Don't shutdown the forum!

[executor 0]

In my activation email the site owner claimed that the forum will be shut down soon. Every time an Objectivism site dies Objectivism loses progress. Please do not shut it down. If you really just don't like managing it or don't want to pay the fees associated with running web site then merge it with one of the other Objectivism forums. Objectivist living and Objectivism online use the same software as this forum so it should be technically possible but if you don't want do that or can't then at least hand it over to someone who is willing.

Hi,

Welcome. I just activated your membership.

THE FORUM has been a friendly community of Ayn Rand fans where we could share our knowledge and discuss important personal values and issues but it’s winding down and I will be closing it soon. In past years we had dozens of posts a day, but the action has migrated over to Facebook and THE FORUM has been quiet. Feel free to use the search feature to find what interests you among the over 100K past posts, but anything you post now is unlikely to be read or replied to.

All the best,

Betsy

betsy@speicher.com

Facts, Values, and Friends -- http://Forums.4AynRandFans.com/

[ewv 0]

I don't use social sites like facebook. Their content is disorganized, they are cumbersome to navigate, and they are designed to destroy privacy through their tracking, accumulation, and selling of almost everything they find out about you. You are the 'product', not the user.

I also don't use the other two sites you mentioned because they are dominated by a terrible sense of life, unintelligent posts, and/or hostility to Ayn Rand. It would be a terrible mistake to turn the Forum over to either of them. The Forum is the only serious site worth consistently following and posting on.

[ewv 0]

I should also mention that the other two sites are notorious for posting false personal information in the form of supposed personal testimonials by people with vivid imaginations, poor memory, and no objectivity.

[Arnold 0]

I don't use social sites like facebook. Their content is disorganized, they are cumbersome to navigate, and they are designed to destroy privacy through their tracking, accumulation, and selling of almost everything they find out about you. You are the 'product', not the user.

I also don't use the other two sites you mentioned because they are dominated by a terrible sense of life, unintelligent posts, and/or hostility to Ayn Rand. It would be a terrible mistake to turn the Forum over to either of them. The Forum is the only serious site worth consistently following and posting on.

I feel the same way about social media sites. They use you.

[ewv 0]

This is the classic Zuckerber mentality, beginning when he was starting Facebook as a Harvard student:

Now, news site Business Insider has obtained what reporter Nicholas Carlson says is an IM exchange between Zuckerberg and a friend, saved back when the 19-year-old Zuckerberg was building what was then called TheFacebook.com in his Harvard dorm room.

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? Howd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I dont know why.

Zuck: They trust me

Zuck: Dumb f***s.

http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/13/zuckerberg-dumb-fucks/

But that is only part of it now. It is disorganized chaos suitable (maybe) for the epistemology of a crow.

There is no substitute for the Forum, in many ways.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

The reason I will be closing down THE FORUM is because the quantity of postings and the traffic in terms of the number of people who actually read THE FORUM have declined to almost zero. Where have they gone? Where have the quality posters and discussions gone? To Facebook.

I understand the concerns people have about privacy and security on Facebook, but you can set up a Facebook account using an anonymous identity or only provide the personal information you choose to. As for the chaotic nature of Facebook, it doesn't have to be. You can select who you "friend" and who you follow and who can see your posts. You can participate in private groups for Objectivists on topics like books, art, education, parenting, Objectivist conferences, property rights, or cooking.

What's going to happen to THE FORUM? Since past postings and discussions on THE FORUM present an enormous store of value, I am working to preserve them on DVD and make them available to anyone who would like to have them.

[ewv 0]

That does not solve the problems with either privacy or content organization on facebook. They track IP addresses and content, and correlate it with other sites you visit. The "privacy" settings do not change that and facebook has a history of making sudden changes to its "privacy" policies as Zuckerberg "experiments" with what he can get away with. Try setting up a completely anonymous account, "lock down" the privacy settings, and watch how quickly tailored ads begin to appear when you log on.

[executor 0]

Have you ever heard of tor browser. Thats what i use when i need to do something privacy conscious. Still this is dissapointing I hate using social media sites.

[executor 0]

I doubt this decline could be caused by social media alone. The other two large Objectivism forums don't seem to be declining. On one of them an admin was asking for donations to help deal with increasing server costs caused by traffic.

[ewv 0]

I doubt this decline could be caused by social media alone. The other two large Objectivism forums don't seem to be declining. On one of them an admin was asking for donations to help deal with increasing server costs caused by traffic.

Yes and there are more than two, but the volume is filled with garbage. One purporting to be a "Galt's Gulch" of discussion among those of like mind who are fans of Ayn Rand is filled with ignorant religious and anarchist proselytizing along with counter-culture political obsessions, ignorantly dogmatic misrepresentations of Ayn Rand, and bizarre philosophical tangents misapplying Ayn Rand and other knowledge (such as a recent claim that "patents are the basis of all rights" and those who don't go along with patents for "applied mathematics" including Newton's invention of calculus and/or a similar sweeping version of software patents don't understand that "software is a way of wiring electronic circuits" -- all accompanied by personal polemics against those who disagree as "not understanding computers"). It proves only that "you can't tell a valley by its ray screen". Who needs that in greater volume?

Better to have fewer posts in higher quality discussions. "Social media" of course does not create that either, and makes it harder because of poor structure.

[ewv 0]

Have you ever heard of tor browser. Thats what i use when i need to do something privacy conscious. Still this is dissapointing I hate using social media sites.

Tor is slow because of the additional networking and are harder to use because commonly used plugins and a growing need to turn javascript on would defeat the security purpose. A lot of foreign exit nodes are also blocked by some sites (like the Forum). There are other proxy systems but they aren't as secure.

[executor 0]

When will it be shut down?

[executor 0]

Succsess! I have managed to make an archive of the entire forum. If its ok with the owner i would like to post this backup at objectiscan.com/archives. Unfortunately i don't think it will be possible to keep the forum functional becuase i don't have its server side databases.

[ewv 0]

Succsess! I have managed to make an archive of the entire forum. If its ok with the owner i would like to post this backup at objectiscan.com/archives. Unfortunately i don't think it will be possible to keep the forum functional becuase i don't have its server side databases.

What did you use to traverse all the links completely and non-redundantly? Did wget work? How big was the resulting collection of files?

[executor 0]

I used a web crawler to request and backup the pages. The collection of files total was around 9.7 gigabytes.

[ewv 0]

What crawler did you use?

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Succsess! I have managed to make an archive of the entire forum. If its ok with the owner i would like to post this backup at objectiscan.com/archives. Unfortunately i don't think it will be possible to keep the forum functional becuase i don't have its server side databases.

Thanks so much. I'm at OCON with limited access to THE FORUM, but I'll get back to you when I get home in about a week about archiving THE FORUM.

[ewv 0]

Succsess! I have managed to make an archive of the entire forum. If its ok with the owner i would like to post this backup at objectiscan.com/archives. Unfortunately i don't think it will be possible to keep the forum functional becuase i don't have its server side databases.

Keeping it functional would also require that the Forum software be installed to interact with the database. That can be avoided in a read-only mode by mirroring the links as html pages as it was archived if the local links are remapped. There would still have to be a lot of testing, e.g., to ensure that the links across threads, through members to posts and topics, etc. are functional. 9.7GB is almost twice the size of a normal, low cost DVD.

[realitycheck44 0]

This is terrible news. I don't post very often anymore so I guess I'm as much to blame as anyone, but I sure will miss this place and the friends I've made over the years. I don't use Facebook or other social media sites*, so this was the one little corner of the internet where I could discuss ideas with like-minded people.

*Aside from a skiing forum. Which, interestingly enough, seems to have plenty of posters and activity. It even has a political subforum that is very active (which I avoid entirely). Anyway, it's a real shame this place fell by the wayside.

[executor 0]

Just to clarify when i said functional i meant still capable of being posted to. What i have now still would function as a static read only website.

[executor 0]

Right now I am setting up a test of the archive on my server. This way i can get any bugs out before the forum is taken down. I should have it ready by tomorrow and i will link to it from here so i can get feedback.

[executor 0]

Here is the url. objectiscan.com/archive/4aynrandfans/forums.4aynrandfans.com/ . Try to leave any links to the archive in plaintext until The Forum goes down.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Here is the url. objectiscan.com/archive/4aynrandfans/forums.4aynrandfans.com/ . Try to leave any links to the archive in plaintext until The Forum goes down.

That works very well! The only thing that doesn't seem to be working is the search feature. It finds the relevant posts all right, but the links take you to THIS website and not to Objectiscan. I suspect it's probably just a little tweak to fix that.

[executor 0]

The search seems to be part of ipb and is tied in with it but i can just replace it with an alternate site search that will work just as well.

[Scott A. 0]

Given what executor is doing, I'm not sure if THE FORUM is shutting down or not. However, I was sad to read earlier in this thread that the plan has been to shut it down.

Obviously I haven't been an active contributor in some time, but not because I'm particularly active on Facebook. Nor is it because I haven't had any responses to subjects that arise, and I have certainly thought of a variety of topics to bring up. However, the practicality of my life for a good while has left me whipped at the end of a day and catching up on more immediate issues on weekends.

My hope was that THE FORUM would continue as it has in the past and would be here when I could come back more regularly. However, I see that places like this exist and thrive only when members post, and I should have made time to do more of it.

Betsy, should THE FORUM ultimately close down, let me thank you, Stephen, and all of those who have helped you run such an excellent, thought-provoking, and classy place for discussing Objectivism. And here's to hoping my path crosses again, either here or in other parts of cyberspace, with so many of the great members of THE FORUM.