Ed, or whoever is running the Y2K forum here. It's time to split it into about 10 forums for several reasons.

1. It appears that your server(s) (greenspun) are starting to run out of gas during prime time.

2. More servers will allow us to more accurately focus on the issues we're interested in.

My suggestions for Topics:

Personal Computer Midrange Computer (Unix, DEC) Mainframe Computer General Economy Personal Preparations Community Preparations Society Military International Banking/Financial Utilities Health Transportation Telecommunications

I think this would divide up the forum sufficiently to provide "interest groups" that most people would be happy participating in.

While you're at it, you might be able to get a few more dollars out of Ed to buy you a couple more servers for the forum, maybe hosting 2 subforums on each server or something.

Otherwise, people aren't even going to be able to use the thing in about 1 more week. Maybe a week was understating it, think you could get this done tommorrow? Is your ISP threatening to shut you down, yet?

Glen Austin

-- Glen Austin (gdaustin@aol.com), December 11, 1998

Answers

Leska,

Hope you're enjoying the articles. We've got 96,000 pages of text sitting on the server for you to read. Guess we'll just have to find another way to get the important announcements when we need to. Enjoy your reading.

-- (lester@gone.com), December 11, 1998.

Can't we just upgrade the power of the computer running these forums?

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 11, 1998.

My suggestions for Topics:

Personal Computer Midrange Computer (Unix, DEC) Mainframe Computer General Economy Personal Preparations Community Preparations Society .......

Hmmm something missing

Hey Glen you're new around here aren't you?

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 11, 1998.

At rush hour it's sometimes hard to get in -- but one of the best features of this forum is the wide range of conversations here.

IMO anyone still concerned only with his own PC, or only with International Banking, doesn't understand what's happening. None of the elements operate in isolation.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 11, 1998.

Where does Star Trek fit in?

[Sharing humor with fellow travellers through stress-ridden experience=support & fun.Both are much needed, just as much as beans, candles and non-hybrid seeds.]

-- Sara Nealy (saran@ptd.net), December 11, 1998.

I vote for increasing your server capacity, and not splitting into topics. Humanity is headed for a brick wall because of this trend to insectoid specialization. We need to embrace complexity, and our own, uniquely human multi-modality, to coordinate the profuse phenomenon of whole systems. Looking at your own dinky bit of things reinforces your strengths, but leaves the coordination of specialties in the hands of professional managers. And you can see where that's taking us now: right down the crapper.

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), December 11, 1998.

OOooooo, E Coli, emphatically well-said, like that kind of 'broad' !!

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 11, 1998.

In case anyone didn't realize it, this server is not Ed's, nor is it under his direct control. It is hosted on www.greenspun.com, which provides this service for free.

-- Tom Sawyer (tomsawyer@fence.net), December 11, 1998.

Kill the email alert. Its not mission critical.

MVI

-- MVI (vtoc@aol.com), December 11, 1998.

well said Tom

This is a free service provided out of the generosity of individuals for the greater good of the entire world community. It's a FREE service. We don't contribute to the financial burden or the constant effort to maintain this forum.

We contribute thoughts and information because the opportunity is provided to us.

I find it very disturbing and rude that people would make demands such as those posted by Glen that started this thread.

Recently, Cory Hamasaki stated that people are bothering him about why he hasn't posted his DeeCee Weather Report yet. My gosh people, learn about the history behind this website and how it came to be before you start to pressure those who provide it. Learn how Mr. Hamasaki came to begin his reports before you pressure him about why he hasn't posted his FREE Weather Report to csy2k.

The bottom line is that although the y2k problem may be new to you many people have been aware of, working at, or sharing information about y2k for many years and they do so without any profit motive.

Asking or complaining about or demanding better service of those who provide such a service free of charge and out of their own good will is not at all acceptable to me. That's of course, IMHO.

Perhaps you should offer to help offset costs by sending a check as you make such demands.

Mike =========================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), December 11, 1998.

Don't split the forum please. To many intelligent, articulate individuals with varied backgrounds, with one common cause, on one forum. None like it on the web that I have found. No need to divide and be conquered by this disorder of formless matter we call Y2K.... (Just trying to be articulate)

-- flierdude (mkessler0101@sprynet.com), December 11, 1998.

I'd like to see full-text search capabilities added, and a split into forums with this would enable people to focus on issues of immediate concern. Splitting into forums without a search engine would be adding insult to injury, imvho.

I don't care if anybody gets an e-mail response to my postings either.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), December 11, 1998.

I'm for not spliting the forum too.

MVI, I don't get the email alerts but I think you can turn them off yourself, someone mentioned how. Which alert are you talking about? The "Successful" page you get after posting? If so, all you need to do is click on the back button 3 times until you get back to thread list.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), December 11, 1998.

Someone wrote:

>MVI, I don't get the email alerts but I think you can turn them off >yourself, someone mentioned how. Which alert are you talking about? >The "Successful" page you get after posting? If so, all you need to >do is click on the back button 3 times until you get back to thread >list.

Right at the bottom of *every* post (in email anyway) is a link back to the forum and right there it also says that's the place to turn off the email alerts. You can turn it off yourself.

I personally like the email thingee. It alerts me to what's the topic of the day etc.

I am also for NOT splitting up the forum. I like it just fine the way it is.

For those of you who feel you are getting too much email, simply click on the very bottom link in an email message and it will disable the alerts for you, i.e.

"If you are annoyed by this message then just enter the following URL into a browser and you'll disable the alert that generated this mail:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/alert- disable.tcl?rowid=AAAAu9AANAAADxBAA5"

There...that didn't hurt did it? :-)

Bobbi http://www.buzzbyte.com/ Got water? Got beans?

-- Bobbi (volfnat@northweb.com), December 11, 1998.

What I was talking about was the email that is generated when I post something. My system will grind for several minutes sometimes generated email to those that HAVE requested it.

Can I turn this off?

MVI

-- MVI (vtoc@aol.com), December 11, 1998.

MVI, are you posting from your web browser? That's what I use, and that's what I see after I post a message, a long list of people that have requested alerts. But I don't let that message finish, I click on the "back" button 3 times as soon as that page appears. It stops the upload and brings you right back to the list of threads.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), December 11, 1998.

Oh and you can't turn that off, it's built-in the HTML/java whatever code that runs this board.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), December 11, 1998.

My point was folks, is that this function is contributing to the problems that we are having. If you don't absolutely need to have email sent to you, turn the thing off.

MVI

-- MVI (vtoc@aol.com), December 11, 1998.

not to pee on the parade, but a lot of problems with getting in here are probably attributable to low CPU speeds, low RAM, etc., as is the case with those variables in any internet processes

even an old hard drive can affect one's internet surfing speed...newer hard drives have faster access times, which affect everything, including internet access times (seen it with my own two eyes many times)

my advice for those who experience slow or sub-par performance with internet issues: upgrade your machine. I do this stuff for a living, have for several years, and it's been my experience that in 95% + of 'inferior internet performance' instances cited, a computer upgrade removed the complaint

i.e. a finger pointed at the internet server = 3 fingers pointed back at yourself (your computer)

get a 300+ MHz CPU, 64+ megs of RAM, you'll have very few complaints

that's just the way of the world these days...sad, maybe, but true

-- John Howard (Greenville, NC) (pcdir@prodigy.net), December 15, 1998.

or just get a Mac. Any old Mac will do.

-- speedo (mac@ttack.com), December 16, 1998.

Why drop the email option? It's very beneficial if you use it.

Email gets sent directly to the individual's isp's high speed mailbox caches and so the individual's cpu, whether it is slow or not, does not get put into the mix at all.

Email eliminates most of the load and usage of the forum's server and is the main reason I use it for reading posts. I don't have to go to the web page. When I sit down, the posts just come pouring into a special y2k email directory with no waiting for a browser window to load for each thread, tieing up the server.

Email also cuts down on the more irrelevant responses because you have to make an effort to respond. The browser must be brought up seperately and the thread found, as opposed to just going to the form screen to blast off a response.

Email makes posted "comments" non-specific so answers like "so's your old lady", don't have any meaningful application. You don't feel the need to respond with "takes one to know one"...

I *have* been getting toooo much email the past few weeks. It does accumulate and I must quickly thumb through it looking for my keywords, if I am to get anything from this forum at all. The excess read time alone, limits my ability to post but I expect if everyone voluntarily "limited" their own ability to post, by using email, those posts that *were* would be more worthwhile. In the process, the forum would become trimmer, more easily read, more useful and it will not flounder from the massive unhealthy obesity is it taking on.

Think about it. IMHO, Email is the answer to the congestion.

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), December 18, 1998.