THE FUTURE OF THIS FORUM - PLEASE READ

[QT Luong]

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.

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 discussed in length. </ul> So what do you think ?

[Leonard Robertson]

"...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.

[Mike Mahoney]

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.

[neil poulsen]

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.

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?

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.

Neil

[David Brown]

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.

Certainly anything is better than letting this forum languish and die, and I feel Photo.net has the best chance of success.

[Matt_1193]

-Q-

I may be able to help in the first option. Please email me with particulars and bandwidth history. Particularly details of the software requirements.

[M.]

The Medium Format Forum doesn't seem to have suffered from it's association with Photo.net.

[David Leblanc]

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.

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.

[Donald Brewster]

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.

[Jennifer Waak]

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.