it has been noticed that Jeff Tirey, the founder of Textkit, could not be contacted for some time, which has some problematic side effects. The reason for this may be simply that he is too busy with work. However, the possibility of serious repercussions up to and including the demise of Textkit itself, cannot be excluded.
Please use this thread to:
report attempts (hopefully successful) to contact Jeff,
discuss alternatives in case of the worst case scenario.
And just in case, does anyone know how to upload Textkit to Archive.org’s Wayback Machine? Can that be even done without the express consent of Jeff?
I’ve sent him a message yesterday through Facebook. I’m not his Facebook friend, so I don’t know if the message goes through in the same way as it would if I were.
I can veto posts (and the opposite) but my powers are limited and new users are beyond my hoary touch. I spoke to Jeff briefly about this months ago, haven’t seen him too recently but have messaged him also. I wouldn’t worry about the situation, looking over the modlogs it would be nice to be able to verify the new users but it’s not as if this place is near collapsing.
I’m sure Jeff is just a bit busy right now and will be back with us shortly. Meanwhile I’ve contacted some of the other mods.
Thank you for your help. This piece of news comes as a great relieve.
I really like Textkit:
It is open for perusal by anyone (and not largely behind a wall). No “gated community” for me!
It provides a common place for those people interested in Latin and those in Greek. I may not start to learn ancient Greek, but it is nice to know that people who do are only one mouse-click (or two) away.
It has a friendly community.
From the technical point of view it is very user-friendly (I can’t judge the moderator’s point of view, of course).
Therefore: Textkit, live long and prosper!
As an afterthought I would like to thank everyone who contributes in whatever way in creating this community, keeping it alive and perhaps even grow. One does not realize a thing’s value until it is lost (or about to become so).
Textkit was the first forum to create subforums for and therefore to encourage writing in Ancient Greek. More production in Ancient Greek is found here than all other forums combined. Its loss would be sorely felt.
This is very good news - I was beginning to worry something really bad had happened.
Textkit is extremely valuable and for that reason is important that some provision, in the form of deputies, be made for when the key person is unable to to devote enough time to it.
I got a phone call yesterday which is the nudge I needed to login. I’m very sorry for my long absence but as you can judge from my inactivity, I have been very busy and it’s been hard for me to make Textkit the priority that it deserves to be.
Thank you for everyone’s concern as well - I am alive and kicking
Okay, I think we need to begin a discussion for turning over control of the forum to a new admin team. I’m willing to assist, but I don’t think I can drive this project. I was told that there are some members who wish to take on this project.
I will be monitoring this thread and replying
thanks - Jeff
I’m willing to help out in any way that I can, but I’ll volunteer the following (in addition to Scribo): mwh and Qimmik as our resident experts, and I think that bedwere, Markos, and Paul Derouda would all be wonderful candidates.
People who know the Latin board better than me might have more suggestions.
Also, are Textkit finances something that we can donate towards?
EDIT: I should probably volunteer my technical resources. I lead a Devops team at work, and may be of some use.
In addition to the above mentioned, I think daivid has also told us he’d be willing.
It seems to me that mwh and Qimmik are the most knowledgeable of us in matters Greek and Latin. I suggest that they should be exempted from these chores, so that they can continue to use their time here for the benefit of everybody!
And I also want to thank Jeff for this superb site!
I’m happy to help out. I rarely post anymore, but I visit nearly daily and keep up with lots of threads. Textkit is a wonderful resource and I’d love to help keep it great.
Ed
That’s great to hear. I know and trust both of you, so let’s do this.. I will upgrade your accounts now and If more mods/admin need to be created, I think you two can drive those decisions while just keeping me informed.
In order not to overburden our new admins, I think we definitely need some more people with the rights to accept and refuse new members. That’s the big bottleneck, right? I think the more the better, or what do you think? (I don’t suppose everyone needs to be full admin?) I think all names that have been proposed until now are trustworthy. I don’t know folks from the Latin side so well, but how about Carolus Raeticus?
I think a moderator is all that’s needed in order to manage the new user queue. There’s quite a bit of spam that always makes it’s way through, something that has always been disappointing about phpBB. I have not looked in awhile to see if there are better alternatives. - Jeff
