[SEL] Curious

[Bill Dickerson]

You mention some things that we've covered in our theamcforum.com
SPAMMING is prevented by the software. Members MUST use a valid email
address and confirm by clicking a link. The register, CAPTCHA is used to
prevent automation, they can't automatically join and create bogus users.
We can restrict access or ban based on several criteria.
I am the administrator and hold all the keys, however, I've written
documentation that prevents what's happened to a couple of AMC forums in the
past - the admin vanishes and so does the forum. I've documented everything,
and given that info to the other 5 mods, all passwords, etc. the whole
shooting match is backed up every night. I also do local backups of the
forum sofware AND the sql database, burn it to CD and give copies to the
others.
Even if the ISP goes away, we can get back in business in hours.
The software is secure (we pay, we don't use FREEWARE)
SQL makes it faster than most text file based forums, and the software is
written to make minimal SQL requests, and closes the connection quickly.
This forum will not disappear, we got together and formed a sort of loose
"club" to prevent that. If I die tonight, it might take a few hours for them
to sort out certain "how do we" but they CAN continue. If the ISP loses a
server, the stuff is simply restored elsewhere. MS servers and SQL database
means we pay money, but donations from a few key AMC folks has it covered.
(there are enough AMC addicts to ensure this will continue)
The load is pretty well distributed and there are enough of us, and to a
large extent, the caliber of folks we have makes it somewhat self-policing.
We've been told "this is the best AMC forum yet" and "this forum is so
helpful and friendly" and "I actually feel at home here for the first time
on any forum".
We have our bases covered SO well, we have the coveted documents of an AMC
historian, Tom Benvie. The forum I put up and we jointly mod and maintain is
the first one he's ever felt comfortable enough with to post his rare and
unique documents and photos.
There also exists software to enable database conversion for this forum
software we use. SQL is pretty widely used and it can even be ported to
MYSQL fairly easily.  
Forums can and do work with the right forumula and the right people. The
real trick is to let the personality of the forum be a mix of the admin,
mods and members without any one overwhelming the others.

But granted, they are NOT right for everyone! Never will be............

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Pavlinovich [mailto:pjp at steamengine.com.au] 
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 5:20 PM
To: The SEL email discussion list
Subject: Re: [SEL] Curious

Hi George,
I find that forums are best to visit "after" and search for answers. 
When they're well run and well maintained the entire forum becomes a FAQ
that you can mine for valuable information. There is little or no
encouragement to post on them or do a running read unless you're very
interested in the subject. This is partly because they're slow. With an
email list its all there, sitting on my PC whenever I care to read - I run
at the speed that my PC will give me the messages. With web forums I have to
wait for the pages to load -. No, I'm not without broadband - but even with
broadband pages are still "slow" - guess I'm spoilt - why would I want to
wait for 4 seconds when I can read email with 0 seconds wait time?

Another down side is that forums often vanish without warning. So far the
SEL (and other lists I'm a member of have demonstrated their longevity).
With a list, if one person can no longer run the service then another can
take over almost seemlessly (e.g. Brice handing the SEL over to Spencer all
those years ago) - this is much harder with a forum. 
Unless you both run the same base kernel (or OS version for windows people),
same database, same version of PHP (or other web language of choice e.g.
ASP.net), same version of the forum software, etc, etc, etc then it is damn
near impossible to back up one forum database and bring it up on another
server.

This is the reason I've never put forum software on Steam & Engine
(www.steamengine.com.au) - I've been tempted many times and actually have
forum software on the test machine to see how it works - but I've always
resisted turning it on because I think the ATIS Steam list and the COALS
list that I host adequately handle the need.

Forums must be actively managed by one or a small group of administrators.
Email lists are self governing with anyone able to step up to the plate and
accept the role of policeman on those few occasions when it is necessary to
do so. Forum admins can (and often do) go power mad which just upsets people
and loses the spirit of community that takes much time to build and often
cannot be rebuilt.

Forums can also be comment spammed by unscrupulous people either seeking to
destroy the forum (disgruntled member) or people jamming it full of
advertising and phishing scams. These messages have to be managed and
deleted. This can turn into a lot of work for an individual to handle. 
This is the reason I turned off the guestbooks on my site. Yes, there are
software ways to block these posts, but they always find a way around your
block. It is hard to stay one step ahead. My current incarnation of the
Steam & Engine databases takes the user's update and sends it to me. If I
think the update is worth it then I manually approve it for publication.
This means I get about 2,000 messages per day for rubbish updates. I lose a
LOT of proper updates as it is difficult to find them in the spam chaff.

Regards
Paul

Best, George wrote:
> I'm curious as to why people haven't been using the new ATIS forums.
>
> Is it because Harry's Smokstak already provides that service and no 
> one sees a need for another?
>
> I know that many years ago these email lists were handy because some 
> people (like myself) had email, but didn't have internet access.  I 
> have internet access now, but in the beginning of ATIS I only had email.
>
> Curious as to whether anyone on the list still only has email access.
>
> I still like the email list as you can often get responses quicker.
>
> George
>
>
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