DZ-330 said:

Also, is there a way we can add some kind of indicator to how much is left before the deadline? It may help to incentivize people to donate.

Ideally, we’d like to display the monthly goal and current balance, but we wanted to get the button up there as quickly as possible given the tight deadline. We’re looking into it, though.

Edit: Anchorhead has ninja-like posting reflexes.

The mods have set up a PayPal account to accept donations; the button is in the main navigation.

The monthly goal has been adjusted upward to $75 to cover fees (the funds will go through several transfers before making it to the hosting service).

Anchorhead and SilverWook have just under 2 weeks to raise these funds for the February hosting bill, so please consider donating as soon as possible.

Writing a book is hard. Programming is hard.

Writing a book about programming is some next level shit. Congratulations!

pitpawten said:

Yeah, no doubt we can help keep things going. 70/year is really not that much.

Maybe something like Wikipedia, just ask for a fixed small amount like $5. 15 people = 1 year.

Either way, I know it will work out fine.

$70 per month.

The mods are discussing their options and will make a decision soon.

SilverWook said:

How can they constantly cock this up? Is there any way to undo/fix the frame rate, at least for the Kermit scene at the end?

I’m no expert, but I don’t see how you can go from 29.976 broadcast video to 23.976 without discarding frames, making them unrecoverable.

SilverWook said:

I think some reviewers have unrealistic expectations for a tv show that was shot on videotape in 1977. And thank Ma Otter there’s a full frame version this time! The 16:9 DVD from last year(?) was pretty awful to look at.

I watched the Blu-ray last night and I can’t help but feel it’s worse than it should’ve been. Lots of ringing/halo artifacts around edges. No reason for that type of artifact to appear in analog sources without some type of processing. Whether it was intentional edge enhancement or just bad upscaling (which can cause ringing), I can’t say. The frame rate is also 23.976, which something shot on video certainly shouldn’t be.

Having it in 4:3 is nice, but if the original broadcast tape still exists, I find it hard to believe this is the best they could do. Seems to me they’re just recycling the same old master.

Anakin Starkiller said:

BTW, how many active members do we have?

Depends how you define “active”. In the last 30 days, there have been almost 2000 active users (meaning they logged in at some point) with almost 600 of those posting at least once (including private topics).

Thanks guys.

Wook and Anchorhead will be handling the donation side of things, so they’ll provide more details on that front once they’ve gauged interest.

Option 2 would be ideal for everyone in the long term I think, provided we can find someone willing to take on the task.

UPDATE 19-Jan-2019: The mods have set up a PayPal account to accept donations. The monthly goal is $75. Hosting costs are due on the 1st of every month, so please donate as soon as you can to help Anchorhead and SilverWook make the first payment on February 1st. And consider making it a monthly donation, even if it’s only a dollar. Every bit helps!

It’s been an amazing and interesting 15 years for me, but it’s time for a change.

With my full confidence and support, SilverWook and Anchorhead will be assuming control of all site content and day-to-day operations: setting rules, assigning mods, moderation, banning, everything. They’ll also manage the Discord server and Twitter account.

My role here will be reduced to one of technical support and server management. I won’t moderate discussions and won’t participate in discussions as a member.

As part of this transition, I will no longer fund the operations of the site in any way as of February 1, 2019. How the membership responds to this new arrangement will determine the future of the community.

Option 1: Accept donations to fund the existing platform

SilverWook and Anchorhead need your financial support to keep the site going in its current form.

Hosting costs are:

• $50 per month for web hosting ($40 for an unmanaged server and $10 for daily backups)
• $15 per month for the outgoing mail server
• $5 per month for the admin e-mail account

So it’s $70 total per month. Edit: The monthly goal has been set at $75 to help cover various fees.

The mods are considering different options to handle donations (PayPal, GoFundMe, whatever they decide) and would transfer funds to me for hosting expenses as necessary (or have the hosting service bill them directly if we can arrange that). If they receive adequate funding to cover hosting, things will remain exactly as they are today. I’ll provide support to keep the site running, fix issues as they come up (the server is unmanaged, meaning it requires regular active maintenance for security patches and such), and occasionally work on new features.

Full disclosure: as a courtesy for the support I’ll provide, I’ll be permitted to host personal web projects on the server as long as they don’t negatively impact OT.com’s performance or availability.

Without funds to continue operations, the existing site will be shut down, leaving the following options.

Option 2: Migrate to a new platform

If someone with the technical acumen to do so wants to volunteer, I’ll make arrangements to give them access as needed to move the existing content to a new platform. This could be a direct migration of the existing forum software and data, or migration of the data to new software, which would be up to this individual (or group). This volunteer would be assuming full responsibility for the care and maintenance of the site and any associated costs.

To prevent someone from taking over the site for a few months and then flipping it for cash, agreements would need to be in place stipulating that the site can not be sold or transferred to another party under any circumstances without my express permission, and ownership would revert back to me in the event that the new admin can/will no longer maintain the site.

Option 3: Start a new community elsewhere

Anchorhead and SilverWook can set up a new community elsewhere at no cost (Proboards, reddit, etc.) and everyone can congregate there. Migrating existing data would be impossible, unfortunately. Since the forum would lose its entire search engine presence overnight, no existing content would carry over, and all links to the existing forum would break, it would be almost like starting from scratch. Surviving a transition like this is unlikely.

Preservation

If the site were to shut down, I’d release the database files to the public (minus private topics and other user info) and possibly create static HTML pages that could be stored and viewed anywhere in order to preserve the site’s content for posterity.

Feedback

We’re open to feedback regarding options we haven’t considered. SilverWook and Anchorhead would very much like to see the forum continue, as would I, despite my reduced participation.

The mods and I apologize for the timing of this announcement, but we figured the sooner the better.

There are some discussions taking place regarding alternatives to ads. Stay tuned.

I added them last night. It’s a trial run to see if they’ll generate any revenue to offset hosting costs.

Fixed.

oojason said:

Jay said:

oojason said:

Flash Gordon (1980) - not a Halloween or even a horror film (in that sense 😉) though a good enjoyable romp all the same.

One of my favorite movies. I never get tired of it. The soundtrack alone makes it worth a watch.

I failed miserably at squeezing in all the movies I wanted to watch by Halloween, so I extended my deadline to this weekend.

The soundtrack is great - a real stomping release really in tune with the film! Though every time I listen to it (or hear a track from it) - I can’t help but want to put the film on and give the whole thing a re-watch 😃

Am hoping they’ll do something special for the 40th anniversary for 2020 - maybe a nice and new 4K transfer, compiling all the commentaries and bonuses from the differing releases so far into one new sweet deluxe boxset, including the soundtrack separately or something similar…

Gonna go give Ted a re-watch 😃

The Blu-ray came out when Universal was still butchering masters with DNR, and while it’s not the worst release I’ve seen, it’s scrubbed enough that it doesn’t look like film. A 4K remaster would be a day one buy for me, especially if it got a sweet box set like you guys in the UK always seem to get (I import a lot of UK releases for that reason).

Handman said:

I’ll probably be watching horror films through all of November.

Oh yeah, same here, just not exclusively like I tend to do in October. For me, the Halloween vibe carries through until it starts getting really cold and the snow hits, so I continue focusing on horror/suspense until Thanksgiving or so and then wrap up the season with The Thing.

I’ll marathon that Universal box set this weekend (they’re all fairly short films), and I’ve been hearing good things about The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, so I’ll probably check that out.

There’s a pending update that fixes this. Should be coming soon.

oojason said:

Flash Gordon (1980) - not a Halloween or even a horror film (in that sense 😉) though a good enjoyable romp all the same.

One of my favorite movies. I never get tired of it. The soundtrack alone makes it worth a watch.

I failed miserably at squeezing in all the movies I wanted to watch by Halloween, so I extended my deadline to this weekend.

LordZerome1080, you’ve been pushing it lately with all the meaningless posts and generally combative tone, and it’s annoying a lot of people. That has to stop if you want to get along with other members.

Everyone who’s using it as an opportunity to go after you needs to stop, too. It’s not helping.

I could type out a list, but it would probably be easier to screenshot my Steam and GOG libraries.

oojason, that would be a sweet C64 setup if you went for it 👍

Now everyone can move on with their life.

Feel free to continue the discussion here:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-deletion-of-the-political-threads/id/63465

Or at some other forum, perhaps.

moviefreakedmind said:

Jay said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Comments like that weren’t being made by most in the politics thread. Jay broke his own rules on personal attacks and insults and then deleted the thread almost immediately after people started calling him out on it.

I told dahmage he was acting like an ass (and he was) for doing exactly what everyone in the thread was warned not to do repeatedly over the course of months, if not years.

You didn’t. You called him an ass for pointing out in one word how senseless your political commentary was. No one ever has been told not to use one-word responses to call someone out. So that’s a rule you made up on the spot.

Participants in that thread were warned REPEATEDLY over months to participate in the debate in a substantive fashion or get out. Anyone who didn’t pick up on that obviously wasn’t following the thread closely, which would explain, at least in part, the quality of the discussion.

Your inability to have a reasoned debate while constantly referring to others’ political opinions using dismissive words like “senseless” are a prime example of why the thread went to shit.

As I’ve said elsewhere, rather than losing my cool, I probably should’ve just banned him for failing to heed previous warnings, in which case we’d be in the same situation (“Jay’s abusing his powers blah blah blah”), but at least I wouldn’t have “broken my own rules”.

Of course we’d have said that you were abusing your power because you would’ve banned someone who didn’t even break the rules and that you were obviously just mad at because he was being “snarky”, as you like to say, towards your political opinion. If snark is against the rules then you would’ve had to have banned yourself a million times before, so if you’re saying respectfulness is a rule then it’s just another of the many rules that you yourself are not beholden to.

I disagree, and everyone is now free to review the thread and form their own opinion, just like you’re free to leave this oppressive regime behind and take your negativity elsewhere.

Or, you could get over it and move on with your life, which is what I plan to do. This will be my last response to this thread.

Ta.

moviefreakedmind said:

Comments like that weren’t being made by most in the politics thread. Jay broke his own rules on personal attacks and insults and then deleted the thread almost immediately after people started calling him out on it.

I told dahmage he was acting like an ass (and he was) for doing exactly what everyone in the thread was warned not to do repeatedly over the course of months, if not years.

As I’ve said elsewhere, rather than losing my cool, I probably should’ve just banned him for failing to heed previous warnings, in which case we’d be in the same situation (“Jay’s abusing his powers blah blah blah”), but at least I wouldn’t have “broken my own rules”.

Since this conspiracy theory that I deleted the thread to hide my own actions refuses to die, I’ve moved the Politics 2 thread back to public view so everyone can read it and form their own opinion:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Politics-2-Electric-Boogaloo/id/53003

Re-reading the last few pages, I feel even better now about my decision to lock it than I did that day. Good riddance.

Anchorhead said:

Jay said:

Anchorhead said:

I have a 4th of July film, a Thanksgiving film, a December only film, a summer only film, a cold rainy nights only film, and a few Christmas films - but I’ve never had a Halloween film. Weird, now that I think about it. I’ve never been a fan of horror films, so that must be why. I’ll have to give this some thought. The Shinning comes to mind as fitting but that’s about as scary as I care to get. E.T. is really more my style though.

I think E.T. qualifies as a Halloween movie the same way Die Hard qualifies as a Christmas movie.

True. I guess a feel-good story can’t really be a Halloween film. 😉

Actually, I meant that it does qualify. I watch the first two Die Hard movies every Christmas (along with Trading Places and Gremlins).

Anchorhead said:

I have a 4th of July film, a Thanksgiving film, a December only film, a summer only film, a cold rainy nights only film, and a few Christmas films - but I’ve never had a Halloween film. Weird, now that I think about it. I’ve never been a fan of horror films, so that must be why. I’ll have to give this some thought. The Shinning comes to mind as fitting but that’s about as scary as I care to get. E.T. is really more my style though.

I think E.T. qualifies as a Halloween movie the same way Die Hard qualifies as a Christmas movie.

oojason said:

Am off for a couple/few weeks - gonna spend some time watching footy, walking the dog, and spending more time with Mrs ooj.

Sounds like a nice dose of the real world. Enjoy.