Tuba also said in that thread -
“What we want to avoid (like in the case Ivylass cited) is where people come to the board with something in mind that ultimately has nothing to do with the board community except to get them to DO something, in this case, harass public officials over what was perceived to be poor judgement.”
I don’t see how this is NOT to do with the board community.
From: http://downloads.mysql.com/docs/refman-4.1-en.pdf
Section 1.4.1
So what version is used? AFAIK the version hasn’t been published. Version 3.22 is something like 6 years obsolete, so I doubt more than a handful of active sites are running it. But even version 3.23 with its larger table size can’t even be used with the latest version of vBulletin (which requires something above 4.0, according to the currently-unresponsive vBulletin.com).
If they’re still using version 3.22, then I agree that’s a serious problem.
I’ve e-mailed Jerry. 
A new server has been ordered. 
My point, by the way, was that the Mods are in contact with the management and could do us a favour by swiftly passing on the news.
Your suggestion is presumably that I e-mail 1000 people and get them all to write a letter.
Wow.
Firstly that could well aggravate the management.
Secondly I don’t think it’s a sensible use of my time.
Thirdly, for example, 4 million people have recently signed a petition to the UK Government not to close rural Post Offices. I doubt that will have any effect.
Err, you responded to Arnold’s suggestion about someone organsising a letter writing campaign. I just suggested that a thousand people saying they were unhappy might be better than one person saying a thousand people were unhappy.
I never suggested that you organise anything.
You may not believe it will effective, that is your opinion, and you are entitled to it.
Anyway, now Jerry has a new server this is all moot, until the next time. 
Not really.
A new server isn’t “more better stuff.” It’s getting the board back to useable. Kind of sucks that we’re moving the goalposts so much, huh?
Ok, YOU organise the letter writing campaign.
It all depends on what kind of server he has. Did they decide to upgrade the Timex/Sinclair T1000 they were using with a TRS-80 Color Computer, or did they splurge and get something with a processor speed that can be measured in kilahertz?
writing campaign. Aren’t you Mods appointed with the approval of a Chicago reader representative? Can’t you summarise the feelings of the members to that person?
[/QUOTE]
If by “you Mods” you mean to include me, allow me to point out that I am not a member of the staff. When I was a member of the staff, contact with the administration of the Chicago Reader was minimal. Things may have changed since then, I don’t know. Suggestions from the membership that are outside of the power of the moderators are periodically passed on to our liaison with the Chicago Reader.
Would a letter-writing campaign to the Chicago Reader, publicized on this message board, be allowed? I can’t say, not being on the staff (I was on the past, but these are the kinds of decisions that would require some discussion.) Would it be more effective than posting your requests on the board? I can’t say either. Has the past method, of posting your requests on the board, given you satisfaction? That would be for you to answer, I guess.
I see that jdavis has posted that a new server is on order, so my interpretation of that is that the Chicago Reader is willing to spend money for the maintenance of the message board.
Hrm, and it depends on who is organizing it and for what purpose. I didn’t have in mind asking for or cheering a server that works a little more than occasionally, or even the whizbang stuff that is hinted but has no substance or as far as we can see, supposed value-add to the experience here other than what is expected (working server, maintianed posts, the new downgraded “goal” that JDavis posted might come on line eventually soon).
I was thinking, in regards to a snail letter, about this portion of the OP:
And the discussion of why this behavior is acceptable to Reader.
From what I can see of the posts, people have other ideas of what to organize letters about. Not sure I’m up to herding this group of cats, but I can at least herd myself.
Thanks for the update, Jerry - now quit hogging the bandwidth with your incessant ramblings. 166 posts in 7 years - sheesh, don’t you have anything better to do?
Sweet! Now email the lottery people and tell them I need a new car.
Pfft. What kind of fictional, futuristic, fantasy world are you living in? The fact of the matter is that they simply ordered far stronger hampsters that will not only poke, but actually nudge the abacus beads with their noses!
Would that be a picnic hampster?
I’m not sure what that means, but, to my credit, I did realize that I misspelled “hamster” about 10 nanoseconds after I sumbitted my post.
And by “sumbitted,” I mean “submitted,” of course.
God, I need to just quite while I’m behind!
And by “quite,” I mean “quit.”
Okay, I give up.
I was going for something on the lines of “hamper”, as in a large basket or wickerwork receptacle, usually with a cover: picnic hamper; clothes hamper.
Well a million people saying they were unhappy would be better than a thousand. :eek: However just saying it doesn’t speed up the SDMB.
I assumed you were expecting 1000 people to write in and that clearly someone would have to organise it.
Indeed. I do have that right.
I also am very confident that 1000 people will not write in to an Internet Message Board unless someone organises it. You may think it will happen spontaneously, that is your opinion, and you are entitled to it.
Jerry has said what he intends to do, answered my e-mail promptly and been courteous throughout.
I’m happy with him so far!
Arnold, you advised me that if I cared enough, a letter writing campaign would help. :eek:
Now you sound like a politician, saying you don’t know what effect it would have.
This is not up to your normal standard!
Again a very cautious statement.
The Reader has paid Jerry for years, so they are certainly willing to spend money for the maintenance of the message board.
What we fervently hope is that the subscription money, plus the Google ad income, plus the publicity for the SD books make it feasible to upgrade the performance of the site.
Where did I say that? I have no idea if it would help or not. I meant that it would be a different avenue to try, seeing as how I got the impression that posters thought complaining on the board had no effect. I belong to a well-known organisation that uses letter-writing as one of its effective tools (Amnesty International) so letter-writing campaigns come naturally to me.
In the past, the Reader was paying Jerry Davis primarily to maintain some part of the Chicago Reader IS system apart from the SDMB server, with the SDMB server being a lower priority task. I don’t know what the situation is now.