Response to good news from Phil

The front page still says:

I'm currently trying to figure out how to redesign these services so that

1. users are authenticated, e.g., before posting they have to register and respond to an email message (we won't know who they are but at least we'll know that they supplied an email address where they can receive mail)
2. a person is available to handle service inquiries
3. a programmer is available to provide enhancements based on user needs
4. the site is financially self-sustaining, i.e., either the owners of bboards or the most active posters are contributing to the costs of sysadmin, programming, hosting/bandwidth, and customer service

When these services were built in the mid-1990s it made a lot of sense. Running a database-backed Web server was an esoteric art that required expensive hardware and proprietary software. But as we enter the year 2002 there are quite a few 14-year-olds who've set up Linux, Postgres, and OpenACS in less than one day. With a $500 PC and a DSL line, they end up having all the collaboration tools that dotcoms spent $10 million to construct.

Bottom line: prepare for some changes to these services!

Philip Greenspun, December 6, 2001

so I guess something will change, at some point. But I'm happy that our little forum will survive for a little longer.

[ Previous | Next ]