About the Bicycle Austin forum

MichaelBluejay · 2022-11-02 23:17:21

If you'd tried to use the forum in the last day or two and saw it was down, I got everything running again.

If you saw the note that I was retiring the site, well, that's when I thought I'd be unable to resurrect the forum. But I was able to.

However, I'm still willing to give this website to a good home, if any local bike activist has a good plan for the site. You don't have to keep the old content.

Back to forum stuff: You might have to reset your password. And if you're one of the few people with an avatar, you'll have to upload it again, sorry. There are bound to be other problems, let me know.

The forum has some new features like private messaging and a message editor.

Darron · 2022-11-03 10:46:45

Thanks!

chavela · 2022-11-03 17:09:41

Thanks for providing this service. I've picked up lentynof useful, new information from this forum. And appreciate the community.

MichaelBluejay · 2022-11-03 17:44:53

Thanks chavela, I'm glad you like it. I did pull the plug for a minute, then realized I'd be able to fix it, though it took all day.

I wish the forum were popular like it used to be, but I don't have time to promote it any more, or to add features. At least the forum is now mobile-friendly, since I haven't added back the sidebar which is what used to prevent it from being mobile-friendly, but I doubt that will be enough to encourage much more activity.

The forum started nearly 30 years ago, in late 1993, as the Austin Critical Mass list, courtesy of a majordomo listserv at UT. When the person hosting it moved on, I picked it up and moved it to a (now-defunct) mailing-list service called Topica from circa 1999 to 10/23/2003, when I moved it to a Mailman service at Dreamhost. Circa 2008 I added the web forum, and some time after that required all posts to be made to the web (because I didn't have the time to write the code to send email discussions to the web). I'm probably the only original member from 1993.

dougmc · 2022-11-04 00:40:38

Thanks for getting it back up!

Now, regarding that mailing list stuff from 1993 to 2008, is any of that stuff archived? Especially the early stuff, that sounds like it would be fascinating ...

MichaelBluejay · 2022-11-04 23:47:47

None of it's online and I didn't download any of it. I probably have a hundred to hundreds of emails from that era still in my inbox, but it would take some time to gather, process, and post. But here's the oldest one I could find:

Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 12:32:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Ted White
Subject: Critical Mass
Hello!
We are bicyclists living in San Francisco where Critical Mass first began
over 5 years ago. Even though you know about Critical Mass, many others
around the world do not. So, we're making a documentary videotape to
help spread the word to more people. We have a really good crew of
bicycling media artists and we think this documentary will be wonderful,
especially with your help!
We're looking for video footage, photographs, newspaper headlines,
posters or flyers of Critical Mass in your city. If you have any
materials to contribute we would be very grateful. If you have good
videos or photos we would be able to pay you $50 - $150 (U.S.) if they
are used.
Please let us know if you have anything to contribute. Thank you so much.
Ted White, Director

That documentary is 1999's We Are Traffic, available on YouTube.

dougmc · 2022-11-06 16:05:23

Neat!

If you ever do catalog those emails, I'd love to see them!

Or if you just filter out anything that's to you personally or is otherwise private, I can write something to sort the rest by mailing list.

In that vein, I saved atxbs before it disappeared into the ether -- hard to believe it's been gone 10 years now!

MichaelBluejay · 2022-11-08 00:13:50

I appreciate the offer, dougmc. Unfortunately these days I don't have even ten minutes to gather the messages and I imagine doing so would take about an hour. I'll put it on my To-Do list....

MichaelBluejay · 2024-03-27 22:48:16

I'm moving my sites to a new server and this forum probably won't survive the move. If I can get it running in an hour, then it'll live, otherwise, R.I.P.

In that case, dougmc, I suspect you might want the MySQL database file, and if so, you can have it, as long as you safeguard users' email addresses which I assume you would do even without my asking.

dougmc · 2024-03-29 11:07:59

When will the move happen? Even if the site isn't brought up again, it should definitely be archived for posterity or for bringing up again later.

Yeah, I'd take the database and any other assets that go along with it, and yes I'd keep emails safe.

MichaelBluejay · 2024-04-06 00:18:17

dougmc, would you like the whole site, forum, domain name and all? All this could be yours.

dougmc · 2024-04-15 16:08:39

Well, FluxBB is no longer supported and traffic is low, so I'd probably shut the forum down. If there's a good migration path to phpBB or something else I might do that, but I'd want to stick with something that is being maintained for security reasons.

That said, there's so much good stuff here that I'd keep it archived however it turns out. I've already archived the forum in case it disappeared, so that would be easy to put up in place of the forum itself. I'm not sure what else I'd do with the domain, but I definitely wouldn't want this all to just disappear.

If that works for you, sure, I'll take it.

Bicycle Austin forum

#1 2022-11-02 23:17:21

About the Bicycle Austin forum

#2 2022-11-03 10:46:45

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#3 2022-11-03 17:09:41

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#4 2022-11-03 17:44:53

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#5 2022-11-04 00:40:38

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#6 2022-11-04 23:47:47

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#7 2022-11-06 16:05:23

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#8 2022-11-08 00:13:50

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#9 2024-03-27 22:48:16

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#10 2024-03-29 11:07:59

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#11 2024-04-06 00:18:17

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

#12 2024-04-15 16:08:39

Re: About the Bicycle Austin forum

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