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deneme

Newbie
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
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1
Hi, VigilantCitizen. First of all, thanks a lot for the level headed coverage of the craziest aspects of a crazy industry. Would it be possible to keep religious debating and propaganda contained within specific threads or something? They tend to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio.
 

Thunderian

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
7,515
Why didn't you let anyone know what was happening? The board was just gone, with no explanation or hint that it was coming back. There are people who have been reading your postings and building a community around your site for years, and the bottom dropped out with no warning. And now it's back.

What reason can you give for not telling anyone what was going on, and what assurance can you give that it won't happen again? A lot of people were upset and confused by your actions.
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
Why didn't you let anyone know what was happening? The board was just gone, with no explanation or hint that it was coming back. There are people who have been reading your postings and building a community around your site for years, and the bottom dropped out with no warning. And now it's back.

What reason can you give for not telling anyone what was going on, and what assurance can you give that it won't happen again? A lot of people were upset and confused by your actions.
Hi Thunderian :)
I agree, I would like to know why VC didn't let us know that the forums would be going away.
 

The Zone

Star
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
3,165
I figure a person has their reasons and folks are naturally curious. Oddly, I had finally accepted the absence of a forum when it suddenly appeared. I do hope the atmosphere and spirit of discussion goes next level. Welcome newbies and hope to see former members. In a sense, I think a reset gave people time tp think and appreciate one another in a different light.
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
I figure a person has their reasons. Oddly, I had finally accepted the absence of a forum when it suddenly appeared. I do hope the atmosphere and spirit of discussion goes next level. Welcome newbies and hope to see former members. In a sense, I think a reset gave people time tp think and appreciate one another in a different light.
I'm sure he did have his reasons, but being a member of the previous forum, I would have liked to have had a heads up that the forum I liked coming to was going to disappear...
 

VigilantCitizen

Administrator
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
114
Why didn't you let anyone know what was happening? The board was just gone, with no explanation or hint that it was coming back. There are people who have been reading your postings and building a community around your site for years, and the bottom dropped out with no warning. And now it's back.

What reason can you give for not telling anyone what was going on, and what assurance can you give that it won't happen again? A lot of people were upset and confused by your actions.
Hi Thunderian and welcome back,
The main reason why the "bottom fell off" is because I expected the forums to be offline only temporarily until a few important issues were fixed. However, the solution to these issues became increasingly complex as I realized that a complete re-install was necessary and, preferably, on a completely separate domain name. There were attempts to migrate all of the data of the previous forum's to a new forum, but the results were highly unstable - which is exactly what I didn't want to happen. I therefore had to rebuild from scratch and I wanted to make that the forums stayed online for years to come without interruptions.

I realize that members of the forums have been putting a lot of time and efforts into their posts (which is exactly why the forums were always great) and losing all of this information was not cool at all. Also, I definitely should have posted updates explaining what was happening but I kept expecting the forums to be back soon. I am sorry for that and I assure you that I won't be doing anything else to piss off the VC Community.

That being said, the best assurance you can get is the fact that the forums were installed on a completely separate domain. The main reason why the forums ever went down was to safeguard the main site from going down either temporarily or permanently. By installing the forums on a separate space, the main source of problems is eliminated from the get go, assuring stability to both sites (and saving me a lot of headaches). Also, I took the time to shop around for better forum software which upgrades nearly all aspects of the previous forums. More importantly, this software provides a solid structure on which the community can grow, evolve and adapt to future developments.

TLDR; Sorry, my bad. The forums are here stay and they are better.
 

Loki

Established
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
401
With any luck on Vig's part, this will be the last time the forums disappear and get erased. However, for any interested, check my signature and bookmark the link provided there. We had no real way of contacting everyone who might have wanted to join because we had no time to exchange info or spread the word. We've no interest in stealing members away from here; most likely now that this place is operational again our activity will slow to a halt like it has before, but it will be there for anyone who wants it if this place crashes once more.

My apologies Vig, if this comes off as advertising just let me know and I'll remove it, but it's more of a safeguard than anything else. This place will undoubtedly be more active than our little haven could have ever been, but users like The Zone and Lisa might have benefited from us being able to spread the word earlier.
 

Thunderian

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
7,515
Thanks, VC. I appreciate the explanation and the apology. Here's hoping this is the last iteration of the VC board. I think it looks great and I like that everything's brand new. Thanks for all your good work over the years. I know there are many, many people who appreciate it. Please keep it up!
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
With any luck on Vig's part, this will be the last time the forums disappear and get erased. However, for any interested, check my signature and bookmark the link provided there. We had no real way of contacting everyone who might have wanted to join because we had no time to exchange info or spread the word. We've no interest in stealing members away from here; most likely now that this place is operational again our activity will slow to a halt like it has before, but it will be there for anyone who wants it if this place crashes once more.

My apologies Vig, if this comes off as advertising just let me know and I'll remove it, but it's more of a safeguard than anything else. This place will undoubtedly be more active than our little haven could have ever been, but users like The Zone and Lisa might have benefited from us being able to spread the word earlier.
Hi Loki :)
I tried to google different things to see if I could find an alternative site since I know that's what happened the time before and I never did see anything. I was pretty bummed out when the forums just vanished so it would have been nice to know that there was somewhere else to meet.
 

VigilantCitizen

Administrator
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
114
With any luck on Vig's part, this will be the last time the forums disappear and get erased. However, for any interested, check my signature and bookmark the link provided there. We had no real way of contacting everyone who might have wanted to join because we had no time to exchange info or spread the word. We've no interest in stealing members away from here; most likely now that this place is operational again our activity will slow to a halt like it has before, but it will be there for anyone who wants it if this place crashes once more.

My apologies Vig, if this comes off as advertising just let me know and I'll remove it, but it's more of a safeguard than anything else. This place will undoubtedly be more active than our little haven could have ever been, but users like The Zone and Lisa might have benefited from us being able to spread the word earlier.
Welcome back Loki
It's all good and I understand you wanting to keep a safeguard in place. Hopefully these forums will mend all of the broken bonds and create new ones.
 

SkepticCat

Veteran
Joined
Mar 14, 2017
Messages
666
"The main issue was that s that occurred on the forums sometimes affected and compromised the main site."

I appreciate the validity of the notion that even here on your own website you may not be able to speak freely in the crackdown on 'fake news'. I heard rumors the reason you had to take down the Pizzagate article was the site got shut down in the UK while you had that article available - If you are able to affirm or deny the validity of this I'm very interested to hear. I doubt I'm alone in wanting to understand why that article had to be removed. I must stress how much I really dislike any sort of secrecy or obscurity of facts, particularly on a site of this nature. I feel the above quote from your forum reopening article is guilty of such obscurity, again. It is extremely discomforting being left with the sense there's something you either can't or won't tell about what happened, and why such an apparently crucial article suddenly disappears without warning or explanation.

Certainly, much of what was posted on the previous forums was highly controversial and not always posted in the most sober manner so I imagine accusations of hate speech/racism/whatever would open the door for blacklisting this site. Clarification of all of the above concerns so speculation can end would be greatly appreciated.
 

Hope

Newbie
Joined
Mar 14, 2017
Messages
1
Hi VC, I am a silent fan of the site. I'm glad to see the website is back and this time it's for good. Looking forward to the discussions as well as fresh insights to the issues we are facing in the new world that's right at the doorstep if it isn't already in the house.
 

VigilantCitizen

Administrator
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Messages
114
"The main issue was that s that occurred on the forums sometimes affected and compromised the main site."

I appreciate the validity of the notion that even here on your own website you may not be able to speak freely in the crackdown on 'fake news'. I heard rumors the reason you had to take down the Pizzagate article was the site got shut down in the UK while you had that article available - If you are able to affirm or deny the validity of this I'm very interested to hear. I doubt I'm alone in wanting to understand why that article had to be removed. I must stress how much I really dislike any sort of secrecy or obscurity of facts, particularly on a site of this nature. I feel the above quote from your forum reopening article is guilty of such obscurity, again. It is extremely discomforting being left with the sense there's something you either can't or won't tell about what happened, and why such an apparently crucial article suddenly disappears without warning or explanation.

Certainly, much of what was posted on the previous forums was highly controversial and not always posted in the most sober manner so I imagine accusations of hate speech/racism/whatever would open the door for blacklisting this site. Clarification of all of the above concerns so speculation can end would be greatly appreciated.
Hi SkepticCat,
A few months ago, several things happened in a short amount of time and the "secrecy" you're referring to was actually me trying to figure out what was actually happening and how to navigate through treacherous waters. It is not easy being a lone independent blogger facing gigantic organizations.

The Pgate article was indeed the most important I've ever written and, judging from the massive backlash it received from mass media, it clearly struck a nerve. That did not surprise me because the story involved people who had ties strong ties with mass media outlets. Although the article was exclusively comprised of pictures and content that was already publically available online (i.e. Instagram pics), the story was tagged as "fake news" without explaining what was "fake" about it. In fact, news articles about that story were 100% about telling people what to think about the story and 0% about explaining what the story was actually about. Then some stooge walked into the restaurant with a weapon and things got ugly. The story turned into a trap. I then basically acted in self-preservation. At least I take some comfort in the fact that I helped raise awareness while the article was up.

While that was happening, the fact the forums contained posts of a controversial nature did not help. However, anything relating to hate speech has always been against the rules and was always subject to moderation. It was nevertheless one of the forums issues that needed to be addressed.

Finally, the rumor you've read is untrue. The site was indeed unavailable to Europe (not only the UK) for several hours, but that was due to issues with the CDN network.

Hope this answers your questions. I understand that you dislike obscurity but please understand that, when facing complex and confusing situations, it is sometimes better to take a step back and process what is happening rather than ranting publically about issues that are not fully understood. That is how I see it, anyways.
 
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