OK, this forum is startin to freak me out. I havent been able to access it more and more frequently, and for longer periods, and with the talk last winter I wonder if its going going almost gone...

There was a thread a few weeks ago, and somebody posted an URL where they were dinking around with setting up similar software at another site. I cnat find that thread now. Anyone have that URL? Is this site going to vanish or not? is that one going to replace it? Am I going to have to rely on....gack,,,cough.....USENET for my LF info addiction???

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), May 01, 2002

Answers

I follow Wayne with the same questions.

-- Sergio Caetano (caetanosergio@uol.com.br), May 01, 2002.

I found the thread I was looking for, or some else found it for me

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

the site was http://joshwand.com/q-and-a/index.php

but it isnt set up (yet? I hope?) for large format. Might not be a bad idea to bookmark it though, in case the next outtage here is the Big One...

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), May 02, 2002.

I have been around this forum since 1997 and I don't think it will go away. The maintainer of the LF page and this forum seems to be very serious in his efforts to maintain the service. I can't thank him enough for it. I wouldn't be surprised if we can discuss this very thread on this forum in another five years.

If I am proven wrong and this forum goes away, there's still the LF forum on photo.net. So I wouldn't worry. Get out there and shoot some film instead. It's a better way to spend your hours on this planet.

Regards, Jimi

-- Jimi Axelsson (jimi@earthling.net), May 02, 2002.

As opposed to how we should spend it on another planet...

-- Chad Jarvis (cjarvis@nas.edu), May 02, 2002.

This is where the discussion comes from, (under THE FUTURE OF THIS FORUM - PLEASE READ ) "As most of you know, this forum uses software and hosting outsourced by Philip Greenspun free of charge at the greenspun.com server. I received an advance notice from him that he will not be able to maintain this service. Some of you have already noticed a number of recent glitches with the service, which initially was flawless. Ideally, someone would install the ACS software on another server (the Berkeley server would not work) and transfer the current forum data to it. However, this person cannot be me because I lack the skills to do that in a reasonable time. Therefore, to continue this forum, I see only two practical alternatives:

Pull out the data from the current server and archive it in some searchable ways. Then switch to another software system. This new system would be either ran from the LF page (with a new domain name), or could be outsourced to something like yahoo!groups. Integrate the LF Forum to photo.net, like the MF Digest currently is. The problem with the first alternative is probably an inferior interface different from the one you are used to, plus possibly work for me and/or anybody who volunteer to help. The problem with the second alternative are the issues which we already discussed in length. So what do you think ?

-- Q.-Tuan Luong (luong@ai.sri.com), December 05, 2001"

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), May 02, 2002.

What LF forum on photo.net???

-- Sal Santamaura (santamaura@earthlink.net), May 02, 2002.

My day job is writing software. I wrote the Perl API for my employer's 3270 software.

I know of one message host service which will host this for either free (with ads) or for very cheap per month, and it has an excellent interface. (http://www.xsorbit.com/)

If you want me to port and make the DB searchable, I can do it. Let me know how I can help out.

-- Brian C. Miller (brian.c.miller@gte.net), May 02, 2002.

The LF on photo.net idea seems to be sparked by Mark Ciccarello's comments in http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg? msg_id=002Cg8. Not that photo.net is any more reliable than greenspun.com.

-- Todd West (twest@agora.rdrop.com), May 02, 2002.

Well, I wasn't aware of the post that Q-T Luong had made re: the future of the forum, and yes, you are right: there is no LF forum on photo.net, BUT there are threads sorted under the LF category.

I would prefer an ad-free forum, maybe some of the LF camera manufacturers, etc. might be willing to sponsor the forum to help maintain this valuable source of information.

Regards, Jimi

-- Jimi Axelsson (jimi@earthling.net), May 02, 2002.

This was the post I was referrign to and looks like the most elegant of the solutions suggested (follow the rambling discussion at: http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007HYj)

tim a

"I've been a lurker here, and a semi-active participant in the People Photography forum. I was a bit distressed about the prospect of the greenspun servers going away, so I started writing a facsimile of the q-and-a system in a more portable form than ACS is (PHP/mySQL vs. AOLServer/ACS/Postgres/Oracle).

The result is http://joshwand.com/q-and-a/. Mind you, it's not finished yet (most notably missing are email notifications, but that will be added within the next week or so), but the core functionality is there and solid.

My next task after polishing up the service to current levels is to figure out how to move existing content-- I can write a spider, I suppose, but I might ask philg if he can give me raw database dumps of both the forums (and any others that might wish to move) so I can import them directly into my new system.

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

How does this idea sit with the forum?

-- Josh Wand (josh@joshwand.com), April 09, 2002."

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), May 02, 2002.

This was the post I was referring to and looks like the most elegant of the solutions suggested (follow the rambling discussion at: http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007HYj)

tim a

"I've been a lurker here, and a semi-active participant in the People Photography forum. I was a bit distressed about the prospect of the greenspun servers going away, so I started writing a facsimile of the q-and-a system in a more portable form than ACS is (PHP/mySQL vs. AOLServer/ACS/Postgres/Oracle).

The result is http://joshwand.com/q-and-a/. Mind you, it's not finished yet (most notably missing are email notifications, but that will be added within the next week or so), but the core functionality is there and solid.

My next task after polishing up the service to current levels is to figure out how to move existing content-- I can write a spider, I suppose, but I might ask philg if he can give me raw database dumps of both the forums (and any others that might wish to move) so I can import them directly into my new system.

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

How does this idea sit with the forum?

-- Josh Wand (josh@joshwand.com), April 09, 2002."

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), May 02, 2002.

This was the post I was referring to and looks like the most elegant of the solutions suggested (follow the rambling discussion at: http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007HYj) tim a

"I've been a lurker here, and a semi-active participant in the People Photography forum. I was a bit distressed about the prospect of the greenspun servers going away, so I started writing a facsimile of the q-and-a system in a more portable form than ACS is (PHP/mySQL vs. AOLServer/ACS/Postgres/Oracle).

The result is http://joshwand.com/q-and-a/. Mind you, it's not finished yet (most notably missing are email notifications, but that will be added within the next week or so), but the core functionality is there and solid.

My next task after polishing up the service to current levels is to figure out how to move existing content-- I can write a spider, I suppose, but I might ask philg if he can give me raw database dumps of both the forums (and any others that might wish to move) so I can import them directly into my new system.

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

How does this idea sit with the forum?

-- Josh Wand (josh@joshwand.com), April 09, 2002."

-- tim atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), May 02, 2002.

If this forum or the box it is hosted on is in any real danger of disappearing, it is likely that I can find a well connected place to host it.

-- Alex Le Heux (alexlh@funk.org), May 02, 2002.

It would be nice if someone who knows if this site is doomed or not for sure would chirp in here, so that the nice folks who have offered to replace it could do so. But the news sounded pretty ominous and pretty certain last December, and it seems its goin down slowly as predicted. Maybe some of those offering to help could contact Q. Tuan Long at luong@ai.sri.com (I hope this is current) and see what he has to say. The problem seems to be maintenance, and that would probably be a problem at a new site too. In the meantine I'll just hide my head in the sand and hope it doesnt happen

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), May 02, 2002.

Last word I read two days ago in the unarchived forum at photonet was that it was being moved there. Now I see it here. Maybe they were referring to it being brought back online since it was off.

-- Wayne Crider (waynecrider@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.