by StephaneLaliberte 30 Replies latest forum suggestions
I have a question that may have already been answered, but I have no idea how to search for it:
Simon: Why do you use something other than the standard forum format? This format is really nice, but it seems like it would be more expensive and doesn't have "notify me of response" option.
Thanks for all you do Simon.
From what I read, you are on the right path. I believe that forums do occupy an important space that Facebook and other social media don't cover properly. So, keep it up!
Thank you Simon. I've been hanging around here for something like fifteen years. I really appreciate the place.
I have found the adds to be very useful. It helped me book my next holiday.
Not sure if this was mentioned already, but every page should be backed up on archive.org wayback machine already anyway. Heck, you can even go see old pages from jw.org and the sites that preceded it, jw-media.org and watchtower.org
Simon: Why do you use something other than the standard forum format? This format is really nice, but it seems like it would be more expensive ...
I actually found it to be the opposite. I have tried a few standard packages and the hosting costs would always have been much higher. They typically work great and are very cheap when you start out but scale is the issue. Lots of sites that use them for large forums are either revenue generating (i.e. they can throw money at the problem / it's part of their business) or they have heavily modified the code.
Same too looking at the hosted forum services - they are often based on the same technology stack so it's not surprising that the costs are passed on. They start as open source and then at some point turn it into a business, target enterprise users and expect hefty fees. I hate having hard limits where if the site is popular it bumps you up a tier and suddenly costs more. The beauty of cloud hosting is that the cost is directly related to the traffic and usage which should have some relationship to ad-revenue to cover it (and why being able to reduce the running costs helps with the economics of keeping this balance on the right side),
Also, even if you don't pay for your time to manage the hosting, it's still a "cost" in terms of energy and sometimes just a drain on your time so takes a toll. You don't realize what a drain managing database servers and web servers is until you stop doing it.
... and doesn't have "notify me of response" option.
At one point the emailing was an issue for technical reasons but I could re-instate that at some point, probably more as a "digest" of updated topics since you last visited. One of the nice new web-tech features though is push notifications so you could get alerts where something you wanted notification of was updated. I'm planning on building things like this into the moderation side of things ... i.e. you get an alert to check something out if it's been flagged by x people with enough reputation and have all the details needed and convenient buttons to take whatever action (ignore, delete, lock etc...). Again, all to make things easier with less risk of burnout while being more responsive and providing a better service.
Simon,
I recently joined this forum and I want to thank you for your work and for your help. This site has helped me wake up. I have seen some incredibly good research here, which often shocked me. At times I would go over to JWR and find some very kind and comforting words there. That gave me the strength to come back here for more information that is hidden by WT, sometimes in plain sight. I think that combination, along with an objective look at my local congregation helped me get as far as I am now.
I hope some of our friends coming over from JWR can bring some of the gems that were developed in the threads over there. It would be a pity to lose all of that.
Good to know that even if Simon packs up the ton of threads I've bookmarked will still be available...
I think we need to contact the owner of JWR and get the files so wifibandit can at least host a static copy of JWR...
Not sure what lucrative manoeuvre is involved, but I like the sound of preserving images for prosperity. ;-)
A question ...
Who are the moderators on this forum?
