Being the aspiring polly that I am, I want to point out some positive dynamics to the event that happened to the TB2000 forum last night:

1. It served as a dress rehersal for TBers, in the event the forum goes down again.

Many had not bookmarked the mirror sites yet. In Bok's room, emails were being exchanged between people who wanted to stay in touch. Others kicked themselves for not saving that one important page of shortwave frequencies they believed they could always get back to. (me) The ol' procrastination lesson redux.

2. It was an IMPRESSIVE show of how amazingly organized TBers truly are when it comes to sharing information. Within a couple of hours, two new alternative sites were set up, and the urls distributed. Those and the HDY2K urls were disseminated on other y2k sites.

3. It served as yet another cautionary about the shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach when dealing with conclusions.

Phil wrote about the change of password, so there was reason to think it was hacked. But it appears that may not be the case. A few regulars, specifically lisa and Cherri, speculated and explained in technical terms to the folks in Bok's room why it was probably due to people downloading.

4. It showed us the extraordinary integrity and character of Dancr. Much to his/her everlasting credit (albeit mortification I imagine) (s)he immediatly stepped forward publicly with information that would help sort out the problem. THAT'S character.

5. It proved once again that TB2000 Sysops ROCK! (But we already knew that.)

I'm sure there are other positive aspects. But like I say, I'm only an aspiring polly, not an accomplished one.

-- (resolved@this.point), December 29, 1999

Answers

Interesting that a "dying" forum was so busy that the traffic brought it down. No place I'd rather be than here

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 29, 1999.

"Others kicked themselves for not saving that one important page of shortwave frequencies they believed they could always get back to..."

I'm not that clever. I just went to the Greenspun "LUSENET" index & checked around. Thank you, everyone, for posting the correct URL, without which dimwits like me would be totally lost!

-- I (love@you.guys), December 29, 1999.

More interesting that it wasn't the spammers who killed the forum, it was the die-hards. Talk about irony!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 29, 1999.

After I changed my underwear, I went to the chatroom. Thanks to MommaCares' directions, I'm back in the nest again. TB200 staff and posters (most of 'em anyway) are the best.

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.Net), December 29, 1999.

so busy that traffic brought it down ???

Um . . no.

You demonstrate your technical incompetence at every turn.

It was a gaggle of your forum cohorts dabbling with a website grabber system they didnt understand that brought the system down. Unless of course you classify that as traffic. . .

in which case . . carry on

-- {-_-} (sleep@peace.com), December 29, 1999.

Flint, So you have information as to who owns the robots? Or are you just taking a stab in the dark?

-- BiGG (supersite@acronet.net), December 29, 1999.

Yep, when many people cause many hits on the system, I call that "traffic". Hey, what do I know, I'm technically incompetent. Sheesh.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 29, 1999.

Oh, BTW, "cohort" is already plural, though sloppy usage is gaining ground. It's usually redundant to say "cohorts", and doubly so to say "gaggle of cohorts". We each have our little areas of competence, don't we?

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 29, 1999.

Flint and sleep@peace,

Careful with those conclusions over there, guys. Remember that ol' addage "pride before a fall." Reports were that a certain someone was spamming something ferocious right as it went down. And robots could have been maliciously set up by others, not just person(s) wanting to save info.

Conclusions, conclusions. Handle with tongs before all the facts are in if you value your credibility.

(P.S. Prepping is prudent contingency planning. Not a conclusion.)

-- (resolved@this.point), December 29, 1999.

"It served as yet another cautionary about the shoot-first-ask- questions-later approach when dealing with conclusions"

What will teach the pollies that the actions, ideas, statements, etc. of the "few" should not be extrapolated to those of the "all".

-- gary (a@a.com), December 29, 1999.

Resolved,

There certainly was spamming going on last night. I saw it. So did others but no one jumped to any conclusions in the chat room... just speculations and that was all that it was. GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT. Remember also live-chat is more spontaneous and off-the-cuff without a chance for reasoned reflections. You will hear alot of unsubstantiated claims in a chat room just like in street-corner conversations.

-- RC (racambab@mailcity.com), December 29, 1999.