And of course, I fucked up the coding. See what happens when you post drunk, kiddies? :smack:
Sumbitch. “commentate” is a word. It shouldn’t be, but it is. 
Of course you can’t discuss how to implement illegal uses of P2P.
If it were in my ability to answer your questions, I probably would. But it isn’t.
When you proclaim openly that you intend to violate the rules of the board, then you risk being banned for violating the rules. That’s all I was saying.
Well, it was tied into the P2P thing being an alternate to any sort of servers needed for the board. Not any sort of sharing of copyrighted materials. Probably not the best way to state it, but there it is.
My point was it would be very easy to come up with the resources to handle the volume of data, but that any mention of a P2P-style setup would be likely shut down. Seriously, if I started a GQ thread asking how to use P2P to run a message board, how long would it stay open?
P2P isn’t, in and of itself, illegal in any sense. The problems are when it involves copyrighted material. But we’re not talking about copyrighted material.
If I and 99 other people each have a 100GB drive to spare, we’re looking at, what, 10 terabytes? And that’s only 100 users. I suspect the number would increase even with an average of much lass than 100GB avail for use on the average user’s system.
Point is, there is plenty of storage available, though resources aren’t as reliable as a central server.
We’re paying for the servers, or the rent/lease of such, and that’s fine. But we still don’t have an accounting, as it were, of what the money we’re paying is doing for us.
This has become a public business. The board is charging members and it’s time to start telling the paying customer what he or she is getting. And it’s time to tell the paying customer that all the teasers and implied promises will be followed up on.
It’s not enough for someone to tell us what is on it’s way, it’s time to tell us what is planned and when we’ll see it.
I can handle no change other than the removal of two emoticons. I sure hope the membership fees were able to cover the cost. What would be nice, however, is a note from time to time about what the next great set of greatness is planned.
Actually, screw the planned part of it. Just let us know when stuff is going into effect. Or dismiss it all. I’ve been drinking, remember?
Yep, call 'em on their bullshit and they start with what they’d like to promise you, personally.
Point out that they don’t live up to their promises, and they try to attack your character.
I guess this time the personal attack on me nearly six months ago didn’t distract enough people. Or maybe it’s why people remember the promises that were made and not delivered.
It really would’ve been better for the SDMB if all you official people around here promised nothing than continued to say that there were things coming. All those promises did was open a few more eyes to the reality that the customers here are constantly being cajoled into paying up with dangled hope of rewards for it. Those rewards, of course, never come.
Sounds like …
Scientology.
I had a thought the other day, about how stupid they are in making the older posts inaccessable, especially since we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance here. Sociologists, historians, etc., are going to be turning to message boards like the Dope in a few years to study how average joes reacted to big events like 9/11, the Columbia disaster, Madrid and London bombings, etc., etc., since the old posts will give them a moment by moment, almost unfiltered account of how people reacted to those things (and similar events). With those posts gone, they’ll turn elsewhere for the information, and our chance to fight ignorance will be gone.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, other than to note that the staff here have my entire sympathy for trying to provide the best service they can, despite being faced with - on either side - an organisation that owns this board but appears to be utterly indifferent to it, if not outrightly contemptuous, and an increasingly discontented membership tired of paying for the substandard service engendered by managerial neglect: I’ve worked jobs where I had to defend the indefensible too, but at least I was being paid for them.
Nonetheless, Tuckerfan is absolutely right: imagine throwing out old letters which personally documented the Civil War - or the sinking of the Maine - or World War Two - or the Civil Rights struggle - or the moon landing - or Watergate - and justifying it because you “didn’t have enough room” for them. C’mon, this is unconscionable: at least assure us that all the deleted posts are backed up in hard form somewhere. Please?
Merriam-Webster is a descriptivist dictionary–you’ll notice it doesn’t show an etymology for that “word” other than “backformation of commentator”, which means “somebody was dense enough to work backwards from ‘commentator’ instead of forwards from ‘comment’”. The fact that it’s in Merriam-Webster only means that enough people use it to be noticed.
Why couldn’t we? (Assuming your suggestion doesn’t include pirating movies.)
It would probably stay open as long as you resisted the urge to talk about implementing a movie upload function into the board. Why would you assume otherwise?
If that’s the case, why don’t they just say that? “We really wish we could give you more for your money, but we’re working under the constraints of the Reader.” Or they could say nothing at all. If they’re not sure they can follow through on their promises because of what those above them will say, why should they make the promises at all?
OED includes “commentate”, with precedents extending back to 1794 (no cite, it’s a book on my end-table). Also, note this review of Hazlitt’s Character’s of Shakespeare by Edgar Allan Poe wherein he uses the word “commentating”. I think that’s enough history to make it a valid word.
Fair enough, my mistake.
If you’re working for an organisation, even as a volunteer, that pretty much precludes you from publically bad-mouthing them, especially on their own message board. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that the staff are even more frustrated than the membership about the paucity of service: they just can’t say so here.
I don’t imagine the staff promise extra features and improved service for shits and giggles and them yank them back with a gleeful cry of “Suckers!”: my take on it is that promises of improvements were made from Up High, these promises were duly passed on by TubaDiva, who was then left with egg on her face when they didn’t happen. Hopefully such promises won’t be made again, at least not without a solid basis, but I can see the desire to pass on assurances that normal service will be resumed, just to assure members that their cries aren’t unheard.
I think it’s pretty shitty that the staff get put in such a position, frankly: if they say nothing to the members about what’s happening here, they’re accused of not giving a shit; if they do say something about it, they run the risk of looking like knaves and fools when the promises don’t materialise.
Which is better: bad-mouthing your employer, or unabashedly insulting your customers because you know your product is too good and too unique for them to switch? I would say “neither”, myself. Apparently, you have a different answer.
Who said they have to bad-mouth anyone? I’m sure there’s a tactful way to say “The Reader won’t let us give you the cool new stuff”. Here’s one: “Unfortunately, we’ve been informed by TPTB at the Reader that even with the SDMB subscription fees, they can’t afford to give us the budget we need for an upgrade.” I’m not even getting paid for this!
And then, of course, there’s the option of not saying anything about it at all. That would be lame, but it’d be better than promising cool new stuff–let alone a board that actually functions consistently with a decent search tool and can archive all its posts–with no intention of delivering on the promise, and then threatening and slandering the customers when they ask where the cool new stuff and the functional board are.
What the fuck ever. We’ve been promised all kinds of things over and over again. TubaDiva is a lot of things, but she’s not stupid. If she’s been promised a bigger budget from above–which is a stretch of the benefit-of-the-doubt concept in and of itself–she should know better than to pass the promises along before she sees a promise in writing with a John Hancock below it.
But what the hell–you want to play devil’s advocate, let’s play: Assume all of the backpedaling on the promises we’ve been given is the fault of the Reader reneging on their promises (in which case TubaDiva knows they’re renege artists and those promises are not to be trusted). Assume further that the Reader has again promised TubaDiva a big shiny upgrade budget, and then assume further that the Reader has such an eagle-eye on her that they’re forcing her to pass the good news along to the followers when she knows better. Why, then, would they not be watching when she assaults their paying customers with threats and slander?
So can I. Didn’t their mamas teach them to take responsibility for their mistakes, though? Mine taught me that. I dunno, maybe she just had a unique parenting style.
Aw, devil’s advocate sucks. Let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Well, catsix does make rather a meal out of being abrasive, and she just happened to get abraded back that time: sometimes the pissy customer does get their change slammed onto the counter. Should it happen? Probably not. Is it going to happen? Sure, if the customer makes a career of coming in to just to bitch loudly about the service.
I’ve found catsix insightful and a good contributor to the fight against ignorance in my time here, and she wasn’t abrasive at first, just calling TubaDiva on her bullshit. The way I saw it, she got abrasive after she got “abraded back”. And how about the Doper who was accused of posting drunk in this very thread?
Guilty as charged. I meant it a bit more light-hearted than it seems to have been taken. I apologize to duffer for my comment.
I’m pretty sure I’m being characterized this way to deflect attention from the fact that what I said in the other thread, and in this one, was spot on.
This is a tune we heard before, and it ended the same way this time that it did every other time.
Even people that aren’t guests can still view the pages. I’ve never been that clear about bandwith. Doesn’t it cost the board when people view posts? Does it cost the board more when people post rather than view?
I don’t know the specifics of vBulletin, but it seems that you should be right–the difference is that people who can’t post are less likely to view, methinks.
Tubadiva on vacation or something?
Not as of Friday.
She’s just not willing to hold herself accountable for things she says. (Nor apparently is anyone else in a position of power here)
Again.
I said it six months ago, I’ll say it again (and, sadly, the situation probably won’t change enough and I’ll be saying it next year as well): TubaDiva is not fit to be in a position of power on this board. This thread – both the impetus for it and her refusal to offer any sort of explanation in it – is a perfect example.
Why?