The Board Is Back

[Alex]

I'd imagaine there would be issues with how old the software this board uses when it comes to making all pages secure. The software is now 9 years out of date.

Correct.  Someday maybe I will be able to fix that.

Hi Chuck, is there a roadmap/plan that could be put in place for such a transition? And could the mods here help facilitate any work moving forward to help this happen? Could our community as a whole do anything to help this happen?

And man this place and its mods sure do live rent free in some people's minds. Once this boards issues are figured out it'll be nice for the universe as a collective whole to not be subjected to posts about "Chuckie" and the "mods" from the EH forum.

That crotchety historian who will not be named is still doing his old "Chuckie forgot to pay his internet bill" routine all these years later?

[Charles LePage @ ComicList]

Hi Chuck, is there a roadmap/plan that could be put in place for such a transition? And could the mods here help facilitate any work moving forward to help this happen? Could our community as a whole do anything to help this happen?

Not really, though I appreciate the offer.  All I can ask is to be patient.

And man this place and its mods sure do live rent free in some people's minds. Once this boards issues are figured out it'll be nice for the universe as a collective whole to not be subjected to posts about "Chuckie" and the "mods" from the EH forum.

It does crack me up that the person you speak of will, when the board goes down, urgently and politely pleads for the knowledge that the board will not be lost forever.  And then, when it comes back, retreats back to smart ass comments.  But, unlike you, they never offer any sort of assistance. 

One of these days, all this will be figured out.  This could the year it happens.  We shall see.

[Dan Lega]

Since the board came back it has looked physically different on my end.  All the columns do NOT fit within my page anymore.  Now I must scroll to see the columns on the right hand side. 

I hope this can be fixed soon!

[Awesoman]

Since the board came back it has looked physically different on my end.  All the columns do NOT fit within my page anymore.  Now I must scroll to see the columns on the right hand side. 

I hope this can be fixed soon!

I've noticed that too.  This forum format never really played well with mobile phones unfortunately.  🤷🏼‍♂️

[All Summer Long]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I thought about the proposed HTTP --> HTTPS switch after reading about Troy Hunt, a Microsoft exec who also runs at least two cybersecurity websites, being deceived by a phishing email for one of his sites.  Hunt actually made this site as well (the one I'll be posting in a second at the end of this post) about the importance of upgrading for stronger cybersecurity.

I know that software reasons are also part of why we're still on HTTP, but I thought I'd post the link regardless just in case:

https://doesmysiteneedhttps.com/

This is not meant to put any intense pressure on Charles, but I just thought we could maybe discuss the pros and cons again.

Thanks!!

[Julia]

If nothing else, have someone go through every page of the message board and back it up to the internet archive. Practically nothing from the Smile Shop message board is saved. Thankfully some of Pet Sounds forum had been mirrored but I still lost some of my old posts when the founder unexpectedly pulled the plug.

EDIT: The Board was down for like 12 hours yesterday. I can't commit to archiving the whole forum, but this definitely inspires me to archive the front page and all my favorite threads I've bumped up to it--plus my own post history. I've written like a book's worth of essays--too much to risk it all going dead on a whim. I'd suggest anyone else should do the same

[All Summer Long]

I might do the same, Julia, with my posts/threads soon; another (music) forum that I'd been a long-time member of got hacked and supposedly was practically 'destroyed'.  There were talks about them putting together some sort of archive, but it looks like those fell apart or won't be happening in any fashion, which really disappoints me because of all the knowledge, plus some threads I created, being lost to time.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I’m wondering how much the yearly costs are with the board . I’m dealing with a rather serious medical issue right now but depending on how this goes I might make a few moves to ensure it’s long term survival

[Julia]

I’m wondering how much the yearly costs are with the board . I’m dealing with a rather serious medical issue right now but depending on how this goes I might make a few moves to ensure it’s long term survival

Sorry to hear you're going through some tough times, that's awful and I hope things pick up for you soon.

I've spent the last day, the first in like 3 or 4 where I could regularly access the board for more than a few minutes at a time, using the search function to dig up some of the best threads I could find/remember and save them to pdf. I mostly limited myself to SMiLE stuff (a few Paley sessions and other odds n ends got in) because, I had to draw the line somewhere (Im only one person with so many harddrives and spare time) and I thought I'd include these in my ongoing SMiLE public access, digital "book" of sources. In the unfortunate event this place should go down, remember I'll eventually post a link to this project on my blog thecarbonfreeze.com Sorry for the self-ad but I want to put the name out there in case one day this place just never comes back on.

If anyone's annoyed at me bumping so many old threads, my reason was to earmark them for this purpose in order to make a mirror of the front page and all its threads on the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, either this site is so old and/or malfunctioning or Im doing something wrong, because it kept saving an error page from "comiclist," which apparently is Chuck's parent website. Like, no matter what URL from this site I gave, it'd be some bullshit "this ISP isn't allowed at comiclist.com" error. So this was my plan B.

[Zenobi]

Thanks Julia, your blog is really excellent. 

[Julia]

Thanks Julia, your blog is really excellent. 

I do appreciate it. Haven't been as active in awhile but it's a nice way to blow off steam or share something obscure i like

[BJL]

I’m wondering how much the yearly costs are with the board . I’m dealing with a rather serious medical issue right now but depending on how this goes I might make a few moves to ensure it’s long term survival

Sorry to hear you're going through some tough times, that's awful and I hope things pick up for you soon.

I've spent the last day, the first in like 3 or 4 where I could regularly access the board for more than a few minutes at a time, using the search function to dig up some of the best threads I could find/remember and save them to pdf. I mostly limited myself to SMiLE stuff (a few Paley sessions and other odds n ends got in) because, I had to draw the line somewhere (Im only one person with so many harddrives and spare time) and I thought I'd include these in my ongoing SMiLE public access, digital "book" of sources. In the unfortunate event this place should go down, remember I'll eventually post a link to this project on my blog thecarbonfreeze.com Sorry for the self-ad but I want to put the name out there in case one day this place just never comes back on.

If anyone's annoyed at me bumping so many old threads, my reason was to earmark them for this purpose in order to make a mirror of the front page and all its threads on the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, either this site is so old and/or malfunctioning or Im doing something wrong, because it kept saving an error page from "comiclist," which apparently is Chuck's parent website. Like, no matter what URL from this site I gave, it'd be some bullshit "this ISP isn't allowed at comiclist.com" error. So this was my plan B.

I really think it's kind of amazing how these message board discussions shape what's eventually published in really profound ways, as people work through different interpretations and present evidence, and because so many key Beach Boys researchers have been active on various boards over the years. So if you lose the boards' archives, you lose the way to figure out how the common sense about Smile that's reflected in published work developed and evolved. I appreciate your efforts at archiving. I always save my own posts (which can take a lot of time to write, as I'm sure is true for many of the people who've poured time into Smile over the years!) But it's not the same out of context.

Off topic, I went down a deep rabbit hole on your blog last night, you have a lot of great essays on there! I also love old art and B-movies, albeit primarily just lesbian vampires on the latter... I haven't seen *any* of the weird Italian movies you write about and added a bunch to my watch list.