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THE FUTURE OF THIS FORUM - PLEASE READ


qtluong

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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.

<p>

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:

<ul>

<li> 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.

<li> Integrate the LF Forum to photo.net, like the MF Digest currently is.

</ul>

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

<a href = http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003V53>

discussed in length</a>.

</ul>

So what do you think ?

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"...could be outsourced to something like yahoo!groups." No, no, no.

Please, anything but Yahoo!groups. I don't have an good answer to

where this forum should go, but I have been a member of

the mailing list hobbicast@yahoogroups.com for some time. It works

fine until you want to do something like access the archives and then

it is an absolute nightmare. It refuses to recognize passwords and

just trying to find the archive among the God knows how many Yahoo

groups is near impossible. This isn't just me. There have been several

posts on hobbicast by people trying to get direction through the Yahoo

maze. I hope I live to see Yahoo follow Enron into bankrupcy. I make a

real effort not to rant on newsgroups, but this is a topic where I

can't restrain myself.

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As I type this reply, photo.net is down, a not uncommon occurance.

I'd like to see this forum continue in its current commercial free,

informative and mature style. Moving to a hosting service such as

Yahoo or Photo.net will necessarily threaten these qualities, but if

the first alternative is not too much work it would be my preference.

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By all means, please preserve past threads. I vote, in some way, to

keep this forum by finding another server as a host, installing the

ACS on that platform.

 

<p>

 

What does ACS stand for? What is the software in which it's

programmed. Is the ACS software available without royalties? You

mentioned "advanced notice." When will Mr. Greenspun's service

expire?

 

<p>

 

This is the best going forum I've been associated with, especially

related to photography. I hope that there is something that can be

done to continue its existance.

 

<p>

 

Neil

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I see no major problems with going the Photo.net route. Shure, there

might be some inconveniences, but as long as the content remains the

same (and that's OUR job) the forum should continue to thrive. An

added attraction of going with Photo.net is that we may broaden our

audience and introduce new people and ideas to the forum.

 

<p>

 

Certainly anything is better than letting this forum languish and

die, and I feel Photo.net has the best chance of success.

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What about switching to an email list and using something like Mailman

or Majordomo. That way everybody gets to choose their own interface

from Hotmail to Pine. The archives could then be sorted by date,

subject, etc. and people could easily search, browse, and download the

raw data. Plus it probably won't be too hard to find a host since these

programs run on pretty much any platform.

 

<p>

 

Other than that, I say merge with photo.net. Forget about Yahoo! or

anything else like that, I definitely don't want to be held hostage to

those services and I'd really like to avoid banner ads if at all

possible.

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I would vote for LF to be made a part of photo.net in the same manner

the Medium Format and Nature sites are. Definitely should be kept

apart from the general forum. While not having the separate LF site

would be unfortunate, being a more integral part of photo.net would

be a better alternative than not having a LF gathering point at all.

Many of us do participate in photo.net discussions and if nothing

else, there would be a convenience to it. Photo.net does remain a

central gathering point for much of the photographic community and it

would be better for the LF group to formalize being a part of it --

in a sense we already are since we use Phil's server. My two cents.

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I'd be willing to help with a transfer to a new system -- I'm an IT

developer/architect by day and could probably help. I just have to

believe there is a way to get ACS installed somewhere. If my options

are Yahoo groups vs. Photo.net, I would choose photo.net. BUT, my

priority is to save the old threads because there is just so much

good information in them.

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Photo.net does seem to be down a lot lately. It seems like we have a

choice between an unreliable system (photo.net) and a hard-to-use

system (Yahoo Groups). Can anyone suggest any other alternatives?

 

<p>

 

Tuan: does Phil have anything to say about the recent unrelability of

photo.net? If there are known problems that are going to be fixed

soon, then photo.net seems to be the obvious place to go.

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Assuming we can't get someone else to host us, photo.net is our best

option. As chance would have it, they're down right now (sigh)!

 

<p>

 

We've been spoiled by good service in a non-commercial environment.

Do you think Mr Greenspun would change his mind if we all cried and

whimpered in unison? How about obsequious flattery? I'm prepared to

try anything.

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I think photo.net would be a fine solution. My suggestion is for

Q.-Tuan Luong to get a written document giving him (or the entire

community) copyright to the postings that would be made at photo.net

so that if something goes wrong with photo.net he would be able to

transfer the LF postings at photo.net to somewhere else. The worst

case scenario would be for photo.net to suddenly disappear and

transfer its assests, including the contents of the photo.net site, to

some creditor, the creditor then just placing them on the shelf.

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Between the options given, i would vote to merge with Photo.net.

This site seems to attract quite a few people interested in moving up

to large format and as someone else stated, the widest possible

audience the forum can be exposed to the better for all of us in the

long run. And by all means, keep the archives, it is a valuable

storehouse of info that I look to first before posting questions.

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Please NOT photo.net. I've been on that site. In my opinion, the

photonet interface is pretty ackward. I think part of the success of

this site is due to the ease at which the ACS software enables one to

leave posts and responses.

 

<p>

 

Also, we should thank Phil Greenspun for his support enabling this

site to have such a strong beginning. And, we need to keep it going.

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I have been with photo.net MF for some time now and from a software

developers point of view I only have good things to say. It is much

more reliable and user-friendly than the majority of forum/mail

support systems out there, is tried and tested, has added security

and likely guaranteed future support. All software are flawed, some

less, some more.

I would however like to add that I do not believe it is impossibly

difficult to upgrade(or only keep alive) this system and that it

would be my first choice. A NEW system is not a solution and neither

the solution.

 

<p>

 

But whatever we decide, we must not/can not go the yahoo/whatever/..

route. We will fight in the cities. We will fight in the streets.

We will fight in the fields... We will never give up :) Ryan

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No to Yahoo. Yes to photo.net.

 

<p>

 

The more esoteric forums on photo.net (e.g. medium-format and Nature)

have not been swamped with idiot questions nor are their threads

controlled by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

 

<p>

 

It's been a great ride here, and I'm sorry to see it ending....

 

<p>

 

...

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I've only been reading this forum for less than a year, but photo.net

for a few more. It gets my vote, although I'd agree with a previous

poster who said that the copyright should be held elsewhere. They've

been getting a bit commercial of late. As to the interface being bad,

you can switch off the JavaScript menus if you like, and it seems

pretty stable compared with most other forums I've read. the other

advantage is the number of other folks who'll no doubt be attracted

to LF because of the sheer number of people that the forum will be

exposed (sic) to. Or a disadvantage; TBA...

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I prefer the photo.net option to Yahoo!Groups, if an independent

server cannot be found. The MF forum is fairly civilized, and I think

this forum would be pretty much the same over there. We would also

get the photo.net search engine, the ability to post images to the

forum directly without having them on a separate site, and we could

keep the structure of the list the same.

 

<p>

 

There is too much clutter and advertising at Yahoo, and it is

difficult to include HTML in posts (long URL's are routinely

truncated), and images have to be kept separate from the post itself,

and it is difficult to follow long threads and return to old threads

in that format.

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Please please please��don�t leave me!

 

<p>

 

Leave the forum run with the current software interface. The current

forum interface works flawlessly in creating my own AvantGo �LF Forum

Channel�. I download the forum two and three times a day to my Palm

and read it offline, often in the field waiting for light. All

other forum software is useless for this application and even clunky

to read online.

 

<p>

 

Thank you for your consideration.

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