ISF Death Clock

[Admin]

The real irony is that Skeptical Community will outlive ISF.

[President Bush]

Voids that suck that hard need warning labels.

[Meadmaker]

I'm really surprised that Icerat, or whoever made the decision, hasn't let us non-member lurkers back in.

All I can see is the member count, which appears to be doing fine.

I must admit that I wish I could read it. It's a strange place, for sure, but it was a place where you could at least get some sense of how people viewed the election, and other social issues. This place has too few people, and SkepticalCommunity has a weird vibe to it.

ETA: Of course, I could just ask to be reinstated. I'm just not up for taking that much of a plunge, though.

[arthwollipot]

Icerat has been absent for months. No work of any kind has been done on the forum.

Personally I think we should buy it back from him. Put someone in charge who will actually pay attention.

ETA: His last post was in April, though the stats show that he was logged on just a few days ago.

[Admin]

I'm really surprised that Icerat, or whoever made the decision, hasn't let us non-member lurkers back in.

Would require him to spend some of the money members gave him, and that's not reasonable. The poor bloke was only recouping the vast costs he'd had in........... [/insert reason because I can't think of one]

All I can see is the member count, which appears to be doing fine.

Misleading for two reasons.

1 Every member who'd been lurking is now signed in
2 Some 'bots have managed to circumvent the block and are showing up as members

I must admit that I wish I could read it. It's a strange place, for sure, but it was a place where you could at least get some sense of how people viewed the election, and other social issues. This place has too few people, and SkepticalCommunity has a weird vibe to it.

Weird is a mild term.

I don't think you're missing much on either forum.

[Admin]

Icerat has been absent for months. No work of any kind has been done on the forum.

Took the money and ran. If I'd given him money I'd be disgusted, but since I didn't I'll just wonder why the fuck anyone did. He'd made so many promises in the past that never came to fruition, thinking it would be different was naive.

Personally I think we should buy it back from him. Put someone in charge who will actually pay attention.

I'd question the "buy" part of the sentence, because it has zero intrinsic value, so you'd want the price to be very, very low. Even Icerat will realise he's not going to get more money from members. Why he won't let go seems to be sheer bloody-mindedness - he's earning nothing from it, he spends nothing on it.

ETA: His last post was in April, though the stats show that he was logged on just a few days ago.

That's mildly interesting - when I last looked he hadn't logged in for months.

He's a fucking piss-taker and shame on the shade of Randi for letting it go the way he did. Sadly, it happened when I'd decided not to post for a year or two, or it would have been a different outcome for sure.

[arthwollipot]

OMG we actually got a brief post from Icerat.

[Admin]

Yes, I saw that.

Let's see what happens from here on. The guy's a scamming douche, but that's ok, it's not my money.

He reminds of me of several people I've worked with over the years - there's always an excuse for not doing what they were asked to do. Unfortunately, I can't give Icerat a red card.

[arthwollipot]

And we're offline for the weekend.

[Admin]

An interesting thought occurred to me, and which may get answered in the fullness of time.

I can't think of any circumstance that would require the forum to be down for days for "maintenance".

I could take that site down and have it back up on new software in hours, not days.

The database is doubtless the problem. I know that when Shermer tried to fix the database at SC it never went well, and that forum software is the same as this one, which is much easier to deal with than vBulletin, and I'm pretty sure Shermer is smarter than Icerat. Fuck knows how many years ago, JREF tried to fuck with the database and lost a load of data. They're specifically designed not to be fucked with.

Regardless of those complexities, things either work or they don't - you're not spending days manually shifting filing cabinets. It might be that Icerat actually has zero clues and is trying different things in the hope they work.

Either way, I'll bet you $10 he asks for more money once it's finished.