Cranberry's Journal

I know a lot of people are confused by what's been going on with Fanforum over the past couple days, so I got permission from Goldenboy to post an entry about it here. I've split it into several sections because there's a lot of info to get through. If you have no idea what FF is or why the hell I'm talking about it, skip this one.


Media Blvd

Note: I am not speaking for Goldenboy when I talk about Media Blvd. This is a statement of the facts from my perspective. I thought this was obvious, but apparently some people were confused, so there you go.

Media Blvd is NOT a replacement site for Fanforum. Fanforum isn't going anywhere. But a couple months ago, FF's creator, Goldenboy -- who hadn't been involved with Fanforum for quite a while -- decided he wanted to get back into the site. He told the other admins of this intention, and informed them that he wanted to drop all the websites and start focusing solely on the messageboards again. The other admins didn't like this idea, so they all came to an agreement that Goldenboy would take back full control of Fanforum, and the other admins would take control of all the websites and do whatever they wanted with them. Apparently they agreed they'd create a new place to host everything, but that it wouldn't be a carbon-copy of FF. This was all done amicably.

They started work on MediaBlvd.com, and they invited a bunch of Fanforum mods to register, become mods there and beta test the place. They didn't tell all FF mods, just the ones they hand-picked. According to a letter Lisa sent out, they wanted "mature, responsible, and professional moderators that [were] able to express themselves with patience, respect, and moderation." Needless to say, roxyrox and I were not invited (hee). In fact, we, along with Liz, were the only members of Fanforum's senior staff who were not told of the new site.

Late last week, the MB directors sent out a letter to all FF mods announcing the site had launched. Immediately there was mass confusion and fighting, as people who hadn't been hand-picked to beta test freaked out because they felt the MB directors thought they weren't "good enough," people who were picked told them to chill out, and a lot of posters became confused as to whether MB was a sister site for FF or even a replacement. People were mad at the MB directors for creating this site in secret, at their mod friends for not telling them about it, and at Goldenboy for not giving any notice that the websites would be going away. Goldenboy explained that he hadn't known MB would be launching that week and that, in fact, he hadn't known what the site would be like at all.

Although the MB.com directors are quick to point out that MB is not a copy of FF ("one of the first things you will notice is that our boards are even different"), it does have a lot in common with Fanforum. Pretty much every board at FF has a counterpart at MB. In addition, a lot of people think MB was created in a sneaky fashion, using FF mods and FF resources (a lot of the new boards and sites MB has were discussed and planned on the Fanforum mod and admin boards), and that Lisa's announcement read like an ad or a recruitment letter. I guess that's something each person has to judge for himself, although you can imagine where I stand on all this (it's no secret the MB admins and I did not get along).


The Hacker, and Why FF is Down

If you've tried to access Fanforum today, you'll notice that you get an Apache test screen. For the past few days, we've been having some issues with the site -- Roxy's account was unregistered, my login name was changed from "Cranberry" to "Cranberri," IP logging was turned off, posters and mods couldn't edit anything, etc. Today a hacker struck publically (well, publically on the mod board), briefly turning Roxy and me into admins and posting on a number of threads as Goldenboy, saying some crazy things. Those posts all got cleaned up and our status got fixed, and then FF went down (not sure if it's due to the hacker or to a server company misunderstanding) and Goldenboy got locked out of the server. Right now he's working to fix the site from backups, and NetRanger and Lisa have apparently agreed to help him. He says he does not know at this time who the hacker is.

Goldenboy wants me to stress that Fanforum is not going anywhere, and that it should be back up and as good as new soon. In addition, he will soon be launching new forum software that will make the boards better than ever.


ADDED 09/13 -- Why FF is redirecting to SD-4

As you've probably all noticed, now fanforum.com is redirecting to an Alias site. SD-4's webmaster, Blake, had this to say:

It appears that the server we just moved to used to be the server forums4fans was hosted on, that is why it is redirecting here. Unfortunately, I am away from my computer until late tomorrow, at which point I will post an update on SD-4.com for any forums4fans people looking for the new server.

=Blake=
blake@outermost.net

Basically, the hosting company screwed up. Goldenboy got an extension on his bill and was supposed to pay them by the 15th, but the billing department neglected to let the tech department know this, and the hosting company took the site down and sold the server space Fanforum used to be on. SD-4 is on that server now, which is why Fanforum's address takes you there. (Thanks to Lena for bringing that explanation over.)

Unfortunately, this means it will be a bit longer before Fanforum can return. We'll have more details later.


ADDED 09/14 -- Lisa was kind enough to grace my LJ with her presence!

Oh yes. Check out the comments she left for this entry. Return the favor and reply to her! Oh, and she posted here, too.

To be fair, although she is being rude and mocking the poor confused mods (or, as she likes to call them, "sheep") who didn't know what was going on when the hacker struck, she is helping Goldenboy out with this whole server thing, which is good.


ADDED 09/15 -- An update from Goldenboy

Goldenboy says the hosting company admitted their screw-up. He and Kenn (NetRanger) are now in the process of negotiating a deal with the hosting company for a new server. Goldenboy will be ordering that today. Once that's taken care of, they'll restore Fanforum from a backup, so it should be back within the next day or two.

Oh, and the backup is very recent (it's from September 7th), so posters should not lose very many posts at all. Good news for all of us.

I think that covers everything. Questions?