It's unclear and I've seen conflicting information online. Is there anything we need to actually do then? I saw stuff online about a document originally.
Going to try and get all of this wrapped up over the weekend. The HEXUS forums are closing as a result of the regulations. I'm doing my hardest to not let bit-tech go the same way.
That's... not good news... But that is Availability is a bit sketchy this week, but I'm happy to try and help out if I can, even if it's just reading and understanding stuff...
I swear the universe is doing everything thing it can to shut down forums and push people to Facebook pages so you can read the same question being asked every bleeding week by a different person. Out of intrest when was the last time a new member joined?
Huh, surprised they even try with us now with the numbers we have. Do you know when the last time a real life person joined? Would be interesting to know. I assume our active headcount is rather low also?
Looking at the list of newest members, we've had 12 people join since the 15th of December last year... and every single one of 'em has made zero posts so far, which suggests they're also lying-in-wait adbots. That doesn't count the ones I've already banned 'cos they were a lot more obvious about it. A quick glance through the recent activity list for avatars I don't recognise shows a modder joined in late November last year, they look legit. So... November, I guess.
The index page shows the latest user to sign up: But I assume you need to be a mod, like @Gareth Halfacree, to see more detail. More likely it’d be a group or page that would garner a sufficiently large following that it can be flipped and turned into a vehicle for covert data harvesting or spamming adverts. It’s why “LIKE AND SHARE IF YOU AGREE”, “REMEMBER THESE??!! LOL”, “HERE IS A NEW PERSON OR THING TO HATE”, etc, groups/pages are so popular.
No, you don't. Just head to the Members page in a desktop browser (or mobile browser in desktop mode) and you'll see the 12 most recent sign-ups (excluding banned members) at the right-hand side. Click on any one of 'em to see their profile pop-up, and again to visit the profile page.
I assume the body responsible for acting on this is infact OfCom that have published the guidelines? If so, surely there is a point of contact for assessing clearly where bit-tech falls in THEIR eyes at which point it may be prudent to have already carried out the checklist risk assessment, maybe someone already has. And have the likes of this, along with supporting evidence to present should the time come? To be honest I don't really know how the logistics of forcing closure work, so at what point an approach is made or a discussion is had. As for the new members signing up, discussed above, I think I may have made mention of it in another thread, I really don't know much about the current status of bit-tech, other than the fact @MLyons seems to be taking a chunk of responsibility for keeping it where it is (with gratitude I should add) but I do think, depending on the aforementioned status of the site in terms of ownership, rights to content etc the end of outward content, places for people to land, say someone looking for a review of a mouse they're about to buy, they land on bit-tech, click into the forums to ask further questions and stay, is partly responsible for this decline. What can be done about that, I really wouldn't pretend to know. I do very much agree that forums and written media in general is at an all time low but I wouldn't agree that it is dead, because those of us happy to consume, continuing to consume are, in fact, not dead..yet.
To quote a meme "If bit-tech has millions of users, then I'm one of them. If bit-tech has one user, then I'm that one. If bit-tech has no users, that means I'm dead." The current situation is the forums are in a real jank state technically and it would be a massive lift to bring them up to speed. The forums are powered by hopes, dreams and memes at this point. The software and hardware will at some point fail. That's when I plan to not support the forums. If someone wants to take over them technically or run a new version, I'm happy to talk. But the only money available is whatever is in my bank account and we won't be putting ads on bit-tech.
Does this - or any aspect of running/maintaining the forum - carry any out of pocket expense? It’s already expensive in terms of all the (very much appreciated) time and effort you voluntarily put into keeping the lights on. It’s something we often overlook or lose sight of but our time is valuable. As much as altruism might be its own reward, I’d hate to learn that you’re incurring out of pocket expenses as a result of all this. I already pay a bunch of Patreon subscriptions every month, I’d happily contribute a lot more to a patreon or gofundme to help offset any costs incurred in running, maintaining, and upgrading the forums. This community has been a part of my life for 23 years, it’s impossible to put a financial value on what it’s meant to me in that time.
I'm an information security and gdpr consultant, so I'm going to both perform a complete OSA assessment for Bit-Tech and help to put in place whatever policy and process needed. It’s likely to be light in terms of actual changes/responsibilities, but it still needs to be done formally, and be thorough, proportionate and appropriate. Normally I’d be selling my time by the hour or a fixed cost engagement for stuff like that. I’m also all about application delivery (used to have F5 professional certs) and service architecture so I’m designing a robust system for getting the forum updated and in a modern hosting stack. Yuusou is going to config-by-code that approach for repeatability, portability and importantly for the OSA and anything else that comes along in the future, audit-ability. We’re going to use open source stuff and all involved are giving time for free as it stands. We’ve already done a load of discovery and initial design so it’s coming along nicely.
