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Cosmo

Cosmo

Owner
Staff member
Hi everyone!

As many of you are likely aware, back in February Mop announced his intention to close down Time Travel Institute effective December 31st, 2014.

Now, if that weren't enough to depress a guy, a few days ago the server we were hosted on began having major problems and the site was taken offline. Over the course of a few emails with Mop, I learned that he wasn't sure what the issue was and since he didn't have the time or resources to troubleshoot, the site would likely stay offline indefinitely.

I'm happy to announce that the site is back up (obviously) and is staying right here.

Even though I've rarely posted here, I've been an avid lurker for years and the thought of this place disappearing didn't sit right with me... There's just too much awesome stuff to read here, and a 15 year old community of thinkers, skeptics, crazy people, nerds and dreamers isn't something you just let die.

So, I launched an Indiegogo campaign to save the site. It's still running if you'd like to donate, but I didn't want to let the site hang in the balance for another two months, totally offline and pissing off Google... I decided it was time to break out the credit card and save it myself.

And here we are.

I have a lot plans for Time Travel Institute and I'll outline what they are in future announcements. Suffice it to say though that I'm here for the long-haul.

Off the bat, I've made a few changes to get things moving again:

  1. Some stuff has been moved around
    I've moved the announcements forum, renamed a couple categories and generally made things a bit more "content first". Nothing major, but it's worth mentioning.
     
     
     
     
  2. New user guidelines
    Everyone knows what does and doesn't get you banned on most forums, so the new user guidelines shouldn't be much of a shocker. Everything there should be common sense, but please read through them anyways.
     
     
     
     
  3. Everyone has been unbanned
    While I'm sure each and every ban that existed before the site went down was there for a good reason, I wasn't there when it happened and can't be totally sure the ban is justified based on the new user guidelines. Everyone now has a second chance to be part of this community.
     
     
     
     
  4. No more moderators (for now)
    KerrTexas and RainmanTime served this community for years and have done an amazing job keeping the place as tidy as possible. However, I need to settle into my role as the new owner and based on what I've seen in the past, this is best done flying solo for a while. This change isn't one taken lightly... I respect the hell out of both of them and they absolutely deserve everyone's thanks. Once I've got things back on track and we need more moderators, they'll both be the very first people I consider.
     
     
     
     
  5. New staff guidelines
    I've run forums in the past, and have come to dislike moderating in public. Removing someone's post and then posting about it both takes a thread off topic and puts the person who was moderated on the defensive. That's now how I want to run this site; when people visit I want them to see interesting conversation, not details on how I've removed something or banned someone. Staff guidelines are posted publicly, though the part you should know about is this:
    ... do not publicly discuss action taken against any user. Do not post "I have removed Joe's posts as they were full of vulgarities" or "You have been warned" or "Keep this up and I'll remove your posts" or anything of the sort. We handle all of our business privately. If someone violates our User Guidelines, their posts are removed and we handle it. We do not post about specific actions taken against specific users publicly.
    Click to expand...





 
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Thanks Cosmo! glad to see the site online again :D

good luck Cosmo for this new adventure and thanks to all the people that had spent time for this place :)

 
Thanks for taking up this cause, Cosmo. I was just thinking the other day about how the web, over the years, has grown an ever-expanding "unmarked graveyard" of sorts, in a way similar to the American small businesses landscape. Many entities seem only to exist in the memories of a few former patrons. There is certainly an incredible amount of web history in the Internet Archive. At the same time, it cannot be searched and lacks indexing by design (to my knowledge - perhaps no longer the case?) and is unlikely to be scoured by many. Here's hoping that there is still life left in this property for time travel enthusiasts! The crowdfunding campaign looks nice, I like your approach, and you certainly have my vote of confidence as a successor in charge. Let's try to treat Cosmo well!

 
Thanks for taking up this cause, Cosmo. I was just thinking the other day about how the web, over the years, has grown an ever-expanding "unmarked graveyard" of sorts, in a way similar to the American small businesses landscape. Many entities seem only to exist in the memories of a few former patrons. There is certainly an incredible amount of web history in the Internet Archive. At the same time, it cannot be searched and lacks indexing by design (to my knowledge - perhaps no longer the case?) and is unlikely to be scoured by many. Here's hoping that there is still life left in this property for time travel enthusiasts! The crowdfunding campaign looks nice, I like your approach, and you certainly have my vote of confidence as a successor in charge. Let's try to treat Cosmo well!
Click to expand...
D'aww; thanks guys!

My thoughts exactly on the unmarked graveyard thing... Far too much of this kind of stuff has been lost to the ages, and it's not like all of this exists as a collection of pages in someone's spiral notebook that might get discovered in the attic by someone's grand kids or something. Once the server account gets turned off, this stuff is gone forever.

When I was part of Time Travel Forum (which became Paranormal Network and then Paranormalis, I remember another, smaller time travel site that had been shut down (the name escapes me; @Num7 might remember) which had a lot of great conversation as well. There wasn't nearly as much there as there is here or on other sites, but they still had interesting conversations and had discussed things that made you think. Several people contacted them, but the database was deleted and everything was just gone.

Not everything on the internet needs to stick around forever, and there's probably a lot on this site that wouldn't be missed very much, but the kinds of people a community like this bring together and the sort of conversations it provokes makes it all worth saving.

 

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