Flutterby™! : meeting Lyn

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meeting Lyn

2003-01-25 19:10:05+00 by Dan Lyke 16 comments

Got together with Lyn of Medley fame last night for dinner. Good discussion, although I was too burned out from a week of meetings and dealing with a vendor to be too coherent. One of the results of that discussion is that I think I want to make Flutterby a little more autonomous, and set up a more personal journal-ish site. I need to install the new version of the code sometime soon, but I'm thinking about ways to make this less my place and more a gathering place. First step is that the "Sites Dan Reads" is going to get dropped from the side-bar to be replaced by something derived from the user records of those who participate in the discussions.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Community ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2003-01-26 17:24:47+00 by: meuon

On the other hand.. I think: "Dan and friends" works nicely as a community. Unless you really want Flutterby to get a LOT bigger. And yes, even I've recently thought of doing a more personal site.. at least post some good rants on downloadalife.com.

#Comment made: 2003-01-27 12:25:03+00 by: meuon

It hit me: Dan, you've succesfully created the best part of an old school BBS on Flutterby. It's not the technology, it's the people and their interactions with the host SysOp. Autonomous entities often die of entropy without that focus point.

#Comment made: 2003-01-27 13:01:18+00 by: ghasty

I agree...Dan is a very good SysOp...now where is the tradewar door?

#Comment made: 2003-01-27 16:32:36+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

C|N>K. Damn, Gary, I had to go read the attribution line on that to see if it was Alec...

I see two issues with where Flutterby is going.

  1. We need a better solution to the multiple contributors to the front page problem. If I can paraphrase Lyn, hopefully not putting too many words in her mouth, it's hard to distinguish the personalities. I know I've confused entries from Dori and Tom over at Backup Brain numerous times. Part of the appeal of weblogging is that sense of hearing from a person. One thing I might try is attaching some sort of face icons to posts, to give another cue to differentiate contributors.
  2. The larger a given community, the more investment it takes to feel a part of it. Check in at Flutterby and you're not meeting one person, you're meeting 5 or 6 plus those who contribute to the comments, and since some of us have known each other for a long time there can be a sense of being the only person at the party who doesn't know anyone there. This limits growth, or turns the gathering into a /. like affair where only a few people care enough to become invested in the community.

So I guess splitting off some of my own rantings could provide a better introduction to me, in isolation from the community, which then makes the community that much less intimidating. And then I'd like to expand Flutterby out to provide some better cues for who's who, and offer some reasonable way to expand the clique.

#Comment made: 2003-01-27 20:33:17+00 by: ghasty

There are parts of "community" that BBSs gave that I really miss...blogs are the closest thing I've found. About every 2-3 months I typically threaten to load (well, see if there's anything left on them) the last backup tapes from The Comfy Chair! BBS and just put up a telnetable board. Hell, even grab Fido feeds...

#Comment made: 2003-01-27 22:05:06+00 by: meuon

If it was not overly cute, I could see uploadable icons or 'theme' for a poster. But the tradewars comment was apropos, if Flutterby had a file leaching area and a door game, it would be a BBS.. :)

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 03:45:25+00 by: John Anderson

How come nobody told meuon about the file leaching area? 8^)=

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 14:59:15+00 by: Dan Lyke

Shhh, he's not 1337 enough.

Anyone got any codes?

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 17:57:43+00 by: ghasty [edit history]

GIVE ME WAREZ! I've been playing around with GeekLog and thinking about migrating what I can over to it. It's got uploadable pictures for users too <grin>...and actually, I have found some ports to some old doors that I'm thinking about putting on weirdass for the helluvait...

Now if I can only daisychain my 8 1x Mitsumi CD's back together to get that "secret hacker" cd containing all the 1337 1980's info...ahhhh memories

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 22:36:26+00 by: meuon

nobody told meuon... - I found a great one at 127.0.0.1, they've got all most the same great stuff I do.

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 22:58:29+00 by: Emma

Hey... My name is Emma and I'm looking for Dylan (Norden). He used to have an email addy that was dylan@coyotegrits.com.. I don't know if he uses it anymore or what he's doing at all. He just disappeared. I really really need to get in touch with him. If anyone knows anything, please email me at emma@miramis.org

Thanks in advance!!

-Em

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 23:23:47+00 by: Dan Lyke

Mail sent to Emma separately. Short answer: The last time my server had contact with his computer was September 5th, 2002.

Man, this thread is bringing back the memories. Some of which I'd rather hoped I'd forgotten for legal reasons. I don't even remember some of the wacky underground zines I got to my P.O. box (because you weren't legitimately underground unless you had stuff sent to a P.O. box), and the phone calls to and from pay phones to chat with phreaks who didn't want to be identified. I'd love to have a copy of Krackowicz' Kracking Korner[Wiki], with tutorials on boot tracing and the like, just for kicks.

Oh my, while searching for that I ended up on a short nostalgia detail and realized in high school I played poker and biked with the author of this introduction to phone systems and phreaking, and... drum roll... I not only met the Chris Chronos, head of the International Phederation of Telephone Hobbiests[Wiki], exalted in that document, I figured out his real name.

#Comment made: 2003-01-28 23:24:52+00 by: John Anderson

And that old time BBS flavah just keeps on comin'!

#Comment made: 2003-01-29 03:08:21+00 by: ghasty [edit history]

My, Gawd, Dan...you are so freakin' 1337

#Comment made: 2003-04-29 01:56:55.73619+00 by: PantherOne

"realized in high school I played poker"

Barlow - GSE BBS

Panther

#Comment made: 2003-04-29 15:40:05.49711+00 by: Dan Lyke

I guess it's time to go public, then. I was The Straw. I've been wondering if the great intro to GSE was lying around somewhere, I'd love to have that up on the web for posterity.