WWTBAM Bored

Just because the answer isn't placed in front of you with blinking neon lights attached to it doesn't mean that it's being kept secret. If you follow the link to the Memberlist (top center of nearly every page) you'll see that there were two members of this list registered on October 7th, the day before Eyégor told everyone where this place was. And one of the two isn't a "real" name.

Anyway, I decided I should probably go ahead and say something, not because I'm looking for everyone to thank me or tell me nice things, but because valid concerns need to be addressed:

1. This Bored is being hosted on web space that I already had. The only real extra trouble I went to was to register wwbtambored.com (and not for $35, DK, I can shop around a lot better than that ) because it seemed like the one thing that hadn't been done yet that really needed to be done. If the community ultimately doesn't settle here, or moves elsewhere later, I can easily redirect that address to point to a different site, or even transfer it's ownership, if needed.

2. You people are going to make me develop some sort of bus phobia with all this talk of getting hit by one. I've had this webspace in some form or another for nearly as long as the Bored has existed, and I plan on maintaining it indefinitely. It had endured through multiple fiscal crises and bouts of unemployment. I also am in reasonably good health, and am generally good at avoiding speeding buses. I also won't get pissed off and pull the plug....I've mellowed out quite a bit in my old age.

3. In recognition of their efforts to help this community find a home, BobJuch, BobNumbers and Ed the Confessor have Moderator status here. I have added a Troll and a Beast to the Moderator ranks as well, because both have previous experience doing the same thing elsewhere (the GC and Phoenix, respectively) and can you honestly come up with two better people for the job? The Troll and the Beast have also been granted Administrator status, since the idea that someone else should have the keys to the car is a valid one, especially since I'm not always around. Although I suspect I'll still do the majority of the technical stuff, I intend to give the other Admins access to as much as I can, including the MySQL database, and other such things. I will be making it possible for others to salvage everything and move it elsewhere in the event that I do run afoul of a bus or something.

4. Moderators can edit/delete posts, lock and unlock threads, see IP addresses of those who are logged in, make Sticky and Announcement threads, and so on. Administrators can do all of that, along with editing the actual structure of the Bored, user permissions, and so on. Administrators can see what email address you're using, but I should make something very clear: Admins cannot read your PM's or see your password! And, having said that, I should make something else very clear: I, as the owner of the site, cannot dig into the code and see your password! Passwords are encrypted when you enter them, and so even if I wanted to, I can't just dig into the code and learn your password.

5. As for the rest of the technical stuff....I've created a new forum (Suggestion Box) for the discussion of upgrades, improvements, changes to the look and feel of the Bored, etc. The main reason I separated that stuff out is so that I can find it easily without having to dig through a ton of old posts....I do want this place to be as close to what all of you want as I can make it, so don't hesitate to speak up over there.

6. Speaking of extra forums, should I create a few more? Transcripts? FNGD? And who would like to moderate those areas? If I create one for Transcripts, the BBTranscriptTeam ID would likely be the lone moderator, but FNGD or other potential forums would be up in the air.

7. Since it's been mentioned previously, this Bored uses phpBB v2 for the moment because that's what my host offered as a one-click installation. phpBB v3, for all it's bells and whistles (some of which I'd very much like to have, I admit) is technically not a final release yet (still Release Candidate 5) and I tend not to want to jump right into things that aren't final releases. Despite that, I'm already looking at it, and would probably consider upgrading in the very near future, once everyone has settled in a bit.

8. There have been several remarks about Smileys/Emoticons, and people have wanted to know if more can be added. Yes, they can, and it's easy to do, and will probably happen once I've had a chance to iron out a few other technical details first. If anyone has suggestions as to where to find free packs of the things available for download, please mention it here or in the thread over in the Suggestion Box.

9. I still hate Seat 9.

10. Whether or not you all ultimately decide to stay here, or go elsewhere, it's my pleasure to do what I can for this community. I've stayed on the fringes for the past 4+ years or so, but I sill care about what happens to this group, and would hate to see the final demise of GO spell the end of it. And I should mention that I didn't intend to step on any toes by offering this place....I saw a need, I realized I could do something, I did it, and I told Eyégor to offer it up to everyone (but not to make a big deal out of the fact that it was me offering it.) If everyone decides eventually to reside elsewhere, I won't be bothered one bit.



If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to PM me through this site, or email me, if you already know my address (which hasn't changed since 2001.)


:^)

tubadave

Thank you, tubadave.

Very much.

I like the idea of creating a seperate bored for transcripts.

Sorry but what does FNGD stand for?

FNGD = Friday Night Gender Defender.

It's a game that happens most Friday nights at 10:30 east coast time.

It is very fun - if you stay up late, you should join in the fun!

It sounds intresting, what is it exactly?

Thanks for doing this, tubadave, and thanks for clearing up these questions.

tubadave wrote: 6. Speaking of extra forums, should I create a few more? Transcripts? FNGD? And who would like to moderate those areas? If I create one for Transcripts, the BBTranscriptTeam ID would likely be the lone moderator, but FNGD or other potential forums would be up in the air.

As it was on the old Boreds, our purpose for using the shared BBTranscriptTeam handle is to make it easy for people to find all the transcript threads using the "Find all posts by this author" link. Since we're continuing to do that here, we can probably leave the transcripts in the main Bored Posts Forum.

Shade, here's the link that you can use for that:
search.php?search_author=BBTranscriptTeam

BTW, we lost a lot of transcripts when the plug was pulled on the old Bored. When I get the chance, I'll repost the ones I did for this season. If the other team members have saved local copies of the transcripts they did, perhaps they can do the same.

MarleysGh0st wrote:Thanks for doing this, tubadave, and thanks for clearing up these questions.

As it was on the old Boreds, our purpose for using the shared BBTranscriptTeam handle is to make it easy for people to find all the transcript threads using the "Find all posts by this author" link. Since we're continuing to do that here, we can probably leave the transcripts in the main Bored Posts Forum.

Yeah, we could, but it probably makes sense to make them separate, just for neatness' sake.

MarleysGh0st wrote:BTW, we lost a lot of transcripts when the plug was pulled on the old Bored. When I get the chance, I'll repost the ones I did for this season. If the other team members have saved local copies of the transcripts they did, perhaps they can do the same.

How far back should we go? I don't think I have very many (a quick check shows I have them for 12/6/06, 5/9, 5/16 and 5/23/07, then after the summer hiatus, 9/12, 9/26, and 10/3/07). Which ones do we need?

earendel wrote:

MarleysGh0st wrote:BTW, we lost a lot of transcripts when the plug was pulled on the old Bored. When I get the chance, I'll repost the ones I did for this season. If the other team members have saved local copies of the transcripts they did, perhaps they can do the same.

How far back should we go? I don't think I have very many (a quick check shows I have them for 12/6/06, 5/9, 5/16 and 5/23/07, then after the summer hiatus, 9/12, 9/26, and 10/3/07). Which ones do we need?

Well, I was only thinking of going back to the start of this season, last month. I think someone had saved the previous seasons in a file, somewhere, that should cover those transcripts that haven't been archived on Macrae's web site.

We've still lost all the BB commentary that went along with all those transcripts. All those marvelous critiques by MBFFB, lost forever!

As I said when I wasn't sure it was you, thank you very much!

Thanks Dave!

Not I at least know that TR isn't behind the curtain.

Dave, everything you wrote makes sense to me and I think you've answered all the questions and concerns that I'm aware of. Thanks for doing this.

Sometimes it seems like no good deed goes unpunished, but I think most people just wanted to know what's going on before they were totally comfortable with the outcome. The tribe has spoken. I change my vote to this site.

One minor quibble -- if we want this place to be as much like the old board as possible, we need fewer smileys, not more of them! They only serve to distract from the brilliant ideas in a well-crafted text post. An animated smiley is the last refuge of a feeble mind!

TheConfessor wrote:One minor quibble -- if we want this place to be as much like the old board as possible, we need fewer smileys, not more of them! They only serve to distract from the brilliant ideas in a well-crafted text post. An animated smiley is the last refuge of a feeble mind!

Oh yeah?!

TheConfessor wrote:One minor quibble -- if we want this place to be as much like the old board as possible, we need fewer smileys, not more of them! They only serve to distract from the brilliant ideas in a well-crafted text post. An animated smiley is the last refuge of a feeble mind!

Careful, Ed! Pea will add you to the list of people she's trying to annoy with them.

tubadave wrote:Just because the answer isn't placed in front of you with blinking neon lights attached to it doesn't mean that it's being kept secret. If you follow the link to the Memberlist (top center of nearly every page) you'll see that there were two members of this list registered on October 7th, the day before Eyégor told everyone where this place was. And one of the two isn't a "real" name.

Anyway, I decided I should probably go ahead and say something, not because I'm looking for everyone to thank me or tell me nice things, but because valid concerns need to be addressed:

1. This Bored is being hosted on web space that I already had, and the only real extra trouble I went to was to register wwbtambored.com (and not for $35, DK, I can shop around a lot better than that ) because it seemed like the one thing that hadn't been done yet that really needed to be done. If the community ultimately doesn't settle here, or moves elsewhere later, I can easily redirect that address to point elsewhere, or even transfer it's ownership, if needed.

2. You people are going to make me develop some sort of bus phobia with all this talk of getting hit by one. I've had this webspace in some form or another for nearly as long as the Bored has existed, and I plan on, and have maintained it through multiple fiscal crises and bouts of unemployment. I also am in reasonably good health, and am generally good at avoiding speeding buses. I also won't get pissed off and pull the plug....I've mellowed out quite a bit in my old age.

3. In recognition of their efforts to help this community find a home, BobJuch, BobNumbers and Ed the Confessor have Moderator status here. I have added a Troll and a Beast to the Moderator ranks as well, because both have previous experience doing the same thing elsewhere (the GC and Phoenix, respectively) and can you honestly come up with two better people for the job? The Troll and the Beast have also been granted Administrator status, since the idea that someone else should have the keys to the car is a valid one, especially since I'm not always around. Although I suspect I'll still do the majority of the technical stuff, I intend to give the other Admins access to as much as I can, including the MySQL database, and other such things. I will be making it possible for others to salvage everything and move it elsewhere in the event that I do run afoul of a bus or something.

4. Moderators can edit/delete posts, lock and unlock threads, see IP addresses of those who are logged in, make Sticky and Announcement threads, and so on. Administrators can do all of that, along with editing the actual structure of the Bored, user permissions, and so on. Administrators can see what email address you're using, but I should make something very clear: Admins cannot read your PM's or see your password! And, having said that, I should make something else very clear: I, as the owner of the site, cannot dig into the code and see your password! Passwords are encrypted when you enter them, and so even if I wanted to, I can't just dig into the code and learn your password.

5. As for the rest of the technical stuff....I've created a new forum (Suggestion Box) for the discussion of upgrades, improvements, changes to the look and feel of the Bored, etc. The main reason I separated that stuff out is so that I can find it easily without having to dig through a ton of old posts....I do want this place to be as close to what all of you want as I can make it, so don't hesitate to speak up over there.

6. Speaking of extra forums, should I create a few more? Transcripts? FNGD? And who would like to moderate those areas? If I create one for Transcripts, the BBTranscriptTeam ID would likely be the lone moderator, but FNGD or other potential forums would be up in the air.

7. Since it's been mentioned previously, this Bored uses phpBB v2 for the moment because that's what my host offered as a one-click installation. phpBB v3, for all it's bells and whistles (some of which I'd very much like to have, I admit) is technically not a final release yet (still Release Candidate 5) and I tend not to want to jump right into things that aren't final releases. Despite that, I'm already looking at it, and would probably consider upgrading in the very near future, once everyone has settled in a bit.

8. There have been several remarks about Smileys/Emoticons, and people have wanted to know if more can be added. Yes, they can, and it's easy to do, and will probably happen once I've had a chance to iron out a few other technical details first. If anyone has suggestions as to where to find free packs of the things available for download, please mention it here or in the thread over in the Suggestion Box.

9. I still hate Seat 9.

10. Whether or not you all ultimately decide to stay here, or go elsewhere, it's my pleasure to do what I can for this community. I've stayed on the fringes for the past 4+ years or so, but I sill care about what happens to this group, and would hate to see the final demise of GO spell the end of it. And I should mention that I didn't intend to step on any toes by offering this place....I saw a need, I realized I could do something, I did it, and I told Eyégor to offer it up to everyone (but not to make a big deal out of the fact that it was me offering it.) If everyone decides eventually to reside elsewhere, I won't be bothered one bit.



If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to PM me through this site, or email me, if you already know my address (which hasn't changed since 2001.)


:^)

tubadave

Well Dave, seeing as how I started this with my Mod comment, I have to thank you for jumping out and clearing it up. I was concerned about who owned it, but didn't want to point any fingers, as my fingers have gotten quite burned in the past that way. I think someone already expressed relief as well


I know appreciation can be hard to take, but you will have to take it.

My second point is, do you have to pay for this bandwidth? If so, perhaps some help from the masses could be forthcoming. I wouldn't mind making a contribution to help out, like we do at Sportsline.

Saucy

Dave,

Please understand I had no objection to your setting up a new board. My objection was that it was immediately declared to be our new home without any discussion. That's probably has to do with my being a sixth great-grandson of Patrick Henry.

Bob

a1mamacat wrote:
My second point is, do you have to pay for this bandwidth? If so, perhaps some help from the masses could be forthcoming.

I would also help contribute to the cause.

a1mamacat wrote:My second point is, do you have to pay for this bandwidth? If so, perhaps some help from the masses could be forthcoming. I wouldn't mind making a contribution to help out, like we do at Sportsline.

Everything that this site depends on to operate is currently paid for through mid-2009, except for the "wwtbambored.com" name itself, which I only registered for a year. I use the hosting for quite a few things that have nothing to do with the Bored, so that's really not an issue to me. The domain costs $9.95 a year to register, and can be paid for up to 10 years in advance (or, 9 more in addition to the current one.) If some folks wanted to contribute money towards that, I wouldn't have any problem extending the registration on the name as far forward as the host will allow, which is October 7, 2017, and would make the total cost of registering the name (including this first year) $99.50.

But that's not anything that has to be dealt with right away.

This is the best place we've been! And we've been a lot of places.

Thank you for putting this together and answering the questions I had.

I just went through a MB transfer some place else that was similar to this one, and a lot of these things came up with that transfer. I think when everybody knows what the deal is, it makes people feel more comfy.

Thanks for making a new home for the weary. Once we get more people here, we will have to throw a party.

So are we search optimized to help kindred souls find us?

MarleysGh0st wrote:All those marvelous critiques by MBFFB, lost forever!

You do realize you're dealing with the Bored historian here.

I have all but the most recent ones saved...

lb13

How fitting is it that "tubadave" has rescued us from "TUB" ?

mntetn wrote:How fitting is it that "tubadave" has rescued us from "TUB" ?

That is actually funny!

In my head, I call him tub a dave - like tub of margarine. It didn't click for me for months that it was tuba, like the instrument.

I can be a bit slow.

I always knew I should have used capital letters and made it TubaDave.

tubadave wrote:I always knew I should have used capital letters and made it TubaDave.

One of the moderators on The Straight Dope is TubaDiva - any relation?

I have added a Troll and a Beast to the Moderator ranks as well, because both have previous experience doing the same thing elsewhere (the GC and Phoenix, respectively) and can you honestly come up with two better people for the job?

Just to clear up one minor detail. I was the one that set up Phoenix. LB seemed like a logical choice to be granted admin status and I needed a backup - just in case. It's not a big deal and I don't need nor am I petitioning for admin status here. I just wanted to clear that up since I knew it was burning in everyone's memory.

And, thanks for setting this up. It is very similar to another, unrelated, Bored I frequent so I am quite comfortable with it.