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is this forum going to vanish?


wayne__

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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...

 

<p>

 

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???

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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.

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

Regards,

Jimi

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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:

 

<p>

 

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 ?

 

<p>

 

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

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My day job is writing software. I wrote the Perl API for my

employer's 3270 software.

 

<p>

 

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/)

 

<p>

 

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

me know how I can help out.

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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.

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

Regards,

Jimi

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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)

 

<p>

 

tim a

 

<p>

 

"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).

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain

similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

 

<p>

 

How does this idea sit with the forum?

 

<p>

 

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

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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)

 

<p>

 

tim a

 

<p>

 

"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).

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain

similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

 

<p>

 

How does this idea sit with the forum?

 

<p>

 

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

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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

 

<p>

 

"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).

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

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.

 

<p>

 

I also plan on releasing the source code so that others can maintain

similar services on most popular UNIX webhosts.

 

<p>

 

How does this idea sit with the forum?

 

<p>

 

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

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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

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