We run OS9 because....

1. It works. It works just fine. It does everything that OSX does EXCEPT go to some websites (we have a PC to go to those) and run some software that we don't need.

2. It would cost months of work (to convert existing files) and thousands of dollars (to replace all of the software) to convert everything we do to OSX. Don't bother telling us that OSX will run Mac 9 software. Sure it will, for about an hour before a crash that corrupts the files. Been there, done that, the T-shirt was really ugly.

3. OSX sucks. It's not Mac. it's Unix. It stinks on ice. It's crap. And, it's fattening and causes hair loss and cavities. Other than some porn sites, it doesn't go anything that Mac9 doesn't do.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 06:12 pm: Edit

Why do we use Discus?

There is no software that does what discus does, and we cannot run the BBS without those functions. We've checked out everything available. Even if there were some kind of software with discus fuctions, I don't see any real benefit to having an RSS system, and we do not have the weeks of work it would take to transfer everything from this to that. For better or worse, the software we have now is the software we will have years from now.

The Discus software is unique in its ability to display the starting words of each post made within a specified timeframe (since last checked or within 24 hours) and not display the entire post. It is (I believe) the only one that allows as many subtopic layers as it does.

That makes it possible this small company to effectively monitor a BBS this active. We average around 100 posts a day on an ordinary day. Some boards believe they are busy if they have more than a dozen posts a day. Other boards have groups of moderators and for the most part the Steves and I do that (with Paul Franz and FEAR assisting us).

One big issue is that this huge BBS has so many posts on it that the only way we can manage it in a reasonable time is by asking for new messages, reading the first few words of each message (something discus gives us and no existing version of vbb or php does), and ignoring the ones that don't show a need for attention. That way, we only have to read 10% of the BBS, but we're all over flamewars. We actualy spend more time (two or three times as much) reading fewer posts (about a third as many) on the PHP forum. Running this BBS on vbb or php would require six to ten times as much of my time Petrick's time, and Jean's time, and the company would come to a complete stop as there would be no time for anything else. (This is just one of several issues. Discus is just the most powerful BBS software there is, and does things that the others do not and cannot do.) I don't see that as an acceptable trade for an RSS system that we just do not need in the first place. We spent months reasearching this, exhaustively proved that we made the right decision.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 06:14 pm: Edit

Why we don't hyperlink every rules cross-reference in PDF rulebooks:

It's too much work. So far as anyone can tell, it has to be done by hand, costing hundreds of hours of labor.

It won't sell any better, it costs a fortune but it produces no extra sales dollars.

You don't need it since search does exactly the same thing (if you're clever enough to search for a carriage return before the rule number).