Future of the Fora?

[mahagonny]

Thanks for your work so far. I did mention without dwelling on it that whereas my suspension was to be three months, it was enforce for four (end of April to end of August). No biggie. I used the extra time well.

As for how polite a forum is supposed to be, there are a variety of opinions on that. In real life, I have sometimes met polite people while not being favorably impressed with their motives or methods.

[Langue_doc]

Every care giver needs a break every now and then.  IF the issue was purely financial, then clearly there are several of us that would pitch in.  Hopefully, you can delegate some of the moderating or other less happy tasks to others, even for a little while so that you can catch your breath. 

Im also sorry that some of us on the forum are arguing that their voices are being silenced.  For what it is worth, I have found that thefora has been quite tolerant.  Personally, I have a very few people that I dont even bother to read, so I applaud your tenacity to keep up with everything!  Only recently we have put one of those 'participants' in 'time out'. It could be argued that  that person should have been banned, so that they were not  banned is an indication that you are not 'silencing anyone's voice' more than imposing a standard of 'manners' and decorum in this academic (polite) community! So you and the other moderators have been far more understanding and accommodating than some participants deserve!  My only suggestion (which is why I would make a terrible replacement) would be to stop arguing, block them and move on to better things! 

... I do want to express my appreciation for keeping this community active.  While I would not miss everyone, I would miss most of the people that participate.  That would not have happened without you and the other volunteers that do the work to moderate the boards, keep out the bots, and know what to do to fix the errors in a timely manner!

Thank you, eigen, for the time, energy, and funds you've put in to keep the fora running. I don't think anyone has been silenced so far; we have the option of ignoring posters and posts that we find disagreeable.

[mahagonny]

They weren't very polite to Jordan Peterson last time his name came up. Dr. Peterson, please accept my apology.

[little bongo]

To be perfectly honest, your reply also sums up a lot of things that have soured me on this community as a whole. Rather than a "wow, thanks for taking care of this for the past few years, we're happy to step up and keep it going so it's not all on you", the immediate reply is "It doesn't cost that much, why don't you just keep doing it? What are you hiding?"
[/quote]

You sound exactly like me complaining to my wife and kids. I'm glad you're already getting a better response than I do.

And I'm sorry to hear about pre-tenure pressures--they can be a lot, and obviously you need to give yourself the time you need to attend to them.

You deserve great thanks and appreciation for the fora work you've done. I would at least think about taking on a task or two, but someone would have to explain the following sentence to me:

"Slightly more than that is keeping up with backups (in case something happens), occasionally needing to tweak site settings when something breaks, and handling installation/management of the software that runs the board instance on the hosted server."

And by explain, I mean using small words, pictures, and a hand-puppet or two.

[Harlow2]

Eigen,  I had no idea you were pre-tenure; thank you for all you've done.  I'm happy to contribute funds where they would be useful.

[mamselle]

I'm also glad to help fund things.

I think the hang-up for support is that some of us have only tiny smattering of web knowledge (like me) and might could do some basic stuff under direction, but have little knowledge of the inner workings of the web-o-sphrere and (for me, at least) wouldn't be able to help with that piece much at all.

So, if we can consider the money part sort-able (Patreon, PayPal,  whatever),that would be the infrastructure element to focus on.

And there seem to be two possibilities there: a) in-house, b) farm it out.

Maybe, then, the next step is: pros/cons of a vs. b.

M.

[traductio]

Strange question, but would there be any way, Eigen, that forumites could write letters of support in your tenure case, describing your service to the profession? I'm serious -- the fora (both now and on the Chronicle's website) have served a mentorship purpose that for many people would otherwise have gone unfilled. The value is real but hidden (as in the case of so many forms of service).

[Parasaurolophus]

In principle, I'm happy to be the point person and take over. That said, I don't actually know anything at all about the important stuff where running the site is concerned. I'm happy to be trained up, to the extent that's required, and to spend some time with the manuals. But if I do, it'd be good to at least know of someone else I can rely on when I'm being too thick to fix whatever breaks (or to prod me i I fall behind).

[Thursday's_Child]

Wow!  All this while pre-tenure???  Eigen, you're amazing!  I completely agree with traductio - letters documenting the contributions you are making to academia by doing so much work on this site should be written.

For me, I can contribute $$, but probably lack the tech savvy to do any of the other needed things.

[ciao_yall]

Happy to contribute cash. LMK how.

[ab_grp]

I'm also absolutely happy to contribute to the funding.  I'm very grateful for this site and the work that has gone into it.  Unfortunately, I don't have any experience writing tenure support letters, and I only have limited experience with web tech stuff (creating and updating web pages).  Maybe there's some of the latter that's easy to teach and delegate or get some help with?