FPG Refuges Status Area: The 2020 FPN Diaspora

[mana]

My head is spinning.

Try a couple of quick spins the other direction?

[whych]

My head is spinning.

Try a couple of quick spins the other direction?

Or perhaps the VAT69 or equivalent?

Not a whisky drinker, but haven't seen VAT69 for years.

[Sailor Kenshin]

My head is spinning.

Try a couple of quick spins the other direction?

Going for the office chair now.

[TSherbs]

Hey, it's Friday, and so far, America still has a democracy. So, who really cares about the cause of FPN's delay? Let's keep things in perspective.

[TSherbs]

Well, of course, Dill. The comfortable have fewer worries. Bless you.

I meant to add, also, that I am very worried about freedom in Hong Kong.... But Dill has reminded me, that if I am not materially effected, I can return my concerns to why FPN is taking so "long".

Damn servers! Damn ISP migrations! Damn database overloads and IT technical terms!

[Pterodactylus]

Hey, it's Friday, and so far, America still has a democracy. So, who really cares about the cause of FPN's delay? Let's keep things in perspective.

• Yes
• Perhaps, we will see, it seems almost half of the county refuses to accept democratic elections and try to demolish it
• True, I also wonder why so many seem to be really keen to see the return of the dark empire

Enjoy your weekend 👍

[welch]

Just now, FPN (Wim?) says:

Update 2020-11-20 17:30 GMT / 2020-11-20 12:30 EST:
When you see this, ip-migration has finished, working on databases.

[Ole Juul]

Enjoy your weekend 👍

I never know when it's Friday and I have to look it up on a chart to find out. It's been many years since I've worked and I'm on seven day weekends now.

[TSherbs]

I never know when it's Friday and I have to look it up on a chart to find out. It's been many years since I've worked and I'm on seven day weekends now.

I'll get there some day soon....

[Jon Szanto]

There is absolutely no reason to not have both sites in existence. They needn't share goals of size/scale, interests, culture, monetization model or anything else. If people enjoy a site for what it is, then they enjoy it. What something isn't becomes irrelevant when there is no bar to co-existence.

[azkid]

What wisegeek calls "IP migration" I have always called "DNS update" or similar.

If the host changed, then you have to update your DNS records (A and PTR) to point to the new IP address, so that when people type in the URL, their computer looks up the hostname contained in the URL, and gets back the correct Internet Protocol (IP) address for the new host.

(An IP address is a 32-bit address, or a set of four 8-bit numbers, usually displayed for human consumption as a dotted quad like 192.168.0.1).

I thought I read they were upgrading their hosting to improve performance, and if so, it wouldn't surprise me that they'd change hosts and need to update DNS accordingly. Depends on how it was hosted before vs now.

For example, I have a couple of sites hosted on a shared machine with one IP address (and many, many domain names) on A2 Hosting, so if I moved to their VPS or dedicated server hosting, I would have to change IP addresses. Changing providers (A2 to AWS, say) would necessitate a new IP as blocks of addresses are assigned to companies.

[silverlifter]

A DNS change can also be triggered by moving the site behind a CDN or other layer 7 protection service. Which, in this day and age would make some sense.

[azkid]

A DNS change can also be triggered by moving the site behind a CDN or other layer 7 protection service. Which, in this day and age would make some sense.

Good point. That would be wise for sure.

[Pterodactylus]

I also wonder why so many seem to be really keen to see the return of the dark empire

There's plenty of good content on FPN — the product of a culture of fountain pen geekery sustained over many years — and not all of it is easy to get to by way of Google's cache and the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I'd say it has reached critical mass to keep the content growing, whereas my view is that FPGeeks hasn't and the ‘community’ here doesn't aspire to more of a culture that prioritises richness of information (even if, as Chrissy has pointed out, it is very disorganised as a body of information, with no real direction or management, editorial oversight or fact-checking) over lively interpersonal relationships.

I'm one who strongly believes that a community can be a group of people, in a shared environment and have a common interest, who are less friendly to each other and less tolerant of idiosyncrasy, but nevertheless civil, peaceful and contributing to a greater ‘whole’ within the scope of, say, a hobby or pursuit. Plenty of support is evidently and voluntarily offered by FPN members when someone asks a technical question, no matter how easy or advanced, so it isn't dysfunctional or deficient in that way either.

FPN isn't likely to get more ‘support’ or donation dollars per year from members on account of fostering warmer interpersonal relationships, but more geekery and consequently more ‘enabling’ of fountain pen users as consumers in the market to spend money will probably make a US$50 discretionary contribution look like not that much in a keen hobbyist's annual spend.

I do think that a thriving FPN will ‘cost’ FPGeeks some opportunity to pick up new content posted over there instead; but if FPN and FPGeeks are in fact competitors in that way, then I'd venture that FPGeeks isn't doing enough to attract new content and therefore ‘losing’ and not growing faster. There is no reason why I, as both a frequent information consumer and an occasional information producer, would want one fewer information publisher/channel to exist. With Web search engines, I don't need every article to be in one place; and I most certainly don't need accommodating interpersonal ‘relationships’ and useful information content to be all in one place online.

Yes I think both forums are competitors, itˋs like David against Goliath.

We here has to try to attract as many former, current and future FPN users as we can.
As for the most itˋs either participating mainly here or there.

We give the pariah a new home disgraced there since years.
Our ink reviews are better and well organized as Chrissy pointed out.
We have also very helpful, skillful and knowledgeable people here supporting and trying to help new users.
We have very courageous people reviewing inks, people hosting community games like the mystery ink, an active art group, some pen making guys, supportive guys for pen repairs questions, pen reviews and brand focus subsections.

So we have a lot to offer even being much smaller.

Yes maybe it’s a matter of critical mass, and newbies tend to join the biggest community with the highest traffic.

But each guy/gall deciding to participate here instead of there matters and makes us more attractive.
Each person looking closely at FPN might also see the ugly things beside the obvious good things.

Personally I say fuck you FPN, with all the censorship, the commercialization, the ads, the iron fisted moderation, the disgusting mods with their almighty fantasies (Baby Hitlers as Chrissy described).

This thread shouldn’t be about to countdown the return of FPN, this should be about attracting and inform people who are temporary here as long as they are down, to welcome them and convince them to stay.

[bunyip]

<snip>
Personally I say fuck you FPN, with all the censorship, the commercialization, the ads, the iron fisted moderation, the disgusting mods with their almighty fantasies (Baby Hitlers as Chrissy described).

... this should be about attracting and inform people ...

Are you quite certain you have your messaging right?

[Pterodactylus]

<snip>
Personally I say fuck you FPN, with all the censorship, the commercialization, the ads, the iron fisted moderation, the disgusting mods with their almighty fantasies (Baby Hitlers as Chrissy described).

... this should be about attracting and inform people ...

Are you quite certain you have your messaging right?

Yes Sir, I’m sure.
This thread is already more than 233 posts long, there were plenty of others already over the years.
At some time I think one should come to a personal verdict, and this is mine.
Sorry if you don’t like it.


My message for FPN in one simple sketch instead of text form:



(Montblanc 344 - OB ..... Seitz-Kreuznach Känguru Gelb)

[RobJohnson]

A blend of hypocrisy and sour grapes.


YMMV

[TSherbs]

Ptero, the point was that if you want to attract new fpg members, perhaps you might adopt a more welcoming tone than the middle finger and "sorry if you don't like it." Your intense dislike of FPN may not be shared by the bulk of the FPN members checking into this corner of the internet. You might, at least consider, reserving that acerbity for another thread titled "the things I hate."

[Pterodactylus]

Ptero, the point was that if you want to attract new fpg members, perhaps you might adopt a more welcoming tone than the middle finger and "sorry if you don't like it." Your intense dislike of FPN may not be shared by the bulk of the FPN members checking into this corner of the internet. You might, at least consider, reserving that acerbity for another thread titled "the things I hate."

Thanks 😀

Personally I appreciate each new member, no matter if it’s a completely new one or one who participates on FPN.
My dislike is clearly focused on FPN as Forum (Org, rules, censoring, commercialization and mods) and not their members.

I only had the impression that this thread turned more and more into a countdown thread and praise of FPN until they come back.
Not focusing on pointing out the advantages and strength of FPG.

It will be the same like on several occasions before when they crashed their system.
During the downtime we will have an increased traffic, but as soon as the are back online the vast majority will return.

I remember one of these occasions years ago, when Dan was still the mod here.
I switched to FPG and participated, it was nice, but as soon as they returned online I switched also back.
A few days I still checked the threads on FPG but then it was too inconvenient and I stopped.
For me it was also a matter of critical mass, as bigger the forum, as more threads/posts as more attractive it is.

[Chuck Naill]

There is a market for forums. Consumers go where the content and participation naturally flow for which they have an interest. The arguement that consumers "should" support one forum over another reminds me of complaining that consumers should support local businesses over online offerings. There is a reason behind consumer choices and that's the wonderful world of marketing, to understand what people do what they do. If you are not providing what the market desires, the problem/issue is not the consumer.

Some treat other's choices as if it was some morality that should be involved, or worse, fair. Yes, there is a morality involved in human choice, but where to purchase and discuss fountain pens is rarley one of morality.

And flipping the bird over such trival matters says more about he person posting.