Designated Backup Discussion Board?
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Beam's Reach
- First Officer
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:25 pm
- Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada 97X, 50HP Mariner 4 Stroke
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Jeff Stagg
- Deckhand
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2004 10:32 am
- Location: Roseville, CA USA
Heath's Da Man!!
While Sailnet.com message boards are back in action after a void since 9/1/05, the bulk of the Sailnet MacX list either posts duplicate messages here or is part of the burning message posters dot calm, the boat rage sailors we all try to avoid. There was an exodus from sailnet of knowledgable and friendly members beginning about three years ago, with membership dropping from a high of over five hundred to well under three hundred, and most of those remaining were dormant or lurkers, leaving a core of maybe thrity who posted, just a guess. This was primarily due to obnoxious and unstoppable posts that would not cease or desist. no matter how many cried in agony, in an agenda of argument, righteousness and bullying. Unfortunately, many listers were caught in multiple rear end collisions as in posting flaming messages, one responding to another, instead of ignoring any of it. Even the host, with hundreds of complaints, could do nothing, and after acting, was supplanted and rebuked. It also drove me to sailing and less time contributing my share to the insights of all.
I miss many of the salts who were prolific in their writing from experience, not theory, and who were genuinely interested in helping those who asked.
I hope today's resumption of sailnet's boards will be, someday, close to the posts I read here, although, I can already forsee that this board is better, and here is why:
Heath grew and changed the format for the message boards to subject category by vessel type. Sailnet is just an endless list of messages on all the topics of the year, one after the other, like a chat room, you have to search out your thread and try to reply in a barrage of other topics. This is why MacGregorSailors.com will surpass the others. Besides, all we do here is MacGregor! Do we really care about an O'Day?
The skill, savvy and dedication of Heath Johnson to the MacGregor Sailing Community is endless. He is a NT beyond your imagination. He is also a marketing team with his wife, and still, with a one year old baby, fixes attacks from the best of hackers on this planet. Having talked with my ISP (internet service provider) about spam and constant attacks, it is endless and by the gazillions, each one as devastating to a computer as a roadside bomb in Iraq.
For me, there is no second or backup board, since in a disaster, you're really on your own for the first two to four days, at least. This post is basd on my affiliation with Heath over seven years.
I miss many of the salts who were prolific in their writing from experience, not theory, and who were genuinely interested in helping those who asked.
I hope today's resumption of sailnet's boards will be, someday, close to the posts I read here, although, I can already forsee that this board is better, and here is why:
Heath grew and changed the format for the message boards to subject category by vessel type. Sailnet is just an endless list of messages on all the topics of the year, one after the other, like a chat room, you have to search out your thread and try to reply in a barrage of other topics. This is why MacGregorSailors.com will surpass the others. Besides, all we do here is MacGregor! Do we really care about an O'Day?
The skill, savvy and dedication of Heath Johnson to the MacGregor Sailing Community is endless. He is a NT beyond your imagination. He is also a marketing team with his wife, and still, with a one year old baby, fixes attacks from the best of hackers on this planet. Having talked with my ISP (internet service provider) about spam and constant attacks, it is endless and by the gazillions, each one as devastating to a computer as a roadside bomb in Iraq.
For me, there is no second or backup board, since in a disaster, you're really on your own for the first two to four days, at least. This post is basd on my affiliation with Heath over seven years.
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ALX357
- Admiral
- Posts: 1231
- Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:09 am
- Location: Nashville TN -- 2000 MacGregor 26X, Mercury two-stroke 50hp
the "back-up site" IMHO is not a replacement for this board, but a way for the members to not completely lose touch with each other when/if this board is down, either temporarily, or ( if in fact all good things come to an end ) for extended time. The community here needs a way to preserve itself beyond just the present meeting place.
"Like", if the clubhouse got flood damaged, or burnt, the members would find an alternate place to meet, even if it did not have the luxurious accomodations as before.
"Like", if the clubhouse got flood damaged, or burnt, the members would find an alternate place to meet, even if it did not have the luxurious accomodations as before.
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Mark Prouty
- Admiral
- Posts: 1723
- Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:52 am
- Location: Madison, WI Former MacGregor 26X Owner
Unless we have a major buy-in of a designated backup discussion board, the concept won't work. I don't think that is going to happen.
Heres is one idea:
Backup Board
If Heath's board in down for a spell, maybe he could post a backup site like this in his message that the board is down.
Heres is one idea:
Backup Board
If Heath's board in down for a spell, maybe he could post a backup site like this in his message that the board is down.
I wasn't suggesting the Sailnet [mac26x] mailing list for anything other than a backup. I have used it in the past when this forum is down to post what I know about the situation here.
It's a very low volume list that is text-only (unlike some of the Yahoo "group" mailing lists that allow attachments). I haven't seen any flame-wars in the last year I've been on it, but OTOH, I haven't seen much worth reading either, compared to this forum.
I have a folder in my mail client Inbox (now Thunderbird, previously Outlook Express) named Mac26X List. I also have a message rule/filter that automatically moves any incoming mail with [mac26x] in the Subject into this folder. In fact, I do this for every mailing list I'm on, including some very active ones. It's easy to keep cleaned up, yet it's also a HECK of a lot easier to search than the Yahoo groups archives, not to mention SailNet's.
The advantage to a mailing list is that I don't have to go digging through another forum looking for news about this, the primary forum. It's right there in my Inbox.
Whether Heath can post a splash page about the forum being down depends on how the forum/server failed. In the event of a total failure, it would require moving the IP address to another web server set up with a minimal macgregorsailors.com domain. Changing the DNS entry for the domain to another webserver IP address isn't immediately effective, since DNS entries stay in nameserver caches until the Time To Live expires.
Now that Heath has his own server, downtime should be rare, as he's mentioned. I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to set up a backup server to cover what should now be a rare occurance. Nor do I see a need for anyone to set up a backup forum given there are other resources.
This is just my opinion and YMMV. If you want to know what I know about this forum being down, subscribe to the SailNet list.
It's a very low volume list that is text-only (unlike some of the Yahoo "group" mailing lists that allow attachments). I haven't seen any flame-wars in the last year I've been on it, but OTOH, I haven't seen much worth reading either, compared to this forum.
I have a folder in my mail client Inbox (now Thunderbird, previously Outlook Express) named Mac26X List. I also have a message rule/filter that automatically moves any incoming mail with [mac26x] in the Subject into this folder. In fact, I do this for every mailing list I'm on, including some very active ones. It's easy to keep cleaned up, yet it's also a HECK of a lot easier to search than the Yahoo groups archives, not to mention SailNet's.
The advantage to a mailing list is that I don't have to go digging through another forum looking for news about this, the primary forum. It's right there in my Inbox.
Whether Heath can post a splash page about the forum being down depends on how the forum/server failed. In the event of a total failure, it would require moving the IP address to another web server set up with a minimal macgregorsailors.com domain. Changing the DNS entry for the domain to another webserver IP address isn't immediately effective, since DNS entries stay in nameserver caches until the Time To Live expires.
Now that Heath has his own server, downtime should be rare, as he's mentioned. I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to set up a backup server to cover what should now be a rare occurance. Nor do I see a need for anyone to set up a backup forum given there are other resources.
This is just my opinion and YMMV. If you want to know what I know about this forum being down, subscribe to the SailNet list.
Many thanks to Rich (Hamin'X) for setting up the back-up board. It was very handy during the recent outage here!
Based on the number of posts in the last two weeks it looks like a alot of folks agree!
Thanks Rich!
Based on the number of posts in the last two weeks it looks like a alot of folks agree!
Thanks Rich!
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Richard O'Brien
- Captain
- Posts: 653
- Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 8:20 am
- Location: Lakewood, CO. Mercury 60hp bigfoot M0427B404
HamminX
Hammin x's liferafthttp://saftillc.com/macgregorsailors/ It worked for many of us, but when I tried to post it on Sailnet's site, they deleted the post, as their user agreement said they would? Thanks Mike
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Richard O'Brien
- Captain
- Posts: 653
- Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 8:20 am
- Location: Lakewood, CO. Mercury 60hp bigfoot M0427B404
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midget
- Engineer
- Posts: 109
- Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:03 am
- Location: 26X.. 2002. Merc. 50HP Bigfoot..Cape Coral, Fl.
I agree completely! As I emailed Heath privately, I see no reason to shut the whole board down because two members have a personal spat going on! Ban those two members for whatever time he deems necessary as website owner, but to punish all for the sake of two--PULLLEASE!! I don't care who was right or wrong, no two people on this board are worth shutting the whole board down for!
Many thanks to Rich (Hamin'X) for setting up the back-up board. It was very handy during the recent outage here!
Based on the number of posts in the last two weeks it looks like a alot of folks agree!
Thanks Rich!
Some of us may have had mods going on that went wrong somehow and needed help badly, but couldn't get it because of this B.S. OK sorry, rant off. Hamin'X's site will be my "go to" site when this one goes down again. If this sounds like I don't appreciate Heath's effort, I've misstated my case and am sorry. Thanks Heath!!