Voltage forum still salvagable?
Hi there,
I've just read Ken original statement again. See below
"Posted: Apr 7 2004, 12:45 AM
My name is Ken Trough, and I am a consultant and technical writer from Bellingham, Washington and the Voltage Forum architect and main administrator. I've been involved with EVs for a few years now, focused on electric scooters, electric bicycles, electric cycles, and other Personal Electric Vehicles (PEVs).
I really believe in the importance of EVs in creating better living spaces for ourselves. Electric vehicles give us cleaner air and less noise in dense urban areas, less dependence upon fossil fuel products, and they put the FUN back into the commute. I decided to do all I can to promote them in various ways. This included the participation and moderation of various EV related forums around the web. Eventually a desire to organize this sea of raw EV data prompted me to start my own website and magazine on the subject, V is for Voltage.
I have come to believe that a single, large, EV community of forums would be much stronger than a dozen isolated and narrow narrow topic forums. By gathering all these narrow topics under one site, we allow users to easily visit other related topic areas without having to seek out and register at any other sites. This means more effective data sharing. Also, many of the existing online EV communities are based on simple, outdated messaging systems such as listservs or Yahoo!Groups, and the limited functionality of these older systems has stalled their growth. They were good in their day (and still serve a valuable purpose), but ultimately these kind of basic function message systems limit community growth beyond a certain point.
I decided to launch the Voltage Forum as a way to provide the impetus and infrastructure the online EV community needs to be able to grow to the next level. I believe that the software chosen provides the most functionality to the most clients including the top ten browsers as well as difficult clients like pda, cell phone, and WebTV participants. This means we offer wide availability combined with efficient organizational structure, very fast response times, and monster bandwidth. Add the advanced forum information delivery/viewing options, a beefed up backend architecure, and a layered multi-site backup methodology, and I believe you have a system architecture model that will be able to handle the explosive growth expected in the electric technology space.
The Voltage Forum has a team of dedicated forum moderators. These people look for spam and off topic posts, make sure that all the forum participants follow the forum guidelines and respect others, and provide basic leadership in the forums by assisting new users and so forth.
If for some reason in the future I am unwilling or unable to administrate and support this forum, I pledge that I will hand it off to the current moderation staff so that they will be able to find a suitable replacement administrator. This way, the community can outlast any single individual's administrative availability.
I look forward to seeing this forum grow into its true potential, providing the EV community with the fertile ground and the support it needs to not only grow but to thrive around the globe.
As always, we welcome all ideas about how we can make this space even better. Email us here
"
Looking at the third last paragraph I'm a little surprised at whats happened. It would be great if there is some way to contact Ken and, if he no longer wishes t be involved I'd imagine he would want to hand things over to some trustee's so the old site can be continued and rejuvanated. I understand he's not contactable on the numbers that he has printed on his site I'd be surprised if there isn't someone who knows him personally and would be able to contact him to find out whats going on. Anyone know anybody or have any ideas
Cheers
Nick
Hi David
Yeah your right, what puzzle's me is that nobody has heard anything from him. I understand that he's uncontactable on his zortch numbers and emails. There could be any number of reasons for this: He may be unwell, he may be trekking through the jungles of Mexico, he may have a lot of other things on his plate and feel bad about whats going on but feel unable to deal with it right now.
I think what needs to happen is for someone who knows him as a friend to contact him, find out whats going on and let all of us know. I'd be surprised if there isn't someone who knows him well on voltage forums. I'll post a messag there. I think it would even be helpful if Ken were to confirm that he has no interest in the site and no interest in handing it over. I'd be surprised if this were the case but at least we could all move on a bit more if that were confirmed
Cheers
Nick
ps A big thanks for setting up this site.
1983 Cushman Metermaid 72 volts 40mph 30 mile range
Etek powered scooter
48 and 72 volt golf carts
Hi guys,
for now I've made the move.
Bob
Hi everyone and thanks to David, Gman, Xyster, Reid and everyone else who's trying to keep things together and rebuild V is for Voltage. I'm sure there are lots of people like me who have been watching and hoping that you can pull it off. I'll be happy to make a donation towards the setup costs (running costs?) once some sort of agreement can be reached on the future direction.
One question that has been nagging me for the last week or so is why we haven't heard anything from any of the original moderators of V is for Voltage. I understand they were locked out of the old V by the hacker, but has anyone heard anything at all from them since then? Were they all spirited away in the night or snuffed out by the oil giants...
Just knock twice if you can hear us
I left a voicemail at Kens' Number imploring him to get in contact with the Vis4V Hosts and fix it. There is a free patch available to kill the elevated privilages exploit in the Forum software, so it doesn't mean an expensive upgrade.
We should all ring Ken and let him know we care:
Zortch of Bellingham, formerly Badsey Electric Scooter company out of Southern California. Now with an improved and expanded product line.
Contact: Ken Trough (206)339-VOLT (8658)
Hey guys,
I have tried every email address that Ken ever gave me to no avail. He used to always be fast to reply in the past. He's just nowhere to be found like others have determined. This reminds me of the way David Lalonde disappeared awhile ago.....
I didn't actually know there was an issue with the voltage forum until I read what was being discussed on the old Zappy list. After reading that people were getting viruses by going to the old board, I've stayed away. As a moderator there, I still had no administrative capabilities. Ken DID mention awhile back that he thought he was going to be unable to keep up with the board in the near future. He asked for those moderators that were interested in taking over the administrative aspects of the boards to come forward. Ric (Joystix) and I replied, but Ken never followed up on our replies that I know of. I hope it's not a matter of him taking ill or something....
Charlie
e-EZ Sport CX
Currie e-ride mtb
Lepton-e
Maybe the oil company hitmen got to him?
I thought the oil guys got him too. It was that free energy stuff he was always talking about.
Anyway, I was not a moderator on Ken's fourm, but I am more than willing to moderate a new board if it develops. I generally like sticking to technical discussions and really don't want to deal with anything like a "Randy vs. Deafscooter" flame war (although it did have amusing aspects). I do generally know how to tell if a post is out of line.
Sign me up.
Thanks, Fechter for volunteering to be a moderator. I know David wrote he wanted to get a moderating team together prior to it really being needed -- good thinking, I think.
Would you like to moderate the "Electric Technology" section, and I'll take "Electric Rides" and the other sections (not too hard right now :-) until we get enough moderators to have one moderator per section? Then I'll one-by-one hand off the A&A, Racing, and Buy-Sell-Trade, to each new moderator. That way, we can do our lil' moderating biz* without stepping on anyone's toes, or duplicating services (if the site does get busy do we each really need to be reading every new post?), while letting David take care of the more time-consuming technical/domain thing. If one of us is going to be away for a while, or sees something outside their section that needs quick action, the other moderator(s) can jump in to cover.
And if the site doesn't work out, well that'd be too bad, especially since the severance package here is as weak as a blown motor. :-)
V2 Admin David: how about getting The Fechmeister *poofed*?
*if what happened (and didn't happen) at the old V is any indication, seems to me mostly we will be banning spammers and shifting overt and unsolicited EV advertising to the appropriate Buy-Sell-Trade section
--xyster
moderator
Hey All
Seems like this will be the new forum eh?
Hi Xyster -i know i wrote you asking if i can help -you said you need moderators.
Want me to temp moderate something? What is involved in that anyway?
Have you got a donation thing worked out yet -or will you do that when you are more organized?
Maybe get a monthly notice happening as payments could be easily overlooked.
Small amount monthly donations would be better than big hit yearly ones -don't want it cutting out like the old V.
Is David in charge of that -and does he mind doing it?
Top stuff guys -give yourselves a big pat on the back :-)
Cheers Dom
Great to see ya here, mate! And thank you for volunteering...
Check out:
http://visforvoltage.org/forum-topic/35-moderators-needed-general-guidelines-moderators
for moderator-related info.
Hopefully, advertising will completely support the forum. We'll see.
If we've decided to make a serious go of it here, as it seems we have, I'm donating $5 to help David defray the cost of the 5 year domain name.
--xyster
moderator
Yeah - I'll send some bucks too -how??
The link you put there for moderators came up as "page not found"
Cheers Dom
Hi all, great work so far.
I guess I come from the "slightly silent" majority of the thousands of users who dipped in to VisforV daily - for a bit of advice, news and general entertainment.
Unfortunately my technical knowledge is pretty limited, but I do spend vast amounts of time on the forum (fairly relaxed boss!). If I can be of any help in a non-ev-technical way, just ask.
Still gob-smacked that the old forum was un-moderated for so long, and so many of those names were absent. There's no reason why this shouldn't become a stronger and better forum - it's going to take a few months I'd say.
The world is slowly coming round to our ideas - every Sunday newspaper over here is full of alternative energy reports - cars/bikes/home power kits - critical mass could be reached in the UK/Ireland in the next five years. Let's keep going!
Paul
EVT 168 - 5000 kms
Range 35 kms
Distance to work and back 35kms
Thinking about a Vectrix!
Dom -- don't know wazzup with that link not working, it worked at first! Anyway, the moderator discussion is in the Admin & Advocacy section.
--xyster
moderator
This is a message from Ken Trough, the Voltage Forum administrator/owner:
I have been in the lab working on a next generation electric vehicle project. I have only been online sporatically, as I have been trying to stay productive in the shop. I just checked the site and saw the hack. Let me reassure everyone that no passwords were ever readable by the hackers. Even as the top administrator and owner of the site, I cannot read passwords. All I can do is reset them. The passwords are all stored in the database in encrypted form. The user database as well as a number of other areas on the site have been severely compromised. My admin accounts have been deleted.
Rest assured, that I am on it. I will attempt to restore a previous version of the site and will patch the code to try and prevent further hacking. I will also establish a moderating team that will have full access to the site, backups, and so forth.
I am starting now, 1pm on Tuesday afternoon. I hope to have some version of the site back online this evening.
-Ken Trough
Nice to hear the oil monopoly goons didn't get you after all.
Let us know how to help restore the forum and make it more hacker resistant.
Also, you can sign me up to be a moderator...
Is it my imagination, or is this thread shrinking horizontally?
The whole world is your imagination, after all. Boy, that makes me feel small being just a figment of your imagination. Maybe it's the other way around. That would explain why your avatar looks nothing like you.
Anyway .. what's really happening is this forum software does threaded conversations. So as you reply to a parent node, the comment is indented from the parent.
- David Herron, http://www.7gen.com/
Actually my avatar is a picture of me from 1980 out in the middle of nowhere near Moab, Utah where I used to live. Guess I should update the picture. On second thought, the image is great, so I should keep it.
xyster,
Hope you find this buried here.
I'll also donate $5 to help David defray the cost of the 5 year domain name, wwwatts.net, it's actually kind of catchy when you take the time and think about it. Actually watts is what it's all about isn't it?
I just read David's post: Posted: Nov 17 2006, 09:15 AM in bikes and pedelecs.
I agree with his statement:
Anyway, the reason I registered wwwatts.net was that visforvoltage is Ken's name, and I didn't want to tread on his name.
I suggest the name be changed now, and the current users reimburse David $65.00. The longer it stays http://www.visforvoltage.org the more confusion it's creating. Right now a lot of people are in limbo. By changing it now increases it's place on the search index, which is very important. This group has the domain until November 16, 2011, moderators all ready in place. David has already done the majority of the work, all thats left is figuring out some expenses and doing a feasibility study.
David seems very knowledgeable and capable just looking at his other sites to be the intern administrator.
He can also have the current http://visforvoltage.org bounce to http://wwwatts.net
Do I send it to David or what procedure have you set up?
Gman
Peace Out,
Gman
Steve,
Thanks, looking back it seems like what you did might have worked.
In all the confusion it seems a lot of assumptions were made.
I also found it was very easy to contact Ken.
The good thing is we all learned a lesson on dependency, and initiated steps to correct the problem if it ever happens again, and discovered our ability to accomplish something we are passionate about EV's.
Peace Out,
Gman
Peace Out,
Gman
Charlie,
Just getting around to reading some of the post, which are still very difficult to locate.
The last time you were on V, you didn't have any problems is that correct?
When you were there last did you notice your status had been changed by the Hacker from Moderator to Banned?
I was told by others of all the moderators, you were the only one whose ID had been tampered with, I can not confirm that since I never got around to checking for myself before the site went down for repairs.
It seems for now based on this information only you and Ken had your information compromised.
Do you know when the last time joystick was on the site and did he notice anything wrong?
Peace Out,
Gman
Peace Out,
Gman
We'd have to get a response from Ken. Several of us have tried contacting him with no result. Since it's his site, the hosting provider would obviously only talk to him. The hosting provider would obviously not talk with one of us about the site content. So to do as he suggested he would do, we would have to talk with him.
- David Herron, http://www.7gen.com/
- David Herron, http://www.7gen.com/