ISF Dead...

[arthwollipot]

The last post in the Modest Proposal thread was in January (and boy did it take ages with the crappy search function for me to find that) but the Forum Running Slow thread has regular updates from Icerat, Darat and others.

[Admin]

The Modest Proposal thread? Is that active? Is it the same old Modest Proposal thread? Or a new one with a similar name?

It's the one I started late last year to make the suggestion that rather than let the forum wither away, let the members take it over and try to reinvigorate it through a collaborative effort.

Quite few people offered to put funds towards it, and that's the stage when Icerat saw that he could actually get that money - which he has - on the back of promises to improve the forum. I did suggest it was a cynical ploy and I haven't seen anything to change that opinion yet.

Thus far, the only improvement he's made is to load the free "https everywhere" function I suggested, which in a beautiful piece of irony, isn't working now as he's had to switch the forum off for non-members.

It just keeps getting funnier, but I am studiously holding my keyboard and not pouring scorn on him.

Yet.

[arthwollipot]

ISF is down for maintenance. What was originally a 2-hour downtime was extended to a 24-hour downtime, which was extended to a probably-more-than-24 hour downtime.

[Meadmaker]

When I went there an hour ago, it said come back Monday.

[arthwollipot]

I'm just getting a 502 Bad Gateway error.

Icerat found some corruption in the database, which is why the maintenance period is taking longer than anticipated.

[arthwollipot]

It's back.

[Meadmaker]

Although I can't see the threads anymore, I can still see the membership statistics. It looks like there has been a significant jump in active members, following years of steady declines. Maybe other people, like me, were pure lurkers and decided to jump in as members?


I''m spending enough time here talking to the five or six active folks on this board, so I will probably wait until retirement before I request ISF membership again. Retirement could be a few months or a few years away, depending on economic conditions.

[Admin]

Although I can't see the threads anymore, I can still see the membership statistics. It looks like there has been a significant jump in active members, following years of steady declines. Maybe other people, like me, were pure lurkers and decided to jump in as members?

A lot of members viewed threads but hardly ever posted, so weren't logging in. They've logged in to view now, so while the active posters total has jumped, the net numbers haven't changed at all. There have been a couple of new members but I haven't seen them posting.

If anything, the number of threads and posts seems to be dropping sharply and the whole place is held together by multiple threads on Trump, Biden, Israel, Ukraine and that fucking thread some fuckwit started about trans women not being women. I must see if Darat can provide some stats and I'll let you know, because fewer threads = less discussion = fewer members.

Science threads get fuck all traction and community it's rare threads go to page 2