Temporary KFD

Interesting that there was no effort made to migrate the existing forum data. Clean slate.

"Interesting that there was no effort made to migrate the existing forum data. Clean slate."

Yes, but not unexpected by any means. Kenneth Folk does not plan ahead. We tried to get him to move here and he refused us twice, right? So this is the situation he opted for by default.

"Sometimes, though, a clean slate is a great thing. Attachment and all that. Kind of like when you move houses and realize you can just chuck out loads of stuff you've had in the basement for years."

Sometimes that is the situation forced upon us, yes, and then accepting it and moving on is a good idea. I doubt it was the desired result in this case, though

Russell wrote: I still think the new forum is kind of a shoddy solution. A wordpress plugin? Really? Seems very limited. They should move to a platform like this or vBulletin. I hope they can bolt on enough plugins and add-ons to give real search functionality, view latest/unread posts, etc...

Indeed. I think WP is fine for the teaching aspects of the site, but the discussion groups should use something like Kunena (which is what we use here). Still open source, still full control of the data.

Whatever. Nobody asked me.

"Nobody asked me."

But they should have, or at least have paid attention to you when you offered your expertise gratis. Now what they have is the "any port in a storm" version of a message board.

This is just FYI but I've been periodically following what's happening over at WetPaint. I log into their admin boards and see what's being said, claimed, and/or denied. Not one person who actually seems to be a WetPaint management type has ever said word one since the big forum erasure debacle. The moderators know almost nothing. Owners of message boards thus have no real way to know why their boards were removed, or not removed. The WP moderators have gone from being somewhat sympathetic to dictatorial about the WP terms of service and that all forums must tow that line -- but no one really knows where that line is because so many forums were removed that don't appear to have been in violation, like KFD.

My theory is that WP ownership/management just wanted to do some house cleaning and since their TOS allows them to delete anything at any time (they own all the content we ever posted there), they went ahead and did what they wanted. Having been involved in similar situations before (during my tenure at Time, Inc.'s message boards) my guess is the management at WP sees this all as a big win.

Lesson learned.

Lest there be any doubt, a visit to www.wetpaint.com will explain everything anyone ever wanted to know about why Kenneth Folk Dharma was removed from that site. The place is now an ode to popular entrainment with no evidence that it is a wiki, or a message board.

 And there's this on the wetpaint central message board:

"Message from the staff --
Please read this message about NEW WIKIS before posting a thread:
If you are viewing this page, you may have been redirected after trying to create a new wiki. New wikis can no longer be created due to Wetpaint trying to implement stricter ways to enforce their Terms of Service. For more information regarding this issue, please read the latest announcement from the Wetpaint Central Staff."

Effing capitalists!

That's probably true, Andy. I used to consult for a very large media company that did this kind of thing - blow up users' content for corporate reasons, having no concern for the users whet-so-ever. They figured if they own it they can do what they want. And guess what? They can do whatever they want with their property, i.e.; our comments.

It seems to me the continuity at KFD has been broken and will be very, very difficult to get back, if it can be gotten back. It's a real shame, because to fix it means to move it once again.

Now THIS is rather informative.

You know what? I'm going to call that company and see if I can obtain a full, real backup of KFD from them. Stay tuned.

All I need is the phone number.

If a bunch of people start calling then my guess is we'll get shut down. I'd like to try this first. I really do think I know how to talk to these folks and thus have a shot at getting somewhere. Foolish? Wishful thinking? Probably, but it's worth a try. If I fail then you can all crowd source away.

I have their phone number. It's on the page I posted a link to.