From Greenspun front page:

I'm currently trying to figure out how to redesign these services so that users are authenticated, e.g., before posting they have to register and respond to an email message (we won't know who they are but at least we'll know that they supplied an email address where they can receive mail) a person is available to handle service inquiries a programmer is available to provide enhancements based on user needs the site is financially self-sustaining, i.e., either the owners of bboards or the most active posters are contributing to the costs of sysadmin, programming, hosting/bandwidth, and customer service When these services were built in the mid-1990s it made a lot of sense. Running a database-backed Web server was an esoteric art that required expensive hardware and proprietary software. But as we enter the year 2002 there are quite a few 14-year-olds who've set up Linux, Postgres, and OpenACS in less than one day. With a $500 PC and a DSL line, they end up having all the collaboration tools that dotcoms spent $10 million to construct. Bottom line: prepare for some changes to these services!

Philip Greenspun, December 6, 2001

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Answers

Awful Prospect?

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

OOh er Mr. Greenspun......don`t pull the plug on us please!!!! (:o( I don`t adjust well to change!

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

hmm...sounds similar to the Communicata saga. At least Greenspun is already entertaining the idea of charging a fee, which I seem to remember Communicata wanted nothing to do with as we are a small group. I get the feeling he's only looking to cover costs and not make a huge profit. So no reason to panick just yet, but it's probably not a bad idea to look for a few alternatives just in case.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

I think PG is trying to modernise (or modernize if you don't quite understand Ciara) his service. At leaat I hope that's what it is and not premature isolation.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Hope so. I read an interesting article on chatsites closing because they are so unvialable financially so I hope it doesn't happen. I know of at least two other football chatsites that are planning a £10 per annum subscription. Something like this would OK.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

We always have Ken & Scratchy's DailyToon board as a standby - it's slow, but has a familiar, communicata style.

If Greenspun really went belly up what about us simply going over and squatting on the Official Site bbs? Technically it seems fine - only really spoiled by the posters, but we could fix that!

Why not check it out and post some feedback? We really should do some contingency planning - just in case.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

How about a graphical based board?

Something like Ezboard and the like, where everyone registers and there is an advert at the top of the screen to make sure that costs are covered.

Swear words can be filtered out (or starred out) and the administrator can set up different moderators, so certain people can delete posts that could offend.

If Greenspun's boards are going tits up then we could look into one of the new ones.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Nothing graphical or flashy for me. Bogs down the internet connection and my computers. Plain old black and white text is best for me. ;-)

I wouldn't be against a nominal subscription fee, either. Might also keep the trolls out as they'd have to be especially sad to spend money just to be abusive. Though a BBS coup of the official s*ite could be fun, too. ;-)

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

One big factor in me suggesting this ciara is that the ".co.uk" bbs should be immune from being abandoned at some point (hopefully!) - something we've already suffered from once because of the inherent non-commerciality of such boards, due to the small number of visitors.

Of course, the original Communicata crowd got together on the Official Site when it was run by Communicata, so a return of the prodigal would seem logical - and of course it is precisely the place we should congregate, all things being equal.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Unfortunately it's not immune from spotty kids and sad sorts that can't even come up with new ways to use their limited 4-letter-word vocabularies. Still, if worse came to worst, it's better than nothing.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

..... as I said ciara, the current "populace" is grim. However, I reckon if we moved in en mass we could exert a significant positive influence - visiting as an individual poster you just don't have a chance.

That sounds dreadfully elitist, but you know what I mean.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

LOL, Clarky. Nothing wrong with being elitist when you know you're better than them. ;-))

Anyhoo, guess I'm not quite as optimistic that we'd be able to turn a public bbs around, but who knows. As you say, if we move en mass, it may just work eventually.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

The best place would be where the best web site is: nufc.com...

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Hmm ... just had a little shufty in the aforementioned and uniformly venerated official site's forum. Looks like another corker, well up to their impeccable standards in quality and reliability. I was so impressed I took a screen-grab.

Not too sure of the html tags to poss it here, so to keep the red triangle at bay I've whacked it on my site with a link here.

Just look at what we're missing. The entire text of every post, that's what we're missing.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

Oh dear.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

funk dat

-- Anonymous, December 07, 2001

It seems my suggestion is under "friendly fire", so let's start again.

We seem to be facing yet another potential problem with the continuity of this BBS, something that is rather important to quite a number of us.

The basic problem is the board requires quite a large, expensive server for which there is unfortunately no commercial return - the number of users is far too small to attract advertisers. This caused Communicata to precipitously cut us off about 18 months ago. While we were running around in circles trying every possible alternative board, and finding them all in some way defficient, Duncan Reed (who we seem to have lost as a contributor) set up this board. We've settled happily here, and got used to the different, non- frames format.

We were originally told this bbs ran an a massive server at MIT (Cambridge, Mass). I've never really understood how Phillip Greenspun was able to commandeer capacity on this server without paying for it, and more importantly, how long this would continue.

We've had several outages recently, which have greatly concerned me, and I suspect Greenpun has now moved to another server. The board is certainly slower than it used to be, and the server is now frequently "busy". The latest news posted on Phillip Greenpsun's Home Page, raises my concerns, and imo makes it more likely that we will need to find another new home. Certainly, based on previous experience, we would be wise to do some contingency planning.

When we were last "homeless" we looked at every conceivable alternative BBS, and found them all wanting. There was a view then that NUFC.com would be an ideal home - the fairly obvious problem is that they don't have a BBS, and Screacher believes they were asked last time and indciated they weren't interested. I suspect the server capacity issue could be a problem for them, and yet again a BBS does not provide a financial justification for moving to a bigger one. We could, of course, raise the question with them once again.

The Daily Toon BBS has been used by a few of us in recent emergencies, but is slow, and as soon as you get a few people on line it becomes deathly slow - another problem with many existing boards.

I've tried the Strawberry and Talk of the Tyne (TOTT) BBS's, but they are generally dreadful. The TOTT board has the advantage of being part of the Rivals.net set-up that allows you an easy link to the boards of every other PL Club, and imo has potential. However, most of the content is either garbage or abuse, and the format provides no continuity of discussion on any particular point - something that I feel is very important to us on here.

So, my current conclusion is that there is no ready-made, ideal alternative for us if we are threatened with closure. Any move will inevitably become a compromise.

Surely, the ideal place for our discussions is where this BBS actually started - on the Official Site. It is presumably the most secure of all BBS's as they don't need to consider the financial justification. The format of their BBS is OK, it is password- protected, and imo the only downside are the existing posters who largely propagate the same sort of mindless cr@p you get on essentially all other boards, bar this one.

My feeling is that if the worst came to the worst, we should at least give consideration to going back to the O/S BBS "en mass" - this would be different to an individual posting on there and hoping to make a difference. If we did that - while it might take a little time and a lot of patience - I feel quite sure that we could continue our normal debates unhindered, and would materially and positively influence the quality of debate on that site - actually to the benefit of NUFC.

Your feedback would be appreciated, please.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

Clarky - I see where you are coming from but also share your reservations about the "quality" of the contributions on other (more public) boards. I see three short-term courses of action:

1. Contact Philip Greenspun to see what his plans are

2. Contact the club to see if there is a way of improving the official site BBS (perhaps something for the FLC to raise??)

3. Build on the FLC site

Sadly, less well-funded "amateur" facilities lack the level of support, bandwidth and "oomph" required to deliver a high quality BBS. I'm still hopeful PG will get something sorted.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

That sounds like a fair compromise to me Clarky. In a way, it might not even matter that we have to share it with the dead heads because eventually, hopefully, they'll get to realise that we're not going to be drawn by their drivel.

We may have to put up with threads being prematurely aborted for a while due to being completely ignored once the morons start to contribute, but I think with a bit of discipline in not acknowledging threads that look like they might be going down the pan, the message has to sink in.

Then the sky's the limit again as far as we're concerned. That's the theory anyway. :-)

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

How about asking for volunteers for an away team to get the lie of the planet's surface ? Then, if it doesn't look too bad, the rest of us can beam down and introduce an education programme tailored to the needs of the indigent fauna.

I know the sensors don't give much indication of it, but you never know, there may even be pockets of reasonably advanced intellect. :-))

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

All well and good, but if the official s*ite's board isn't displaying messages, we can post till our fingers fall off and it won't matter. ;-))

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

How much bandwidth and server power do you need to run a BBS ?

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

I'm sure we could get enough people to form a proper site of our own. A lot of companies will host for a price. I did some searching and there are a lot of services available. One I particularly like is WWW.AMHOSTING.COM. They offer a lot of different hosting services. We have been extremely lucky to have a free place for this amount of time.

I would not be against paying for a membership to this BBS it means that much to me, and I'm certain others feel the same way. I think we should do whatever we have to to secure our BBS for the future. No matter the route we have to take!!!!

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

Is it likely there are makems etc sad enough to fork out just to give us grief ?

Sounds to me like it might be a bit of a bonus having to pay for air time.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

I prefer the simplicity (elegance?) of the current set up, but I have never had any problems with ezboard, albeit as a contributor not a moderator. That would seem to be the logical step in the event of a Greenspun death.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

I set this forum up ages ago at Delphi and got quite positivge feedback - I think it was when we got the boot from Communicata. It has psasword protection, the ability to ban, gag or quite simple ignore people. Anyway it's an alternative that can be found here .

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001

Of course there's every chance that these other boards will be horrified by an influx of self-opinionated, precious, elitist vicars and will pay good money to keep us off their sites.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

sparxx,

If my memory serves me correctly (for once!), Macbeth's recent request for valid e-mail addresses from contributors/lurkers came up with no more than about 100 people.

In addition, when we were trying to preserve the Communicata bbs, they indicated a subscription might do the trick. I'm sure there were only about 50 people who indicated they would pay a subscription - and certainly less than 100. I'm not criticising those who didn't respond positively, simply trying to indicate what a small community this is.

I just don't believe we could support a private board - although of course there are numerous other places we could set one up. However, my concern then would be - how long would it last before we need to look elsewhere yet again.

One thing I think we're all agreed on - this place is very special to us and must be preserved, somewhere.

When I get a mo I think I'll e-mail the ".com" guys and see if I can find out what there view would be on hosting a quality bbs on a quality Toon site.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

Just a couple of observations from a relatively new member of this community: First off, I'd certainly be willing to pay a reasonable subsciption fee to contribute towards running costs. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, it strikes me (and you old timers can correct me if I'm wrong) that the reason the BBS is worthy of our attention is that there are comparatively few morons posting. I'm guessing that's because most people come to this site by invitataion. However, I would imagine that if the new site was hosted by nufc.com then they'd allow all-comers to access it as that's very much in keeping with the tone of their site. Likely result is therefore that the quality of postings would decline to a level more on a par with the club site, which I think we can all agree would be a bad bad thing. As a new member I've got no idea of the history behind this site, but I do think it's something worth preserving in as close to the current form as possible. Perhaps if closure seems imminent a survey of those willing to pay might be a good way to come up with an idea of how much of a budget is available?

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

Clarky's numbers are right. I have less than 100 e-mail addresses for people who post on here and that includes the likes of SuperKev and Roly. We are not a big group and I get roughly one request a fortnight for the password so we aren't growing either.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

The problem with NUFC.COM is that they have said that they won't host a forum (maybe because they occasionally look like they think their's is the only opinion to have). I'm not sure whether The Mag would consider collaboration, but True Faith's experience might put them off: 90% of the posters are Makems.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

The general feeling I'm getting is that very few seem to be interested in squatting on the ".co.uk" board and setting out to improve what could conceivably represent "the final solution", and similarly, few believe a move to ".com" would be possible/desirable.

My concern with what seems to be the general feeling - and I hope this is worth articulating - is that we look like going down precisely the same path we trod last time. That 'approach' almost lead us into the wilderness 'cos everyone maintained their own particular view of what was needed, and in the end we couldn't agree on anything.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

I repeat - How much bandwidth and server power do you need to run a BBS ?

Did anybody speak to Communicata in the previous panic about how much we neededd to pay for ?

I haven't a clue but I may have access to some Unix hardware and have mates & or aquaintances who may be able to help.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

Josh - if I knew the answer I'd have replied marra. From previous discussions on this subject I doubt anyone really knows - although Duncan Reed may have a clue. Might also be worth asking Screacher.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

Sorry chaps - not my area. I dunno what bandwidth, database or BBS s/w you'd need. But as PG mentioned, kids seem able to set them up with ease under Linux.

-- Anonymous, December 09, 2001

All

Good to be back; it's been a long time.

Anyway, I'll do some digging with Philip as to what's going on. This service is hosted at MIT in Boston, where Philip is at present a member of staff. Hence he's historically been able to do this for free. It may well just be that MIT have grown concerned about the amount of non-MIT traffic through Philip's services.

Otherwise, volunteers with a cable modem and permanently on PC that doesn't get used for anything else step forward, and I'll replicate this service in a few days sometime in January. I'll poke aboput and see if anyone I know has anything 'spare' kicking about.

Cheers

Dunx

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2001

Dunx to the rescue again? I suspect it may well be a bandwidth issue with MIT. I know of a number of folks working in academia over here using their school's servers...until bandwidth usage gets to the point of being noticeable. With his years of service, Greenspun may be able to come up with an inexpensive solution, and should be able to get labour cheaply from the student population. ;-)

Still if you can rig something reliable up for us, Dunx, it would save the periodic trauma of wondering if the plug will be pulled on us again. thanks for your efforts!

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2001

I'm busy testing out some forum software on my PC at home for a seperate project we have going on at work. I'll let you know how I get on. There's a possibility I could host it over my 512k connection, but I only have 10 Megabytes worth of space. However in the new year I'll be gettting 50 MegaBytes of space to play with. I'll try and get something up and running tonight, and let you know the address tomorrow, so you can see what it would be like. Let's just hope that it doesn't have to come to this, and this BBS will stay as it is.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2001

Good to hear from you again Duncan - and for stepping up to the plate, yet again.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2001

Nice to see you still about, Duncan our regular knight in black and white armour :-) Got used to this format now, but the frames were better in ye olde dayes.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 2001