Board Update

[Surfcrest]

Board Update

Members,

I would like to update you on what we have been working on so far and the direction we plan to go next.

Until very recently, we were on a shared server in Thailand. The company we were with were very reliable and provided good customer service, anything we ever asked for in the months we were with them. They have a solid reputation in the gay community in Thailand. Unfortunately, we needed more control of the site to start making changes and complete control was problematic with a shared server arrangement. Providing direct access to members in Thailand without a proxy service is also something that is best addressed from a different server. In October we purchased our own dedicated server and relocated the site to Vancouver, Canada with a very reputable company only a few blocks away from my office.

Having our own server will allow us to create our own developmental sites so that we can work on some of the new creations for the board, without disrupting the live site(s). As we have plenty of space on the server, we would like to work with bloggers, people interested in creating their own articles, perhaps people who want to share their personal photography or even videoтАжto a certain extent. The goal is to share content and to use the site to give exposure to some of the great work out there. It is also our hope to help support existing content in the community including continuing our close relationship with NickyтАЩs Gay Pattaya and supporting other Boards or Forums in the community....with the exception of one.

You may have noticed a GoDaddy Certified Domain emblem on our site for a few days. All of our domains have now been consolidated together with one company. This final move of our domain from Thailand to the United States is what triggered the Board being down and unavailable yesterday. The new certification is the right direction to go with negotiations with new advertisers on the horizon early next year This will enable us to put a few good months down before that time.

The Sawatdee-Gay-Thailand team is made up of 4 members here. Elephantspike will continue to work on new software designs and upgrades for us, our man under the hood. Looking after the moderating duties for us is our rock solid jinks, the fella thatтАЩs been flying this bird for most of its journey through time so far. IтАЩll be looking after the business side of the site, addressing the ban issue, working with advertisers and helping build our brand new network. Our 4th Musketeer is danteтАжwho has been away focusing on his own projects these past months, but who will always be welcomed back with open arms when / if time permits. If we take anyone else on, IтАЩll be sure to announce it as I have with jinks, spike and dante.

We have invested a considerable amount into modernizing the board and so no doubt you will see much different packaging for the board, with resources added on as plug-ins to provide more of what the Gay traveller would expect, if he was interested in ThailandтАж.or if he was an expat already living in Thailand. I would like to attract more content that promotes Thailand and so you will see more of this in the packaging and that will be good for the site and the look of the site.

The Forum / Board itself will stay the same, in that it will continue to be the domain for you the membership. We would like to work on the functionality issues that we discussed in the тАЬSawatdee Hopes and Dreams?тАЭ thread started by bucknaway back in May and located in the Board Business Forum.

We may need to modify the Rules & Guidelines once again to conform with Canadian law now that we are based in Vancouver. While Canada is very open minded about homosexuality and a freedom of expression, we also have laws that protect human rights. As a result, any hate propaganda or discrimination based on particular "grounds" or тАЬprohibited groundsтАЭ will not be allowedтАжnot that we have a problem with this issue so much here. I would like to remind the membership that there is no need to tip toe around certain topics. The current Rules & Guidelines explains our few rules to their full extent.

As a regular poster myself here over the years I can tell you that I have no interest in censoring or suppressing the voice of anyone in the community. I am boycotting the TBB here, as I am vehemently opposed to their practise of posting the names and / or photos of individuals in our community against their will. The TBB takes no responsibility for the damage they may do to individualтАЩs lives and reputations and the impact this threat is having to the membership of all Gay message boards in Thailand as a whole. Once again, I urge you all not to go and see whoтАЩs life theyтАЩre trying to tear upтАж.please, just let it die!

In the future here, we will try our best to minimize technical down time or disruptions to the board. Some of the overhauls we are planning are pretty significant and so some down time probably cannot be avoided. If the board becomes unplugged again, it will again take a few to several hours to propagate around the world. The pink "Google" window that you possibly saw, with the lovely ladies has nothing to do with us or our future network plans. We will try our best to advise the board in advance of any disruptions.

If you are a blogger, would like to become a blogger possibly or have some content you would like to share with us, please let us know. You can send us a PM or send us an email...whatever works best for you. If you are interested in being a part in any of the work we are doing; we'd love to hear from you!

Surfcrest

Are you able to enlighten us as to what this "gay community in Thailand" is?

[Surfcrest]

Until very recently, we were on a shared server in Thailand. The company we were with were very reliable and provided good customer service, anything we ever asked for in the months we were with them. They have a solid reputation in the gay community in Thailand.


Are you able to enlighten us as to what this "gay community in Thailand" is?

In the context that it was used; businesses that specifically serve "gay" clientele in Thailand...or a community of those businesses....not that they are connected in anyway.

Surfcrest

Oh okay so no such thing as a community then as the word is generally understood for example "gated community", "community of interest" etc just a lazy use of a meaningless term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

[newalaan2]

You state you are always keen for feedback from members so here's some.

There are encouraging signs for the future of SGT in this announcement, however there are also possibly contradicting statements (I say possibly as they are unclear) which may give rise to minor concerns for some of the membership.

One positive move, at last, is an announcement, important and relevant to members being posted in the MAIN forum where members can actually see it. The last few 'important' announcements including the last one which had an invitation for members to comment was hidden away in whatever sub-forum was the 'hide away' forum at that time, where virtually no members post or read. It was about major changes to this Board which obviously affected members ability to access what they wish to on SGT as threads/posts were to be/have been locked and/or "archived" and/or buried for what purpose goodness only knows. Why can't everything on SGT be accessible to all members and open for posting comments with everything transparent to all? Why this need/obsession to 'lock', 'archive' and bury?


continuing our close relationship with NickyтАЩs Gay Pattaya and supporting other Boards or Forums in the community....with the exception of one.
Yes, I get the close relationship with Nicky's,and that is great because Nicky's is a very useful resource, but what exactly is 'supporting' other Boards or forums about? In what way can you support without conflict of interests arising? The fact that 5 separate Boards (now 6) exist with different agendas and 'takes' on gay Thailand gives choices to people, choices to avoid the ones they don't like, choices to associate with the ones they do. As a member of all Boards for different reasons, what would the point be of inter-Board co-operation or 'support' if that is what you mean by 'support'.

As a regular poster myself here over the years I can tell you that I have no interest in censoring or suppressing the voice of anyone in the community
A red flag moment, as this coupled with following sentence 'appear' contradictory. You state quite clearly in the first you are 'against' censoring which obviously includes deleting, banning, altering posts to suit the whims of moderators etc.... Not quite sure why you use a term like 'the community' above when surely you mean simply "the membership of SGT" as you clearly do not have the ability to censor anyone in any 'community' wider than here. If you mean SGT members just say it!

I am boycotting the TBB here, as I am vehemently opposed to their practise of posting the names and / or photos of individuals in our community against their will. The TBB takes no responsibility for the damage they may do to individualтАЩs lives and reputations and the impact this threat is having to the membership of all Gay message boards in Thailand as a whole. Once again, I urge you all not to go and see whoтАЩs life theyтАЩre trying to tear upтАж.please, just let it die!
So given that you state you are against censoring does that mean posts with talk of, mention of, discussion of Neal/TBB are NOT going to be censored, deleted , banned or interfered with? as that first sentence clearly states?

Given that clear statement the sentence following was therefore very unclear and muddy in it's meaning and so clarification would be appreciated. You have used the word "boycott" for a purpose, you have not used 'censored' 'banned' 'not allowed' 'forbidden' etc... Boycott means 'avoiding' so is that what you meant to convey? that you personally intend boycotting TBB? in other words, ignoring it, staying away from it on a personal level and appealing to members to do the same, or are you using the word "boycott" to soften a more sinister meaning which would be closer to 'censor' 'ban' 'delete' 'forbid' mention of Neal/TBB here on SGT Board in any of the forums or main page, because if that is what you meant why not simply say that you intend to 'censor' 'ban' 'delete' 'forbid' mention or talk of Neal/TBB?

The reason I ask for clarification is that just before I went to Thailand for a month visit in September, your answer to that exact same enquiry [if posts with mention of Neal/TBB were allowed (untampered with)] was a most definite, affirmative "yes" it was indeed in order to make any references we wished as members in any post about Neal/TBB provided no links were made to that site....yet despite this clear statement, in a recent post you deleted my mention of Neal/TBB with the strange and mystifying comments that 'writing' about TBB is 'promoting it'...(how you came to that conclusion is the mystifying bit) and my mention of TBB was deleted/censored!..........so now 'seems' yet another change/U-turn with this policy.

So which is it? No censorship! or some censorship? I'm sure clarification will be appreciated by other members not only myself. There are specific reasons for wanting clarification but this post is way long enough already. Thanks in advance.

[Surfcrest]

Newalaan2, please let me try to address your concerns;



The last few 'important' announcements including the last one which had an invitation for members to comment was hidden away in whatever sub-forum was the 'hide away' forum at that time, where virtually no members post or read. It was about major changes to this Board which obviously affected members ability to access what they wish to on SGT as threads/posts were to be/have been locked and/or "archived" and/or buried for what purpose goodness only knows. Why can't everything on SGT be accessible to all members and open for posting comments with everything transparent to all? Why this need/obsession to 'lock', 'archive' and bury?
There is a forum for Board Business. While I will post certain announcements in the Gay Thailand Forum specific to an important Board announcement, once that it becomes old news it gets moved back to Board Business, where it belongs. A news topic might be of interest to you, but I can appreciate it is not of interest to all. Topics will be sorted to the applicable Forums.


Yes, I get the close relationship with Nicky's, and that is great because Nicky's is a very useful resource, but what exactly is 'supporting' other Boards or forums about? In what way can you support without conflict of interests arising? The fact that 5 separate Boards (now 6) exist with different agendas and 'takes' on gay Thailand gives choices to people, choices to avoid the ones they don't like, choices to associate with the ones they do. As a member of all Boards for different reasons, what would the point be of inter-Board co-operation or 'support' if that is what you mean by 'support'.
I realize there are 4 other Boards whose focus is on тАЬGay ThailandтАЭ and it is my intention to create links here in our resource pages to let visitors know about these boards as wellтАжand where to find each. We are interested in seeing all of the other 4 Boards be successful, I believe it is good for Sawatdee. I realize that some members will feel more at home on one forum than anther and so if Sawatdee is what they find firstтАжweтАЩll help them find what they are really looking for.


A red flag moment, as this coupled with following sentence 'appear' contradictory. You state quite clearly in the first you are 'against' censoring which obviously includes deleting, banning, altering posts to suit the whims of moderators etc.... Not quite sure why you use a term like 'the community' above when surely you mean simply "the membership of SGT" as you clearly do not have the ability to censor anyone in any 'community' wider than here. If you mean SGT members just say it!
I use the term community with respect to what is said on all BoardsтАжnot just SGT. I am a regular member of bahtstop, Gaybuttonthai and Gay Thailand. I have responded to posts or have made comments on other Boards about some of the things we are taking about here. My message about the TBB is consistent, whether I am voicing it here or out there. I donтАЩt view advising the membership of any Board I belong to not to read that Board as censoring. As for here at SawatdeeтАж.itтАЩs In the Rules. I put it there specifically to add clarity to the issue.



So given that you state you are against censoring does that mean posts with talk of, mention of, discussion of Neal/TBB are NOT going to be censored, deleted , banned or interfered with? as that first sentence clearly states?
I thought the Rules were quite clear, but if they are notтАжI can amend them again. I have even added into the Rules the тАЬwhyтАЭ part of this, so that the membership knows we as a board cannot contribute to helping people find the TBB or directing their attention that way.

They could be posting your name and photos of you right nowтАжwhether that was a concern to you or not. The fact of the matter, it is very much a concern for some membersтАжespecially those that live private lives and especially those that have been directly targeted already. Some of these members we donтАЩt see too much of anymoreтАж.and that is not only here on SGT, but within this community of the 4 Boards.


Given that clear statement the sentence following was therefore very unclear and muddy in it's meaning and so clarification would be appreciated. You have used the word "boycott" for a purpose, you have not used 'censored' 'banned' 'not allowed' 'forbidden' etc... Boycott means 'avoiding' so is that what you meant to convey? that you personally intend boycotting TBB? in other words, ignoring it, staying away from it on a personal level and appealing to members to do the same, or are you using the word "boycott" to soften a more sinister meaning which would be closer to 'censor' 'ban' 'delete' 'forbid' mention of Neal/TBB here on SGT Board in any of the forums or main page, because if that is what you meant why not simply say that you intend to 'censor' 'ban' 'delete' 'forbid' mention or talk of Neal/TBB?
IтАЩm going to attach an excerpt from our Rules & Guidelines at the tail of this reply to help unmuddy the waters. You lump Neal/TBB together, when IтАЩm only mentioning the TBBтАжboth here and in the Rules. I am urging everyone from the community of members from all Boards to stay away from the TBB and to let it die, like the fate of the CGT. I have no power to keep people from going there, other than a persuasive and consistent message.


The reason I ask for clarification is that just before I went to Thailand for a month visit in September, your answer to that exact same enquiry was a most definite, affirmative "yes" it was indeed in order to make any references we wished as members in any post about Neal/TBB provided no links were made to that site....yet despite this clear statement, in a recent post you deleted my mention of Neal/TBB with the strange and mystifying comments that 'writing' about TBB is 'promoting it'...(how you came to that conclusion is the mystifying bit) and my mention of TBB was deleted/censored!..........so now 'seems' yet another change/U-turn with this policy.

So which is it? No censorship! or some censorship? I'm sure clarification will be appreciated by other members not only myself. There are specific reasons for wanting clarification but this post is way long enough already. Thanks in advance.
Your post was edited newalaan2 because you are promoting that Board by coming back here to tell us what is going on over there. You are directing memberтАЩs attention that way, when that is precisely what I donтАЩt want this Board used for.

We only have a few Rules & Guidelines here. Perhaps each of the 3 Rules could be simplified more to clarify the intent. I believe Rule 3 in the тАЬPrivacy, Anonymity & Posting LimitationsтАЭ in respect to тАЬtopics that may not be discussed and which may put the Board in jeopardyтАЭ is quite clear.

One very important point I would like to make is that, while we have had more success ignoring the TBB and those two individuals, the battle hasnтАЩt let up behind the scenes. I have a huge collection of memberships in suspense, attempts by these two to re-join SGT for the purpose of their little games. One of RonтАЩs hydras (Web Connect) stole some files from us that necessitated a response. If it wasnтАЩt for the barrage of harassment from them here, I could easily forget they existed. And if the filters that catch these two at their game are working and they arenтАЩt allowed to ruin this forum by bringing their crazy crap hereтАжthen we and the Rules are doing our job. As I have mentioned a few times already, we have had to deactivate 4 members since the beginning of May....these being Neal, SmoothLegs (Ron), kjun12...briefly back recently as trailrider and Zebedee.

The TBB is a parasite of the 4 Boards. What they fail to understand is that when they hurt our membership, it hurts them first. Whether it's being done out of vindictiveness or to clear the way somewhat for the launch of another new CGT, I know the membership here sees through all of that.

Please let me know if IтАЩve addressed all of the concerns raised.

Surfcrest


POSTING RULES & GUIDELINES
(3) Privacy, Anonymity & Posting Limitations
Members are encouraged to voice opinions on a wide range of topics, while still being civil to others.
There are some topics that may not be discussed and which may put the Board in jeopardy. These are:
тАв Any new links or quotes to the Thailand Bitch Board after July 26, 2013.
* moderators discretion ( And the filter is set high)
[i]Any post or thread that breaches this rule may attract Sanctions.
The Thailand Bitch Board is a message board that wilfully makes defamatory and libellous statements about Sawatdee Gay Thailand and individual members of this Board. Not allowing any links or quotes to the Thailand Bitch Board is a necessary sanction so as not to promote in any way this unethical behaviour in our the community.

[Smiles]

Sometime in the not so distant past I seem to remember someone - was it you Surfcrest? - mentioning in a post or thread about 'changes' here which included moving the Board to the vBulletin message board universe.
Is that still in the works, or was it ever in the works, or is this phpBB system to stay?

Just wondering.

[Surfcrest]

Good Question Smiles,

Originally it was our intention, after purchasing the vBulletin 5 package to change the board over to this platform in the early part of the summer. Dante had actually completed a great deal of the developmental work on the software for us with a prototype board on his own server. Unfortunately, this is when we realized that we would need more access to the server controls, which wasn't possible in our previous shared server arrangement.

Dante is a professional developer and needed to get back to his own projects while I sorted out our server issues. Then thankfully elephantspike returned at the right time to help us choose the right server for our future needs and, as a specialist with phpbb software, carry out extensive repairs to our existing platform.

It wouldn't be right to continue work on the vBulletiin platform without dante's involvement based on everything he has done with it so far for us. So, we've decided to stay with the phpbb software for the Board part of the site, with plug-in enhancements. Elephantspike would be best to tell us more of the technical nitty gritty of all the modifications he's been working on.

We may very well move to the vBulletin platform, we own the licensing to, in the future if dante is able and interested in returning to the project someday. The modifications that elephantspike is working on are compatible with both phpbb and vBulletin platforms. We are at the point where we have quite a few options to take that will only make the board function better. Included with that hopefully will be a solution finally to our access issues with a few providers in Thailand and eliminate the need for proxy's.

I hope I've been able to fill in the gaps of what we've been working on since when we first discussed the vBulletin idea.

Surfcrest

[elephantspike]

VBulletin will come in handy at some point I'm sure but this next big upgrade we are going to be doing soon will still be phpBB but with a new style and we are dumping the portal in favor of a more versatile and aesthetically pleasing blog-like front page navigation.

One thing about the vBulletin converter is that it doesn't import attachments (images and things uploaded to posts) and another issue is that it forces all the imported users to have new randomly generated passwords, so I'm thinking vBulletin might be better to use for something in addition to the existing phpbb and the new front page blog that's launching soon rather than to replace the phpBB altogether. Maybe like some kind of a spin-off forum at some point.

[Sooty]

Why am I always right? I was told I absolutely must, cross my heart and hope to die, eternal damnation would follow if I didn't update my email address so as I would have continued access to SGT. Lo and behold it's "as you were, all a false alarm". I use Creative Inertia as my guiding management principle - leave a problem alone long enough and most of the time it will resolve itself. The trick to being an effective manager is knowing when not to apply Creative Inertia. Work Smarter Not Harder!

[timmberty]

i seem to recall i asked more than once what was the point of changing the board to a different system as there is nothing wrong with this one .. good job im the one who doesnt know what hes on about most of the time!!
and as elley says the v-system doesnt allow pictures in posts etc etc, what a great idea that board would have been,.
seems its best to listen to the idiots and some times leave things alone.

[Surfcrest]

We definitely need a "Like" button!

Surfcrest

[timmberty]

i think a dislike button would get far more use.

[elephantspike]

vBulletin does allow attachments but the conversion application you use to convert your existing phpBB to vBulletin does not convert your existing phpBB attachments into your vBulletin. Phpbb just has a different way of handling attachments than vBulletin and it isn't compatible with the conversion process. Also importing avatars is problematic but that's pretty easy to work around. For me the password change for all the users is almost as much of a deal-breaker as the attachments.

As a matter of personal taste, this is what I do like about Vbulletin: It gives you the ability to create a front page layout of webpages consisting of content from the forum. This is what is known as a Content Management System (CMS) The thing is there are other popular (and open source [meaning "free]) CMS systems that give you a much prettier and more customisable front page navigation that can be integrated with a PhpBB forum.

One thing I dislike about Vbulletin is the styles tend to be kind of cold and "businessy" and plain. I'm thinking I might be able to find a phpBB style that looks like vBulletin for people who prefer that kind of look and just have it as a style option in the user control panel > Board Preferences.

[Jellybean]

тАЬWhat the hellтАЩs going on now?тАЭ said Jellybean in a grumpy mood.

Simply viewing SGT today (Saturday), using hidemyass.com, it took just over 1 minute to access SGT. It then took just over a minute to access a topic and yet another minute to view different pages. So skipping from topic to topic and page to page felt like an eternity. So whatтАЩs happening now? More gremlins in the works?

No problem viewing other forums, usual millisecond response, and it's the first time I've experienced such delays.

[Smiles]

Exactly the same as Jellybean.
A proxy sever to get around the True band ... Hidemyass works but is also a Paininmyass for the same reasons as above.
Using it logs me out every single time I post or edit something. I'd love to be able to come on Sawatdee again ~ 'The Old Days' ~ and do what I want to do without a thousand annoying little complications ... death by a thousand, er, pricks.

(Now watch. I'm finished writing now ... I'm about to hit Submit ... I'll get logged out again ... then log back in to change a wrong spelling ... then Submit ... then logged out again ... then log back in to edit a pertinent thought ... then Submit ... now logged out again ... log back in to send an importan PM to some member ... Submit ... get logged out again ... and on and on and on: all at slow motion)

[timmberty]

looks like the board is bored with your witless posts too.

[MiniMee]

Smiles, the auto log out from HideMyAss is a pain, but it can easily be avoided by manually returning to the forum after you hit the submit post button rather than waiting for it to return there automatically. There is obviously a glitch somewhere, but clicking тАШforumтАЩ quickly after submitting your post (you only have a few seconds before it does it automatically and then logs you out) saves all the logging back in that you currently have to do.

Click the text тАШforumтАЩ in the top left just below the SGT banner.

[bao-bao]

(Now watch. I'm finished writing now ... I'm about to hit Submit ... I'll get logged out again ... then log back in to change a wrong spelling ... then Submit ... then logged out again ... then log back in to edit a pertinent thought ... then Submit ... now logged out again ... log back in to send an importan PM to some member ... Submit ... get logged out again ... and on and on and on: all at slow motion)

Maybe try composing in Notepad or something and then doing a copy/paste into your post rather than risk the time? That's helped me a couple of times in the past on "unstable" sites.

[elephantspike]

All that is just because our domain name was put on a shit list by some bureaucrat several years ago. I think just a new domain and a redirect of the old one like we have the old wordpress.com subdomain for the Bangkok Bois blog redirected to its new domain on this server- will fix this.

[Surfcrest]

A proxy sever to get around the True band ... Hidemyass works but is also a Paininmyass for the same reasons as above.
Using it logs me out every single time I post or edit something. I'd love to be able to come on Sawatdee again ~ 'The Old Days' ~ and do what I want to do without a thousand annoying little complications ... death by a thousand, er, pricks.

(Now watch. I'm finished writing now ... I'm about to hit Submit ... I'll get logged out again ... then log back in to change a wrong spelling ... then Submit ... then logged out again ... then log back in to edit a pertinent thought ... then Submit ... now logged out again ... log back in to send an importan PM to some member ... Submit ... get logged out again ... and on and on and on: all at slow motion)
We are working hard to get the new site up and running very soon. We are very hopeful that with the new site will come a solution to proxy and connection issues for our members in Thailand.

Surfcrest

[billy2bs]

Absolutely amazing all the jibber jabber in these 2 pages as to how the SGT is now going to work. So many experts and concerns as to who and hat will be allowed. I would venture that most could give a damm except for those who think they need to promote their own agenda. Make up your own board and do it your way. But then someone would go over and tell you how to do it better anyway. For me the many boards serve as a fun too and useful tool to find out what I neeed to know as to what is happening in LOS so that when I get back there I can have a good time.. With so much back satbbing one would think that Boys Town and Sunni would be loaded with bodies. But that is not the case. So all must be well in LOS because the sun came up again today from the east once again.

=))

[Surfcrest]

You do know that you are in a Board Update thread.....and so should be less than amazing given the topic at hand?
Anyhow thanks for the feedback....we were just trying to let everyone / anyone know who was interested, what is going on.
No personal agenda here....unless you can think of one?

Surfcrest