I think that deliberate expansion rather than organic growth is a dangerous path.

What She Said. If you push to hard to make it something other than what it is, it will become something different, but not the something different that you want it to be.

And a 'zine would not be "just a little more work." It would be a lot of work. People would have to rewrite posts as self-contained essays. Other people would have to edit them, and that's a touchy situation even when all the parties involved are getting paid for it. (porn unintentional). Publishing schedules would have to be set and met. Please note the problems folks are having with these very same issues in the Anthology thread (porn intentional). And for what purpose? It takes the site away from what it's built to do -- host discussions. If at some point we wanted to say, here's an archive of stuff people here have written about Buffy, which will be added to on an irregular basis, that's maybe something to consider, but I don't see the point of anything more complex.

OK, (getting read to post a politcal essay the size of the great American novel.)

Pull up the drawbridge?

I overstated it.

Where's the vibe you're seeing?

Just caution. Protecting This Thing Of Ours. Which is appropriate and right.

I think jengod is on to something. We've only been here a week. We've yet to crash the server. We're still on honeymoon with this board, so let's see where moving here takes us.

Also, it is heaven on a stick. So fast, so roomy.

Just caution. Protecting This Thing Of Ours.

Kinda same-old same-old, though, isn't it? Nothing new about that.

I'm looking at the links page again. Our current categories are:

• Buffista Personal Homepages
• Buffy/Angel Reference Links
• Core Buffista Sites
• Fanfics by Buffistas
• Foamy Pictures of Cast Members
• Misc.
• News Stories and Such
• Recommended Fanfics
• Worship Tim Minear
• Other Discussion Boards
• Fan clubs
• Buffista Web Journals

Do those make sense? Do they need to be revamped? And I'm wondering about dead links. Someone mentioned the contre les vampires site -- is it dead? moved? pining fjordwise? And I'm sure there are others. I *think* sa said she'd have a look through, but really it would be great if a couple people could sift through them and make sure they're as useful as possible.

But of course that does not eliminate the larger issue. One thing someone (Evil Jimi?) said in a joking tone, was that the developers might sell the code. Obviously that would have to wait until a future version. (OK, not obviously - but I suspect it would be better). But why not. ita and others just put a year of their lives into developing this. If they can find buyers, why shouldn't they get paid for their labor?

Some coder types (ie, my husband) are big on open source.

I was wondering about the possibility of releasing the code as open source also. I don't think releasing it as a commercial (or even shareware) product would work, because we'd have to be responsible for actually supporting the product (which would be a hella lotta work). Also, I suspect having an actual income stream could add a lot of complications to our financial situation, like taxes.

OTOH, if we release the code as open source, it could actually do some other groups some good. I know of at least one group that is looking wistfully at our board, trying to figure out if they could do the same for their community, and as more and more boards fold, there may be more similarly inclined groups.

Sure - and if it got widely used the open sources could get a nice bonus on their resume. "I was part of the orignal team that developed the Phoenix board software now in use by over 2000 Internet communtites including ...."

But a sale does not have to require support. Go to a feature rich version 2, and sell it to WX or one of the other big names in board software. No support worries.

And I don't think open source neccesarily equals free. Intellectual labor is still work. ita and other put a lot of time and work into this. If they can find a way to get paid for this, it is wrong because ...

Incidentally, I don't know that such revenue would go to the buffistas. We did not the develop it. Of course if ita and Jon, Gud and others suddenly found themselvers with an unexpected sum of money , I suspect at least some of it would go to keep the board running. But that is because they are generous souls - not because of some obligation.

I think the main virtue of this board is we built it to look and feel and act the way we wanted it to, not that it does anything wildly different to any of the many other online discussion systems out there.

If other people want to set up a board, there are all kinds of off-the-shelf and free systems they can use, in Perl and PHP.

It seems a lot less buggy than most the other systems. And faster too.