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www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

userfriendly.org

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Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#71

Post by sliken »

techsupporter wrote: post #27
oh_sigh wrote: post #23

Why now? I think there hasn't been any fresh non-forum content on the site for at least 12 years. Just didn't feel like paying hosting costs, or something else?

According to this subthread, it's that the code is positively ancient: https://web.archive.org/web/20220225082909/http://ars.userfr... "Like for the past 17+ years... ... I own the ISP hosting UF. The biggest problem is supporting the legacy mod_perl stuff that the site is built on... you'd basically have to re-write the entire front end, or find a very bored perl monk to update the code base. Basically to keep the A…

Or just post a .tar.gz of all the comics and someone can cobble together a interface that has first, previous, next, and last comic interface.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#72

Post by vhodges »

I know people that worked for the company that inspired Columbia Internet (which was located on Columbia Street in New Westminster and indeed I also worked at the company they became (unrelated to the ISP stuff) for while.

There are a Mike that was on the team I was and suspect it's the same guy as 'Myke'. The person hosting ufies.org is a friend and former colleague from the same company as well.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#73

Post by latexr »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #67

HEADS UP: We're Going Dark by Illiad 2022-02-24 11:04:32 Hello all, long time. We'll be shutting down the website in the coming days. It may be at the end of this month. If not, it won't be much later than that. Many UF community members have moved over to Hedgehog, which is run by Klaranth. You can find the site here. All the best, Illiad https://web.archive.org/web/20220225062754/http://ars.userfr...

Hedgehog link: https://hedgehog.blindambitionstudios.com

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#74

Post by deltarholamda »

folkrav wrote: post #32
deltarholamda wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wandered over to Slashdot earlier today. It's sad to see what it has become. It's also sad to see UF burn out as well. I miss Ye Olde Internets.

I've never really frequented Slashdot, I've taken a short look at it right now. What's going on with it that's so sad to look at? I feel like I'm missing context...

The comment count is sad; the reposting of links from HN instead of breaking new stuff is sad; the lack of the unique editorial voice of the Slashdot OG crew is sad.

There is literally no reason to visit Slashdot anymore other than inertia. You will not find anything new or interesting. There will be no insightful commentary beneath an article. There will never be a new meme that originates from the comment section.

It's somewhat similar to finding out that DeLorean was making his living by selling DeLorean-branded watches or whatever.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#75

Post by kstrauser »

eadmund wrote: post #70
kstrauser wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other things, almost all stories used to have at least a couple hundred comments. Today there are stories on the front page with less than 10. The last nail in the coffin for me was their utter refusal to remove absolutely abhorrent comments. Not stuff like "I voted for someone different than you did", but bullshit like https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11756830&cid=561389... (CW: extreme antisemitism).…

That filth you linked to is scored 0, which I think means it is not visible by default. I think it is preferable to leave stuff like that available-but-hidden rather than to delete it altogether. Free speech is a virtue.

Hard disagree. That comment isn't contributing to dialog, even of the heated variety. It's hatred for the sake of hatred, and I don't think there's a place for it.

I'm happy to debate with earnest people I disagree with. That's interesting, and done well, we can both learn from it. There's no value in repulsiveness for the sake of repulsiveness. I don't expect a forum mod to be on top of every single comment ever made, but when things like what I linked are reported but stay up, the moderators are saying, yeah, we're fine with spending server resources to host that.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#76

Post by donatj »

matt_heimer wrote: post #59
donatj wrote: post #52

I heard this was coming a couple weeks ago. I don't know why you'd shut the entire website down, rather than just put it into hibernation? I mean I don't know what is hosting situation is, but I can't imagine there's a ton of traffic on a comic that hasn't had a new post in years. Seems like it would be worth keeping it up just for old time sake. It would be reasonable enough to host the entire thing for probably a c…

Seems like it was a legacy mod_perl code base that was difficult to maintain. https://web.archive.org/web/20220225082909/http://ars.userfr...

There’s a number of good tools that can rip an entire site to static content.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#79

Post by smudgy »

Freshmeat nostalgia and Userfriendly going dark on the same day.

I'm so damn old...

I just found out today that Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda rebooted Geeks in Space (a while back, it seems). Rob, Jeff and CowboyNeal's original run of GIS was one the first podcasts I ever listened to and it was glorious.

Re: www.userfriendly.org seems to be gone, RIP Erwin, Dust Puppy and Co :(

#80

Post by bdbz »

I wrote a spider many years back to download the comics and display them in a local interface.

Somehow it survived several migrations and was on my synology.

Here is an archive of the images if anybody wants them.

https://mega.nz/file/GKQQVbTY#1QmzfH7r2LAilAZU2RixI4yp-9IU6Q...

RIP UF, you were a big part of my childhood

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