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I don't think you understood what's being said, GG. I'd suggest you look at it again. It's not about costing x dollars a year - it's about taking up time. Tom could certainly employ somebody to maintain a (currently non-existent) functional site - for that matter, he could employ somebody to build that (currently non-existent) functional site. But why would he? For one thing, that's not an interesting technology project - Grant's board and Liminal Nation both use off-the-shelf technology to run not-for-profit message boards.
As you say, a community site needs at a minimum an engaged user base and empowered moderation, to which I would add a functional technology base to automate routine functions (for example, admissions), a hardwired process for non-routine functions (banning users, appointing new moderators) and the possibility to adapt its technology to changing circumstances - for example, admissions didn't just fall off a cliff: it was changed as a response to changing circumstances. The fact that it then fell apart is because this community lacked this fifth necessity. At present, Barbelith has none of those things. In a year's time, it might have three of those - empowered moderation, a functional technology base to automate routine processes and hardwired processes for non-routine functions - although without a user base it seems pretty pointless, and without the possibility to adapt its technology to changing circumstances one will end up at some point in the future with another broken community - Tom would need either to change his life path or his modus operandi regarding code access, and both of those likelihoods have already been covered.
I think HCE's post pretty much sums up the broader issue:
Please note the thread summary: "If you had access to this domain name, and the large—if slightly disconnected and maybe slightly disintegrating—community of people who have been here over the years, what would you want to do with it?"
This is sheer fantasy. How exactly would any of us, Tom included, have access to the people who have been here over the years? Everybody has their own list of people whose posts have been most interesting or useful to them in the past, so adjust the names for yourself, but I couldn't get illmatic, plumsbitch, alas, deva, persephone, flyboy, seth, et al. to all come be smart and interesting someplace on a regular basis if I tried, and I am willing to bet I have as much goodwill with them right now as anybody.
Do you really think all you need to do is send an email saying the board is fixed, or there's a new board, and everybody will come rushing back? Why do you think you can make money out of Barbelith when you can't even get anybody to post here? I understand that people are sentimental about the place, but this line of discussion sounds a little quixotic.
I mean, if you want make plans to maybe (or maybe not!) deliver a one-time kick to a dead horse in a year from now, if Tom has time, despite having been warned not to get your hopes up, by all means, go for it.
Although, further, I doubt that anyone would want an email saying "Barbelith is back!" sent out to every email address that has ever been registered, not least because the only reason those email adresses were gathered was for password recovery and, subsequently, banning, and nobody was invited to agree to receiving service updates, which would make it some species of spam, no matter how well-intentioned. It's a matter of some concern that the Barbelith applications email address is currently collecting a load of people's email addresses along with personal information (grant, it would be useful to change that wiki entry, if we're assuming that admission is going to be fixed at some point between a year's time and never). |
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