I forgot to mention that I used to be a moderator for a discussion forum at MetroMac.org, a New York Macintosh user group. Then one day a cracker came along, deleted all the posts of *all* the users (and the backups!), and somehow figured out how to removed my moderator privileges in the database as well.
(The owners of that site needed a scapegoat, so they blamed *me* for being the direct target of the attack (I have no idea why), and didn't restore my moderator privileges. Since they had lost all their posts as well, they then needed to spend countless hours building a new forum and trying to gain back readership, a situation which made they extremely frustrated and angry. They did give me a free Supporting Member account, which normally costs USD $20/year, for one year, but that was all. They also forbade me from posting many new posts in direct succession in other forums to make up for the lost posts, perhaps in fear that that could somehow risk another cracker attack.) If a new forum is created, I strongly recommend that mail message copies of all posts also be sent, and that *off-site* backups be made frequently. Web discussion forums are much more susceptible to cracker attacks than mailing lists unless e-mail messages of all posts are also sent, because the posts are normally stored in a database. However, if you do need somebody to moderate/administer the forum, I may be able to pick up quickly on the details, since I do have experience as a moderator. -- Benjamin L. Russell On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:38:07 +0900, Benjamin L.Russell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:04:16 +0100, Simon Marlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > >> [...] >> >>I'm probably amongst those that won't participate much in the forums >>because I find them frustratingly slow to navigate, but I don't see any >>reason why we shouldn't *have* forums at all. We just need someone to set >>it up and do the admin. Volunteers? > >Count me in as a volunteer for the admin, please. > >-- Benjamin L. Russell _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
