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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 :(

#81

Post by II2II »

kstrauser wrote: post #54
folkrav wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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).…

> The last nail in the coffin for me was their utter refusal to remove absolutely abhorrent comments.

Slashdot was the first site that I frequented where I had to take a hard look at it and say, "I don't like what this place has become and I don't want to be a part of it." Sadly, it wasn't the last.

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

#82

Post by kovvy »

pavlov wrote: post #50
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the original Space Jam website lives on, although I see they relocated it with the release of the sequel last year. https://www.spacejam.com/1996/

While looking for the OS/2 site that would have hosted User Friendly, I found OS/2 e-Zine! whose first issue is still online, with the exact same HTML as in 1995: http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n1/

It's all so ... readable.

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

#83

Post by mdaniel »

bdbz wrote: post #80

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

That sounds like something that would interest archive.org

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

#84

Post by Lascaille »

causality0 wrote: post #78
mattl wrote: post #2

https://web.archive.org/web/20220225062754/http://ars.userfr...

Was there an explanation? Considering the low traffic I'm sure they could keep it running off of donations from nostalgic readers.

From a quick flick through based on that link, the issue seems to be that the forum code is bespoke and written in perl, and the environment (apache & mod_perl, nothing great, nothing terrible) is obsolete and nobody who's volunteered to port it in the past actually followed through.

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

#85

Post by CobrastanJorji »

mattl wrote: post #2

https://web.archive.org/web/20220225062754/http://ars.userfr...

The discussion on that last thread is interesting. Somebody put together a list of all of the marriages that came from people who met on that forum, and it was not a short list.

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

#86

Post by erik_seaberg »

kstrauser wrote: post #75
eadmund wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mad…

Slashdot has always had firm political leanings that include opposition to censorship. And stupid conspiracy theories always claim they’re being suppressed, which thrives when they can point to it actually happening.

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

#87

Post by bombcar »

Lascaille wrote: post #84
causality0 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there an explanation? Considering the low traffic I'm sure they could keep it running off of donations from nostalgic readers.

From a quick flick through based on that link, the issue seems to be that the forum code is bespoke and written in perl, and the environment (apache & mod_perl, nothing great, nothing terrible) is obsolete and nobody who's volunteered to port it in the past actually followed through.

Maintaining a working forum is obviously a chore, but converting it to read only pages could have been worth it.

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

#88

Post by kstrauser »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #86
kstrauser wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mad…

Slashdot has always had firm political leanings that include opposition to censorship. And stupid conspiracy theories always claim they’re being suppressed, which thrives when they can point to it actually happening.

To the contrary, there's a lot of evidence that deplatforming actually works. In this case, it's not about getting rid of uncivil users, but dropping blatant trash. There are any number of website willing to host that filth. Why give them an additional platform out of a misguided sense of ideological purity, saying that horridly racist trolling is just as valid as any other content?

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

#89

Post by Gigachad »

bombcar wrote: post #87
Lascaille wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a quick flick through based on that link, the issue seems to be that the forum code is bespoke and written in perl, and the environment (apache & mod_perl, nothing great, nothing terrible) is obsolete and nobody who's volunteered to port it in the past actually followed through.

Maintaining a working forum is obviously a chore, but converting it to read only pages could have been worth it.

archive.org is that readonly form.

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

#90

Post by collinvandyck76 »

bbatchelder wrote: post #43

Sad. Made me think of other sites I'd visit for similar content. The Bastard Operator from Hell (BOFH) is actually still around and new content being written. https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/

fires up the bulk eraser
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