EDIT: Previous title was "DC banned from ADB BBS - June 2010"
Retitled on July 8, 2010
- - -
Well, it looks like I've been 'quietly' banned.
I don't know why, and I was given no notice of the action. It's probably been well over a year since I tried to post anything even remotely objectionable to the ADB BBS, since we have this forum here to freely converse.
As far as I can tell, I was last able to post in April 2010, when I simply announced that the SWA had a team ready to go for the Star Fleet Battles World League.
I guess that's just more bad PR and poor community relations for ADB.
Should we expect otherwise?
-DC
I'd Shoot them an E-mail
Before concluding that you are being banned, I'd shoot them an e-mail and see what is up. I mean it is certainly possible that you got whacked, but given that you weren't whacked last year during the whole schism event, and that you kept posting all that time, and the last post you made on the BBS was, ya know, completely mundane, it is possible that it is an honest mistake somewhere.
Dave - The BBS lost about 600 user accounts in May
Lots of people's accounts were just vanished at random. You weren't deliberately banned.
Confirmed
This was confirmed by Jean. That it was just a computer error.
OK, DC Not Banned
I have no idea why ADB couldn't restore those accounts from a system backup.
The SWA web site, and this sub-domain, are hosted by DreamHost.com. I believe they give us excellent service for the very reasonable cost we pay (about $120 per year, or $10 per month).
If there is a major system crash or site crash, I could go into the admin screen and restore from any one of the daily backups over the past week. For example, if I see the problem started three days ago, I can restore from the backup from four days ago.
The folks at ADB don't have the ability to do something similar? They just let hundreds of user accounts disappear?
I don't get the sense this is cutting-edge customer service. I haven't shopped for a new web hosting service in a while, but the sense I get is this is almost a commodity service product. Many providers offering very similar service at very similar prices.
And, while we're at it, remember how ADB had to purge much of the history of the BBS a few years back? What's up with that? DreamHost gives us _more_ storage every month! The longer we stay with them, the more storage we get, at no additional cost. Our storage is actually growing faster than the content. And the ADB BBS doesn't even really allow for photo images, let alone movie files.
I guess I'll go and edit the name of this forum topic from "DC Banned from ADB BBS" to something more appropriate.
-DC
It's not cutting edge, Dave.
It's not cutting edge, Dave. In fact Discus is dinosaur tech from what I've heard. But they're all comfortable with it, and the entire BBS is built around it, so I don't think they're going to change anytime soon.
No excuse
I get that Discus is ancient. That's not really the point. It's not a Discus thing, it's an ISP/hosting thing.
If their web host is incapable of going back a few days and restoring from an archive, that severely limits ADB's ability to provide an acceptable level of customer service. Hundreds of user accounts disappear, and there is literally nothing you can do about it?
If their web host is incapable of adding storage capacity, to the point where you needed to purge (probably) thousands of archived messages on the BBS, that's just really poor service in today's marketplace. These messages are pure text, with some very minor text-based formatting. Text-based BBS entries are tiny little files, probably just a few Kb each. From what I can see, there are huge barriers to posting medium-size files like photos (thousands of Kbs), and large-size files, like video (millions of Kbs). So how is it possible in today's marketplace that your web hosting service cannot add storage to accommodate the growth of tiny little text files?
I just looked at our DreamHost account status. The SWA's entire setup accounts for about 150 GB of disk usage. We have hundreds of photos for users to browse in our Photo module. In the newsletters I get from DreamHost, they brag about how easy they make it for their customers to host video on their web sites!
The SWA is just a hobby club of volunteers paying just $10 per month for this. We are not a business that supports several people full-time.
I know Cole is painfully resistant to change, to the detriment of his entire operation and ADB's profitability. But maybe he'll read this and see that he can and should do better. The SWA pays only $10 per month for our web services. And none of us gets a single penny of income from it. SVC's income depends on his ability to provide customer service. What is he paying per month? Does Steve Cole not believe in getting his money's worth?
It may be my MBA brainwashing, but I believe in the power of the competitive marketplace. I bet there is a web hosting company out there, somewhere, that for a reasonable payment, would facilitate the porting of ADBs web operations, _including_ the support of the ancient Discus BBS, and add basic services like sufficient disk space and and the ability to restore files from archived backups.
-DC
With all due respect, Dave, I
With all due respect, Dave, I think you're overreacting a tad. Jean did have the information up on the BBS that a purge had occurred and gave instructions for those affected. I guess you just missed it.
I concur that Discus is antiquated and I do like the setup here better. But, you know, alot of times you go with what you know. It's why I still often use Photoshop 5.5 for graphics work, even though it's about ten years out of date.
I would of course be happy to recommend to ADB that they investigate more modern systems. :)
There is a feature of the Discus BBS that ADB relies on.
That's the ability to click "View Recent Posts"
It gives the summary of who posted and the first 80 characters of the post in a nice, easily navigable format.
ADB will not move to a BBS software package/forum software package without that feature.
I use phpBB myself at the Ad Astra site. My entire site gets backed up regularly, twice a week, and we do test restores twice a month.
I'm not saying ditch Discus...
... My suggestion is to move to a web hosting service that provides regular backups, and doesn't have restrictive disk storage qoutas (quotae?).
Find a new web hosting service that will port all of ADBs current web operations over to their system, including support of Discus. There would probably be some kind of one-time setup fee involved.
Then, in the future, if "500-600 user accounts mysteriously disappear", you can go to a backup and restore them. Not just write them off as lost and incur the ill will that comes with such poor customer service.
Then, in the future, there won't be any announcements from SVC that server disk quotas are close to max, and they need to purge thousands of BBS entries in order to keep the BBS functioning, or whatever it was he said several years back to justify the purge.
The SWA, a volunteer hobby club, pays $10 per month for a web hosting service that can do all this and _lots_ more.
I'm just flabbergasted that ADB, a company that employs several people and whose web presence is fundamental to business operations and success, uses a web hosting service that doesn't seem to be able to provide this very basic level of service.
Discus
Is a pile of junk, and their hosting deal with their provider must be one of the worst anywhere in the world.
The idea that they have to delete text only posts because of a lack of space is beyond belief.
Unless they are paying $5 a month for the entire package they are getting well and truly ripped off.
Fear
Fear is a powerful weapon to institute control
I really like the user
I really like the user interface of Discus. I'm sure that's why they haven't ditched it. Their provider definitely is not very good, and I'd guess the ability, or willingness to support Discus makes it hard to find a new one.
recall from the Great Purge
As I recall from the "Great Purge" the current webhost hates Discus. Something about how the internal processes of Discus slow his servers down. Due to this, he absolutely refuses to give them any more space. That is why they have to repeatedly Trim the BBS. Further, as I recall, they pay an incredibly low amount for the space provided and any other webhost would cost 3-4 times as much.
Additionally, it is my personal believe the user created threads of phpBB is upsetting to SVC's obsessive compulsive controlling nature. I know it is a many reason I don't really like phpBB.
Of course, I am sure Ken could confirm or correct what I am saying.
I can only confirm that Discus is a resource hog.
I ran Discus for a while, then switched over to phpBB; my server performance and CPU usage and memory usage plummeted.
Second
I'd like to second Ken's comments.
I tried to post on the SFB board earlier this week, and found I couldn't. As, to the best of my knowledge, I hadn't been banned, I contacted Jean, who tried a few things, and got my account working again. I kind of figured it was related to the crash. Kudos to Jean for a speedy fix.
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by computers !@#$ing up!"
Leslie
SVC comment that made me go uh uh?
Back when Federation Commander:Romulan Boarder/Attack was being created, ADB announced the map panels would include an asteroid field. When they released pictures of the map panels, the asteroids were represented by hexes completely colored gray. I thought this was a really bad idea because it looked bad, was contrary to the stated purpose of Fed Commander, i.e. high quality graphics production, and rather jarring when comparied to the cool star background of the rest of the map. I asked why not just use actual asteroids.
My suggestion was essentially dismissed off hand by SVC.
So apparently there is new postings on the SFU website where you can print out a sheet of Asteroid Hex overlays, i.e. a picture of an rock in a hex or a 7hex circle (center hex and 6 surrounding) with pictures of rocks in it. SVC thinks this is such a great thing that he wants to award the guy who did it a "ribbon". I read then and though well things have definitely changed in 5 years
Similar feelings
If you dig through your back issues to CL35 and a story by SVC entitled "Duty, Honor and Empire", you find a discussion about fuel quality. I'd proposed almost exactly the same system to SVC for the background to some fiction I was writing. He dismissed it, which made the fiction rather more difficult to write (so I stopped). Then he yanks it out again a couple of years later with no credit. I was somewhat annoyed. Can't say I feel like finishing the story now. His loss.
This is to me, very sad.
Because for the most part, SVC built his community of ardent contributors by doing the following:
1) Making it clear that he had minimum standards he wanted met, even if those standards weren't always crystalline. For example, he implies that there is a higher standard of military verisimilitude in the SFU than in canonical Trek (where the bridge crew beams down to Algolplax 7 with two red shirts and suffers 40% casualties before the plot is resolved...every other week.)
2) Doling out ribbons, public praise and more to people who managed to meet his standards.
The excuse is generally...
"Oh that's something we have already thought of", when someone sends in an idea, gets knocked back, then their idea appears months/years later.
But to turn something down as being wrong/unnecessary only for it to appear later is very bad form. Especially if they hadnt gone back and thanked/rewarded/paid the original contributor.
Mudfoot, you could always finish your story then share it with us !
Slow work...
The first story I wrote (CL24, sans misprints) took years, and that's before I had kids. We may be all old and grey before I finish. It takes a certain frame of mind, which seldom comes to me. Maybe I'll get back into the groove for it.
Actually, if you want a preview, let me know and I'll email it as far as I've got.
More words of wisdom from SVC:
"MY DAY: 30 Jan (Sunday) 2011 ... @ I got a hilarious email from someone protesting that we had banned "dozens of people" from our BBS (six in eleven years, actually) for "disagreeing with us on rules interpretations" (no such thing has ever happened; people are banned for repeatedly attacking customers and repeatedly breaking BBS rules)..."
Except that a BBS rule is that once you are warned about disagreeing with their rules interpretations, they will ban you. However, I have seen people try to make a point why they feel someway about a rule, only to be given the "stop posting about this or be banned warning." You know, maybe SVC hasn't banned anyone for that, maybe all those banned were for legitimate reasons. But the way the treat is put out, it is a bit onerous.
Of course, once banned, the ol' Ministry of Historical Revisionism (Minitrue) can just rewrite the past to make them right. Just block the users account an you flush them down the memory hole. Well, until this board popped up.
Or maybe I have had too much coffee. I feel pretty hopped up right now.
Actually, if you look at the
Actually, if you look at the strict wording, he admits that he's banned six in eleven years that have "disagreed with us on rule interpretations". The rest of the people who were banned for repeatedly attacking customers and repeatedly breaking BBS rules don't count in that total. ;-)
Not what he said
He says they've banned 6 in 11 years for repeated violations and never banned anyone for a rules disagreement.
I'm a rules lawyer from way back and I can't find any other way to interpret his statement. Certainly not to fit your interpretation.
*shrug*
Rule lawyers.... *shrug*
"It's the press release, stupid."
Is this some kind of cliche phrase? Or is this SC calling someone "stupid" for trying to be helpful?
I meant that he has never
I meant that he has never banned anyone for disagreeing rules disagreements, only for breaking the rules of the BBS. However, it seems that rules disagreements ARE reasons to ban if you are told not to disagree anymore.
Its a weasel statement. It means they do ban people for disagreements, but call it something else.
Its like a boss who, when brought to court on sexual discrimination charges, claims his secretary was fired for not doing a satisfactory job, and it has nothing to do with her not putting out.