@mindspring.com), December 07, 2001.

Tony,

Is there any basis to this rumor? Are there plans to shut down this forum in the near future? Please investigate and give us the facts. Thanks. LB

-- Luther Berry (lberrytx@aol.com), December 07, 2001.

I have been contacted by Philip Greenspun, and he has made the same proposal to me as he did to the B&W forum.

As sad as it is to see greenspun.com go away, this switch will mean benefits for us and me here. First of all, if this were to happen (which I'm not sure of yet) our forum will be searchable just like photo.net is now. Also, forum participants will have photo.net accounts with passwords. The forum bombarders will be easier to deal with. As I receive more information, I will pass it on here. Philip did tell me that our forum is important and that it should live on.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), December 07, 2001.

how ever it goes, we are a solid comunity and I belive we have in Tony a great administadorand friend, as he says it can bring goods too; just lets keep in touch.

And one good advice, Christmass is coming and a lot of us will go out and probably out of touch too, so be prepare to keep in touch when return.

Cheerss and apologies for spealing.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), December 07, 2001.

I haven't been told the time when the greenspun.com server will be shut down. Right now, though, I'm feeling very lucky that our Leica forum is being considered for assimilation by the photo.net system.

When more information comes in, I will start a new thread under Administration and post the info there.

No matter the changes, I will do my best to assist our participants when necessary. Please don't run off!

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), December 07, 2001.

Isn't it just the case? You finally find a Leica forum which is reasonably on-topic and which has a topic-by-topic design so that you can easily skip over the ding-bats and Grandpa Simpsons, and what happens, it gets shut down! Grrrr. Hope it doesn't happen soon.

An alternative to finding another www-based host would be to start a moderated mailing list. Trick is though to find a (retired? academic?) list-mum who would be prepared to spend approx 90 minutes a day to cull submissions and keep everything on-topic and focused. I tried my hand at it a few months ago, but I've got a business to run, photos to take etc so had to kill the thing at birth.

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), December 07, 2001.

It would be sad to see this forum begone. I would hope that LUSENET continues on despite the challenges.

Alfie

-- Alfie Wang (leica_phile@hotmail.com), December 07, 2001.

This is sad. Usually I can take or leave these sorts of forums but, as a new M6 owner, I've found a LOT of good advice here for my M purchase and for servicing of LTM cameras.

-- Thomas Herbert (therbert@miami.edu), December 07, 2001.

Tony,

Thanks for the reply but that was NOT the answer I hoped to get! This forum has been very informative. It has helped me to develop a better understanding of Leica cameras and lenses. Has also made me more aware of limitations in my present skills and encouraged me to improve my photographic vision. I hope the forum can continue! LB

-- Luther Berry (lberrytx@aol.com), December 07, 2001.

I'm not forseeing any disadvantages. Philip said that all of our archived messages (22,000+ postings so far) will move along with us. So besides having to log in with email addresses and passwords, I see no problems. Also, once you log in with your normal PC(s), if you allow cookies, then you won't have to supply your email/password every time you visit the forum. Only when you use the forum using a new machine will that be required.

We are one of a very few number of LUSENET forums that is being considered for continued existence. I sure hope that THAT comes as good news to everyone! :-)

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), December 07, 2001.

Tony, thats good news. We have a good group of folks here. I just hope we get enough warning or get a link when this site is closed directing us to the proper place at photo.net

-- Gerry Widen (gwiden@alliancepartners.org), December 07, 2001.

Among the criteria for sites that will be continued are probably the growth patterns, hits, and participation numbers. Potential sponsors want "sets of eyes" on their investment. The more the better. To all out there (and *especially* those who visit but rarely contribute) visit often, contribute, make sponsors aware that the site is worthy of continuation by its level of high participation. In the immortal words of Chicago politics...

...VOTE EARLY...VOTE OFTEN.

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), December 07, 2001.

My condolences to everyone at Greenspun.com/LUSENET. I take it the barbarians got INSIDE the gates this time.

Thanks to all of them for the support and job they've done. i just hope our new home (if any) lives up to their standards.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), December 07, 2001.

I for one, will applaud the switch to the photo.net system. Photo.net has been a favorite site of mine for a number of years now. And though some of it's more recent changes have annoyed me, I still find it to be the best site (and discussion system) of it's kind.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), December 07, 2001.

http://greenspun.com/bboard/sort-by-n-messages.tcl According to the link above, we are second only to the large format site in activity out of all the photo/camera related sites at Lusenet. Of course, how can we compete with the " time bomb 2000" site with over 300,000 messages! You ever go into some of those forums listed near the top of Lusenet's activity ranking? Makes us almost seem sane here.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 07, 2001.