Farewell to Ornery

[OrneryMod]

Kristine Card has informed me that she and OSC have decided to wind down their online presences, and to stop hosting Ornery and Hatrack River in early September sometime. 

The admin at Hatrack has started a thread to let people say goodbye and connect with one another beyond the forums.  Please feel free to use this thread in the same way, and if you'd like, leave your contact information for the other members.

I have spoken with Kristine Card about continuing to host ornery.org and the ornery forums on my webserver. She said they are open to that, so please let me know if you'd like for the forums and guest-article page to continue. If there is enough interest, I will make the arrangements to have it transferred to my server.  We should be able to transition seamlessly, perhaps with a few days of downtime.

With the advent of Facebook and Reddit, old bbc-style forums like this have been slowly dying off.  We've seen our membership drop significantly since the early/mid 2000's, and I think we've got only a dozen or two active posters now.  Perhaps it makes sense to let the forum close as OSC leaves the picture, or maybe it's worth maintaining. What do you guys think?

[Crunch]

The end of an era to be sure. The technological obsolescence of forum software like this one and the ideologically driven moderation/purging, particularly in the few years before moving to this platform, took a toll. It would be a shame to not learn the lessons of those 2 failures and try to continue this forum with nothing more than new hosting services. If that’s all you’re going to do, then let it die.

I suggest moving the forum to Reddit. You can make it a restricted sub, it’s a modern platform, costing nothing to host. The only reason to maintain this instance is the history, it would be fantastic to migrate to Reddit but that’s probably too much effort for something like this.

[Fenring]

Personally I'd be sad to see the forum go, even though its format is more old fashioned. I find it easier to have a debate on this physical medium than I would on Reddit, for instance. I've seen Reddit debates, and based on the response structure it's not really amenable to more than a few chains of replies before the reply tree gets out of hand. Here we've had debates going on for years and because of the forum structure they're easy to follow. As a side point, when we migrated to these new forums, even though it didn't take that long, the mere transition caused many posters to simply not bother making their new account here. I expect the same would happen if we tried to migrate to Reddit.

To me the ideal would be to keep Ornery going, and for it to remain here with the same URL and everything else. If it's just a question of webhosting and the related fees maybe there could be volunteers to chip in for that (I would be one).

[Mynnion]

I would be sad to see it go but it has been loosing steam for a long time.  I miss the old days when there was a much larger pool of contributors.  I will continue to stalk and occasionally contribute if it continues.  If not I will have to find another diverse community to read and share with.

[Crunch]

As a side point, when we migrated to these new forums, even though it didn't take that long, the mere transition caused many posters to simply not bother making their new account here. I expect the same would happen if we tried to migrate to Reddit

You may not be aware but the move to this forum software was used as an opportunity for a purge. There were quite a few active posters that were not allowed to make a new account here.

[Fenring]

As a side point, when we migrated to these new forums, even though it didn't take that long, the mere transition caused many posters to simply not bother making their new account here. I expect the same would happen if we tried to migrate to Reddit

You may not be aware but the move to this forum software was used as an opportunity for a purge. There were quite a few active posters that were not allowed to make a new account here.

Well I knew there was a bit of drama with some posters, but beyond that, no, I'm not aware of details. But some posters that seemed to be agreeable and causing no one any problems never made the migration, so I can't believe they weren't allowed over.

[Crunch]

At least half of those in that category were banned, using IP addresses to ensure compliance as much as possible. Part of every purge here is to make it “balanced” so people that were completely agreeable were kicked out along with “deplorables” as a way to appear fair. The emails notifying the banned were sent out just as the old forum was locked and this one opened and nobody was aware of it unless you were among the purged. It was well timed and executed.

I think this forum could successfully migrate to a modern platform if that type of thing is not done again.

[Fenring]

I guess I don't really get why any purge was desirable, even from a moderation standpoint. There were so few troublesome posters that I'm astounded at the idea of several people needing to be co-kicked just to appear balanced. How many deplorables could there possibly have been? I don't remember the state of the forum at that point having too many issues.

[msquared]

If Crunch is refering to the time when I was Mod and banned a bunch of people (for a period of time) it was well before this forum migrated to the current version. It was close to 20 years ago.

[Crunch]

That was the first mass purge I’m aware of - 8 people banned to cover for getting a couple of conservative voices silenced. It was meant to be permanent until everyone found out and complained. You can remember it how you want but I saw the emails and the so called Ornery 8 thread(s) are still available.

But there were other purges of varying scale, the one during the forum software transition being slightly smaller but probably much more impactful on overall forum viability. This one managed to stay largely secret but you can look at the last few threads on the archived site and contrast with the first few on this one if you care to see who got purged in the name of equity.

The first purge established the precedent, other purges followed that precedent.

[rightleft22]

When even a thread about saying farewell becomes a right left thing.
Perhaps its time


I agree with Fenring, and will miss the format

[cherrypoptart]

I like this style and this place the best. Gonna miss it if it can't be kept. I don't have a Facebook or a Twitter and feel like I'm doing pretty good just having one of the internets. Love all the people here too.

I did used to post on yahoo but that got the old kibosh put on it to help Biden get elected and the sad thing there was there was no warning and all the posts were permanently deleted with no chance to save any.

So the heads up is appreciated as I'll go back and save some posts at least. If there was a way to just zip the whole forum and let people download it that would be cool. How much memory would that take up and is something like that feasible?

I'm a bit of a hoarder and tried the Marie Kondo approach to tidying up and managed to get rid of a lot of stuff but she misses one point. She says to throw out anything that doesn't bring you joy but that doesn't take into account another reason for hoarding which is to keep things that you hope others might find joy in some day. Mostly what I had were my father's old books but I managed to get rid of them because I was able to find digital versions. Marie wouldn't like it and disapproves of digital hoarding as much as physical hoarding but literally roomful's of books can fit onto one little external hard drive so I find that it's a good solution. The point is it would be nice to have something like that for the ornery forums, in remembrance. Maybe future generations will find our thoughts interesting like I would if my great great great etc. grandparents had saved their thoughts on a forum like this hundreds of years ago. Maybe our descendants could look at the information on the flash drive or in the cloud or whatever and see what we were thinking and be as interested and amused and enlightened as I've been by all of y'all.

[LetterRip]

I'll miss many of you - even those of you who drive me nuts ; though I've connected with some on facebook.

[Crunch]

When even a thread about saying farewell becomes a right left thing.
Perhaps its time

We’re nit talking about a right left thing …. Well, you are.

It’s just the history of the forum and a direct response to a direct observation

[TheDrake]

I don't think I'll sign up for anything new. I think listening to the presentation of alternative facts and other fantasies isn't adding much value to my life.

[NobleHunter]

Well, this has been a long time coming. It does sound like a good time to part ways.

I've wondered how this site would finally end. At least it wasn't with a bang.

[yossarian22c]

I'll be sad to see it go. Thanks to our hosts all these years.

[Seriati]

Yes, big thanks to our hosts for all of these years.  I'll miss this forum, as frustrating as it has been at times, its rare to find a place that allows for arguments of depth.  FB and Reddit are more sound bite battles than in depth discussions, though the latter does have useful information.  And most forums don't have the diversity of views that this one has had over the years.

I second the request about whether there is a way to down load responses in mass.  Not everything I've written is a pearl, but a lot reflects thought processes and perspectives from specific time periods that I'd enjoy retaining.  I don't journal, but I can flip back to old posts and it's almost like a journal.

I am not sure a new hosting arrangement will be all that successful.  It's inevitable that you'll lose some of the posters, and the site is already critically low on active posters as it is.  Not to mention, the worst times for the site have been those times when one political group or the other has dominated the discussions.  We tend to get dog piles rather than back and forth discussions.  So unless a decent mix moved, the new site would quickly die off.   That said, if we do decide to move, I'd be willing to try it.

As to the "purging" or moderation, I've never felt the heavy hand.  I think I got one warning in the time I've been here, not sure how long that is, but well before we vacated the old forums.  It never seemed to me though that moderation was for political reasons rather than for trolling or personal attacks. 

My one big regret, no one ever noticed that I never got a traditional Ornery welcome when I started posting. 

[JoshuaD]

I will miss this place. When I first found Ornery in 2003 (?) I was a very different person.  Through the past 18 years, Ornery has always been a background conversation for me.  Sometimes I was more active, other times I was less active, but it was always home.

Thanks for all the conversations.  If you'd like to stay in contact, shoot me an email and I'll give you my normal forms of contact.  If anyone would like to share their contact information with another person but is hesitant to post it here, feel free email me and I'll try to facilitate that as well.

Thanks for all the good years. It was fun.

[msquared]

Serati

I apolagize for not doing that.

You are wrong.

Hopefully better late then never.

[JoshuaD]

I suggest moving the forum to Reddit. You can make it a restricted sub, it’s a modern platform, costing nothing to host. The only reason to maintain this instance is the history, it would be fantastic to migrate to Reddit but that’s probably too much effort for something like this.

I have no interest in being involved in a reddit forum. I agree with Seriati that a forum away from the ornery.org url isn't appealing.

You may not be aware but the move to this forum software was used as an opportunity for a purge. There were quite a few active posters that were not allowed to make a new account here.

This is completely made up. I worked hard to get as many people to the new forums as possible. I knew that the transition was going to be a point of friction, so I hand-registered dozens of accounts. If we could have stayed on the old software I would have preferred that, but it was failing. We lost some casual posters. I didn't want to lose them, and I have never and continue to have no interest in excluding people for ideological reasons. As moderator, my rule has been very clear and consistent: be civil, don't attack one another, and you are welcome to participate.

So the heads up is appreciated as I'll go back and save some posts at least. If there was a way to just zip the whole forum and let people download it that would be cool. How much memory would that take up and is something like that feasible?

Not easily. The forum is stored in a database, not in flat files. Tools like curl or wget can be used by someone with some technical background. 

My mind isn't made up yet regarding preserving the forums.  It would take me about 10-20 hours of work, I think, and coordination with the current system admin.  I already have and pay for the web space, so money's not an issue.  I don't mind paying the $10 a year or whatever it is to park the domain.  If I were to make the transition, I would continue to run it exactly how things have been run since I've been mod.

I already have this software running on my server for a play-by-post D&D game, and it's pretty easy to setup.  If I didn't have a 6-month old at home and overflowing work from both my jobs, I'd definitely do the transition.  Given my busy schedule and the limited value to a transition for everyone, I'm not sure it's worth the effort.  I've spent the last week or two trying to convince myself to find the time to do it.

I am not sure a new hosting arrangement will be all that successful.  It's inevitable that you'll lose some of the posters, and the site is already critically low on active posters as it is

If we were to make the transition, it would be seamless aside from a few days of downtime.  The url, the existing posts, most of the front page, and the users would remain unchanged.  The big difference is we'd have to remove all of OSC's content from the front page.  Otherwise, things would remain unchanged for users.

[msquared]

We can keep the domain name?

[kidv]

As I understand, if [you] propose to host the ornery.org on your domain with the site simply transferring in ownership from the Cards to [apparently] you, I would welcome that.  Your proposal seems to indicate that the entire thing could transfer without need to re-register, then I would hope this community could continue as it is.

I would actually also welcome an invitation to people who have been purged in the past, as I have always appreciated their disparate voices which has formed the conversation here.

[JoshuaD]

We can keep the domain name?

Yeah, we can keep everything if we want.  It'll take a little work, but I've done stuff like this before so I don't think it'll be too hard. 

[Crunch]

You may not be aware but the move to this forum software was used as an opportunity for a purge. There were quite a few active posters that were not allowed to make a new account here.

This is completely made up. I worked hard to get as many people to the new forums as possible. I knew that the transition was going to be a point of friction, so I hand-registered dozens of accounts. If we could have stayed on the old software I would have preferred that, but it was failing. We lost some casual posters. I didn't want to lose them, and I have never and continue to have no interest in excluding people for ideological reasons. As moderator, my rule has been very clear and consistent: be civil, don't attack one another, and you are welcome to participate.

Dude, come on.  It happened. I saw the emails. We talked to each other about it just like it's always been done among the banned. Everyone saw the losses, it's easy to go back and figure out who got cut. It's basically ancient history now, you don't have to lie about it. It was a couple of people, maybe 4 total, the most obvious 2 stand out. Everyone, go take a look, do the math.

[yossarian22c]

You may not be aware but the move to this forum software was used as an opportunity for a purge. There were quite a few active posters that were not allowed to make a new account here.

This is completely made up. I worked hard to get as many people to the new forums as possible. I knew that the transition was going to be a point of friction, so I hand-registered dozens of accounts. If we could have stayed on the old software I would have preferred that, but it was failing. We lost some casual posters. I didn't want to lose them, and I have never and continue to have no interest in excluding people for ideological reasons. As moderator, my rule has been very clear and consistent: be civil, don't attack one another, and you are welcome to participate.

Dude, come on.  It happened. I saw the emails. We talked to each other about it just like it's always been done among the banned. Everyone saw the losses, it's easy to go back and figure out who got cut. It's basically ancient history now, you don't have to lie about it. It was a couple of people, maybe 4 total, the most obvious 2 stand out. Everyone, go take a look, do the math.

Guess you’re admitting to being the next iteration of G2. Otherwise you’re very knowledgeable of ancient history for someone “new” to the forum.

[LetterRip]

Crunch has never been subtle about being G2, it is the same beliefs, personality, writing style, etc. Most of use would be quite shocked if it wasn't the same individual.

[Crunch]

I was not G2. However, I've seen references to him and can see the similarity although his sense of humor is hard to compete with - he was funny. It's hard to be a conservative on a staunchly liberal forum and not take on those qualities. I was, in fact, a member for a long time and stopped posting after the Ornery 8 fiasco. I still cruised by occasionally to see Tom's take or perhaps Redskull. I do miss some of the "old gang" like mv and that absolute freak show Baldar (his final demise was perhaps the funniest thing I ever saw on this forum). Several from that era kept in touch with very occasional emails, mostly around some latest fiasco was embroiling you guys. The move to the new forum being one of those.

[TheDeamon]

The end of an era to be sure. The technological obsolescence of forum software like this one and the ideologically driven moderation/purging, particularly in the few years before moving to this platform, took a toll. It would be a shame to not learn the lessons of those 2 failures and try to continue this forum with nothing more than new hosting services. If that’s all you’re going to do, then let it die.

I suggest moving the forum to Reddit. You can make it a restricted sub, it’s a modern platform, costing nothing to host. The only reason to maintain this instance is the history, it would be fantastic to migrate to Reddit but that’s probably too much effort for something like this.

If you think the top levels of Reddit's moderation team doesn't engage in ideologically driven moderation/purging, you're in for a rude awakening.. And where have you been for the past year+ on that front that you failed to notice that?

[Seriati]

Crunch has never been subtle about being G2, it is the same beliefs, personality, writing style, etc. Most of use would be quite shocked if it wasn't the same individual.

I would have been very surprised if G2, G3, Gx turned out to be Crunch.  They do have different styles.  It's not as easy to be sure as it is with some of the clearly dual identity posters from over the years.

[oldbrian]

Crunch, instead of telling us to look it up and figure out what you are trying to imply (then telling us we got it wrong), how about you just list the 4 - or 2 - 'obvious' users who were not allowed to migrate to the new forum?  And what makes you think they were actively blocked?  I disagree with a lot of things JoshuaD says, but I have never seen that he was the type to lie about something like that.

You also said that this was bigger than the 'ornery 8' fiasco, but now you say it is only 4 people, or maybe even only 2 people.

And if you are indeed not G#, then I must apologize for labelling you such for quite a while now.

[Fenring]

I don't even know who the 4 - or 2 - people were! I'd kinda like to know, if it's public information. The only one who I remember was getting the ban treatment that I was told about was Rafi (also the supposed new incarnation of G#).

[msquared]

It shows how some on the right can hold a grudge.  The Ornery 8 was almost 20 years ago. Geez people move on with your lives.

[LetterRip]

Totally-not-G3-because-if-he-were-G3-he-is-probably-violating-a-trespass-order I definitely believe you aren't G3. 

However, I've seen references to him and can see the similarity although his sense of humor is hard to compete with - he was funny. It's hard to be a conservative on a staunchly liberal forum and not take on those qualities.

So... you've seen references to him?  Yet you are also familiar with what he wrote to make claims about his 'sense of humor'?  You also keep in touch with people from nearly 20 years ago when there was a brief suspension for a group of people, some of whom quit the forum?

You can't even keep your story straight in the span of a few postings.

[JoshuaD]

I've decided to do the work to preserve these forums and the front page under the ornery.org URL. I let Kristine Card know and she has asked their system administrator to reach out to me to figure out the logistics.  Maybe we continue to dwindle and the forum dies in six months, or maybe we're still around in ten years. I didn't want to let my temporarily-time-crunched-life be the hurdle to keeping these things running if there are people who still want them.

I expect in a few weeks we'll have a few days "freeze" where these forums go read-only while I do a final database import and the ornery.org domain starts pointing at my server.  We'll also lose any relationship with OSC, the World Watch forum, and all of OSC's front-page content.  Other than that, I hope that everything else will remain unaffected. Emails, passwords, usernames, forum history, etc. should be preserved.

I don't have a plan at this time to archive the old forums. It is currently archived by the wayback machine.  If get the time I can figure out how to rip the archives as a bunch of coherent flat files, I'll do that and host it as well. If not, then we'll have to depend on the wayback machine for that preservation.

I'll keep you guys updated as things move forward.   

[Fenring]

That's great, Joshua, thanks! At least this spurred me on to finally make an Ender series thread

[yossarian22c]

I've decided to do the work to preserve these forums and the front page under the ornery.org URL. I let Kristine Card know and she has asked their system administrator to reach out to me to figure out the logistics.  Maybe we continue to dwindle and the forum dies in six months, or maybe we're still around in ten years. I didn't want to let my temporarily-time-crunched-life be the hurdle to keeping these things running if there are people who still want them.

I expect in a few weeks we'll have a few days "freeze" where these forums go read-only while I do a final database import and the ornery.org domain starts pointing at my server.  We'll also lose any relationship with OSC, the World Watch forum, and all of OSC's front-page content.  Other than that, I hope that everything else will remain unaffected. Emails, passwords, usernames, forum history, etc. should be preserved.

I don't have a plan at this time to archive the old forums. It is currently archived by the wayback machine.  If get the time I can figure out how to rip the archives as a bunch of coherent flat files, I'll do that and host it as well. If not, then we'll have to depend on the wayback machine for that preservation.

I'll keep you guys updated as things move forward.

I'm not an expert on the back end servers but have done some webwork. I'm busy as well but let me know if there is something you need help with and if its in my skill set I'll try to find time to help out.

[Grant]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh buh bye

[TheDeamon]

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh buh bye

The King is dead, long live the King.

[alai]

We'll also lose any relationship with OSC, the World Watch forum, and all of OSC's front-page content.

There's a World Watch forum?  I at first assumed that function (quiescent and theoretical though it be) was covered here!  Though conversely, I first thought the same about "Reviews Everything", and not a flicker of comment here.  Are those both out-of-scope here?  (Or post-server-move, there, indeed.)

[alai]

It's hard to be a conservative on a staunchly liberal forum and not take on those qualities.

A staunchly liberal forum?  Where's that then?

The wonder of personalised Overton Windows...

[Ouija Nightmare]

It's hard to be a conservative on a staunchly liberal forum and not take on those qualities.

A staunchly liberal forum?  Where's that then?

The wonder of personalised Overton Windows...

That may well be the most true and funniest thing I’ve ever read here.

[msquared]

OSC stopped writing the Reviews Everything and the WorldWatch columns when the local paper (The Rhino Times I think) stopped publishing. He was writing those columns for that paper and then posting them here.

[alai]

That may well be the most true and funniest thing I’ve ever read here.

Then my work here is done.

[alai]

OSC stopped writing the Reviews Everything and the WorldWatch columns when the local paper (The Rhino Times I think) stopped publishing. He was writing those columns for that paper and then posting them here.

Yup, the Rhino Times.  Certainly a local paper.  Greensboro's second(?) finest!  Still publishing online, but wound up their print edition in 2018 (judging by Wikipedia, which supplies a few further...  colourful details).  I think if I were a Guilford County resident, I'd take the News and Times.

[Kelcimer]

What a time to randomly pop in.

I hope the Cards let the site continue with OrneryMod. When I signed back up this past year I had a great time for a couple of weeks revisiting so many old threads. I would imagine that there are some number of folks like me who might swing on by to check out the forum and walk down memory lane.

I never did do what was necessary to create an archived version of the website. It's more technical than what is my normal my wheelhouse, life is going on, and it fell through the cracks. If the Cards do not give it to OrneryMod, then a complete archived version (scrubbed for user info of course) for folks to download would be pretty sweet.

It shows how some on the right can hold a grudge.  The Ornery 8 was almost 20 years ago. Geez people move on with your lives.

It shows how PEOPLE can hold a grudge. Left/right doesn't really matter to that.

The Ornery 8 Fiasco and various other flair ups in the 2000's really shaped my approach to moderating content on any kind of forum. Not that I have had to do a lot of that, but it has come up. Communication is key.

[Kelcimer]

My one big regret, no one ever noticed that I never got a traditional Ornery welcome when I started posting.

Welcome to Ornery. You're wrong. 

[Kelcimer]

I don't have a plan at this time to archive the old forums. It is currently archived by the wayback machine.  If get the time I can figure out how to rip the archives as a bunch of coherent flat files, I'll do that and host it as well. If not, then we'll have to depend on the wayback machine for that preservation.

I'll keep you guys updated as things move forward.

I have tried the Wayback Machine and it isn't as good as all that.

It is old forums that I am concerned with, given as it includes all the classic threads I remember. I think that a lot of folks would want them preserved, especially since they include the bulk of the content on the site.

What would you need in order to back those up and make them available to everybody else as flat files? Would you be open to getting assistance with that?

[JoshuaD]

If you're able to rip them I'd be glad to host them along with the new forums. Just some flat files that have good inter-linking would do the trick.

[JoshuaD]

As I mentioned, the old database seems to be corrupt and/or the software is failing. It will probably be pretty hard to get a good rip of the site.

I will ask the system admin for a copy of that database and that software as well. I'll keep it somewhere and if/when life slows down I'll play with it and see if I can do anything to get it up and running.