Asoulutely Ridiculus A Major Forum with NO ADMINISTRATORS?

[rockedge]

I can not express my utter disappointment with the way this forum is operating. Again I am finding people on Facebook who despite trying for weeks can NOT REGISTER. And these potential registered users can NOT FIND CONTACT INFORMATION to address the problems.

All fine and good running completely autonomous? With Apache 2.2 and a phpBB version from 2005 this system with it's thousands of registered users is sailing full speed ahead into rocks that we all can clearly see approaching.

It is frustrating and saddening at the same time. Not even the basic modern legal obligations for running such a website are being met, and all of this is greeted with apathy and hopeless acceptance.

Who has the helm at least? Never mind who has the keys. As far as security goes? That is a whole another story waiting to happen.
So does anybody have any power to manually activate newly registered users? At all?

[Flash]

I can, if I know the name they used to register with.

[rockedge]

Hello Flash,
The email is ellen.hart@mail.com. That's all I have from this one.

Thanks!

[Makoto]

The forum software doesn't really offer a way to search for users' email addresses... I had to drill down the list of recent signups. The username would have helped more than the email address (though in this case, the username is pretty much the same as the email address username )

I activated the account.

[p310don]

No admins is a bit erroneous.

But, the rest is accurate. The most popular email in the world (gmail) cannot be used to create a new registration on the forum.

[bullpup]

No admins is a bit erroneous.

But, the rest is accurate. The most popular email in the world (gmail) cannot be used to create a new registration on the forum.

Erm, I could and did just a few months back..........registered with gmail, no sweat.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

No admins is a bit erroneous.

But, the rest is accurate. The most popular email in the world (gmail) cannot be used to create a new registration on the forum.

Erm, I could and did just a few months back..........registered with gmail, no sweat.

I couldn't use my gmail account. Also all the popular German email-providers (gmx.de, web.de, t-online.de etc.) couldn't be used, as they never received the activation mail. I had tried hotmail which worked immediately.

[mostly_lurking]

A search for "john de murga" brings up several social media profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, which I can't view since I don't have accounts on any of these sites), and this:
https://github.com/JohnMurga
Is this "our" John Murga, or someone else? That page shows some recent activity.

From John Murga's last post in 2018:

I often check the health of the forum, but don't see so many of the posts

I wonder if that still applies?

# whois murga-linux.com
[Querying whois.iana.org:43 'murga-linux.com']
[Redirected to whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com:43 'murga-linux.com']
[whois.verisign-grs.com]
Domain Name: MURGA-LINUX.COM
Registry Domain ID: 676926335_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-11-13T14:21:26Z
Creation Date: 2006-11-20T01:05:37Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-11-20T01:05:37Z
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1068
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@namecheap.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: DNS1.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM
Name Server: DNS2.REGISTRAR-SERVERS.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2020-07-05T12:58:26Z <<<

For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://icann.org/epp

[...]

The bills are apparently still being payed, and John Murga's ancient websites that haven't been updated for years, like this one and this one, are also still online - but yes, it would be nice if it was possible to contact him (does BarryK not have any contact info either?) to verify if he is still around and can fix the problems this forum has, or get a dump of the database so that this community can move somewhere else without losing everything.

[Wiz57]

"Registry Expiry Date: 2020-11-20T01:05:37Z "

Hmm, does this mean after November 2020 this forum will be offline
until the registration is renewed? Is it renewed automatically?

I've used Rockedge's forum, it's quite nice, and in my opinion
(which with a bit of money might buy a cup of coffee) now is the
time to move ALL the content to something like Rock's, perhaps in
a sub-category "Old Murga Forum". If we wait til the site goes
dark, it may be too late.

Wiz

[Smithy]

Flash, have you got a spare email you could use as a contact point
for any registration problems?
I've no idea on the number of potential applicants, but hopefully it is managable.

This site must be being maintained because it is one of the smoothest quickest on the www.

The big boy linuxes I should think are far more popular, along with windows.

[Mike Walsh]

@ smithy:-

This site must be being maintained because it is one of the smoothest quickest on the www.

Absolutely. I don't know of any other website that'll run this smooth, with 15-yr old software.....it must be receiving maintenance, somewhere along the line.

@ mostly_lurking/Wiz57:-

Fact of the matter is, guys - and I agree with what you're saying - until & unless JM can be contacted, and the "concerns" at least voiced (if not actively discussed, and a resolution of some sort reached in a timely fashion), there is sweet F.A. any of us can do about it.

(Thanks for the site/domain research, M_L.)

So, we'll have to do what we can with the available means. To my way of thinking, this would involve moving ALL forum activity to rockedge's new, "test" forum as of a certain date - yet to be decided. To that end, I propose Flash puts "stickies", in headline-grabbing type, at the top of every single sub-forum .....informing the membership that as of this future date, no responses will be received on the murga-linux forum, and to please use the rockedge forum instead.

I think this is something Flash can do.....though I could be wrong. The last thing I want to see is our community fragmented due to no longer having a central, "focal point" for community activity/concerns, etc.

I commiserate with rockedge; it must be immensely frustrating when you have a plan to ensure a future for the forum, have gone so far as to put that plan into effect as far as you are able, yet are stone-walled vis-a-vis further consolidation by complete and utter silence.....

We have to hope, when all is said & done, that JM himself has made it through these last several weeks in one piece, is still hale & hearty, and can sooner or later be contacted by some means.....whatever that may prove to be.

Just my two-penn'orth, FWIW.


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi All, and especially rockedge,

I have to get organized. Tomorrow.

I looked forward to the creation of https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/; and check what's happening there every so often. But as little is posted there, I don't. Maybe I thought that the contents of this Forum would somehow show up there, with appropriate Sections for "continuing" discussions. Maybe that thinking is wrong.

Exactly what steps have to be taken to transition to https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/ being "The" website we use?

Perhaps spell out a detailed plan of action, step by step so that flash and others can provide feed-back: what problems in general or with any step can be anticipated.

Things don't just happen. Someone has to do them; and in a 'do-acracy' there's always the expectation that that someone will be someone else until it become evident that that someone is you or no one. Or did I miss something.

[bigpup]

I couldn't use my gmail account. Also all the popular German email-providers (gmx.de, web.de, t-online.de etc.) couldn't be used, as they never received the activation mail. I had tried hotmail which worked immediately.

Some email providers will block email from this forum as junk mail or whatever.
You have to make sure it is not blocked, by settings in the email provider, for your account with them.

I thought they had a warning about this in the registration process.

My email provider has done this blocking, on some of the emails I signed up to receive.
Had to go into my account settings and identify these emails, as OK to receive.

It is usually being caused by the security setup, they have for what gets blocked.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

I couldn't use my gmail account. Also all the popular German email-providers (gmx.de, web.de, t-online.de etc.) couldn't be used, as they never received the activation mail. I had tried hotmail which worked immediately.

Some email providers will block email from this forum as junk mail or whatever.
You have to make sure it is not blocked, by settings in the email provider, for your account with them.

I thought they had a warning about this in the registration process.

My email provider has done this blocking, on some of the emails I signed up to receive.
Had to go into my account settings and identify these emails, as OK to receive.

It is usually being caused by the security setup, they have for what gets blocked.

I have changed some settings in my gmail account to make a test of receiving the activation mail. Unfortunately I couldn't test, as my email address is blocked - saying it's already in use by another user. This must remain from my earlier attempt to register to the forum using this email address.

So, Flash could you remove the user account connected to my email address?

[tallboy]

Again I am finding people on Facebook who despite trying for weeks can NOT REGISTER.

Did they place a request on facebook to be a member here in the forum? I am not on facebook, and I am obviously missing some background info, but why would they do that? How many are we talking about?

[Makoto]

I have changed some settings in my gmail account to make a test of receiving the activation mail. Unfortunately I couldn't test, as my email address is blocked - saying it's already in use by another user. This must remain from my earlier attempt to register to the forum using this email address.

So, Flash could you remove the user account connected to my email address?

If you know the username attached to the email address, send me a PM (and one to Flash, just in case) with the details, and I'll take a look at it.
(Note that the forum software doesn't allow us to search through accounts by email address, which is why having the account name would help.)

Alternately, if you don't want the account deleted and have a spare email address, I can reset the account to use that email address.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

If I remember correctly it's the same name used on my YouTube channel. Either TAERSH or taersh or even T.A.E.R.S.H. or t.a.e.r.s.h. or even very similar to that. If this account could be activated I would prefer to use this instead of O.F.I.N.S.I.S.

Thanks in advance...

[Mike Walsh]

Again I am finding people on Facebook who despite trying for weeks can NOT REGISTER.

Did they place a request on facebook to be a member here in the forum? I am not on facebook, and I am obviously missing some background info, but why would they do that? How many are we talking about?

Can't say for definite, Olaf, but they could be in puppyluvr's Puppy Linux User's Group on Facebook.....that's one of the most likely.

You won't catch me using social media either - I'm just NOT interested, period - but puppyluvr's group is quite large, apparently.....something like a couple of thousand? Not sure....


Mike.

[p310don]

Puppyluvr's Facebook group has 3883 members at this time of writing. There are regularly (maybe monthly) people posting there who have tried to register here but cannot.

The problem has existed for a long time, perhaps 2 or 3 years.

Bigpup wrote:

Some email providers will block email from this forum as junk mail or whatever.
You have to make sure it is not blocked, by settings in the email provider, for your account with them.

Most people know to check spam etc, however, in the case of the tests I have done with at least 6 different gmail accounts, the email just never arrives. Google blocks it from ever even arriving. Not to inbox, not to spam, not to nowhere. Even adding john@murga-linux.com as a contact before registering doesn't help. My research a couple of years ago led me to discover (from memory) that they return the email with settings required to allow it through. Largely to do with https stuff.
Interestingly, this account is linked to my gmail, but google wasn't hell bent on total web control back in 2009 when I originally registered.

I'm not quite sure why there is such resistance to the FB group. Getting a FB account will not ruin your life. Like much of what computers can offer, it is a great tool for reaching out to a broader community / network. You don't have to also play candy crush saga to help people on there. Generally speaking, you are in control of what you do.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/puppylinuxusers/

[Makoto]

Have you checked gmail's server-side folders? I once had to do that with a password-change request from a service, because gmail's utterly convinced all mail from that service is spam - and for some reason, the request was the only thing blocked at the server level before I could see it.

O.F.I.N.S.I.S.: PM sent.