1

The Lounge / Re: Flat Earth Society Reunification Poll

« on: January 14, 2015, 02:47:18 AM »

Found signs of him even in Cambodia..

2

The Lounge / Re: Flat Earth Society Reunification Poll

« on: January 13, 2015, 05:04:56 AM »

I think the reunification would have a positive effect for everyone involved.  I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, but the forums here have had a couple technical hiccups over the years.  The tfes.org admins will be able to handle those technical problems much better than I can.  If the tfes.org forums now are any indication, things will run much faster and we'll deal with less down-time.  Plus they're more active on the forums than I generally am.  The reunification also brings a bunch of other very active users back into the unified Society.  It also brings Thork back, I guess, but we'll try to cope.

Apart from the tfes.org/theflatearthsociety.org forums merger, we're also hoping to make the homepage much more active.  I've done a decent job of adding to the library and image gallery over the past year or so, but I'd love to have other people contributing to the front page as well.  I'm seeing this as an opportunity to be more inclusive all around.

Wilmore and I have been talking with the tfes.org guys and I think everyone's pretty happy to end this rift and start focusing on improving the Society, working on new FES-related projects and spreading the word about Flat Earth Theory.

3

The Lounge / Re: I went to visit Patrick Moore!!!

« on: December 24, 2014, 08:12:53 PM »

Very cool!  I read one of his books -- Can You Speak Venusian? -- when I was a kid and found it very interesting.  I still have that copy today.  There's a chapter in there about the Flat Earth Society..

4

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Membership

« on: December 24, 2014, 08:04:45 PM »

While you're here Daniel, can you please do something to make the pages on this forum load in in under 5 minutes? 

Working on it even as we speak.  The site has been dealing with a DDOS attack for the past several days.  Things are running a lot better now than they were a day or two ago but there's still room for improvement.  I'm looking into longer-term solutions to avoid this in the future.

5

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Poor Server Speed Affecting Site Viability?

« on: December 24, 2014, 08:02:38 PM »

Glad to hear it's working better now.  The attack seems to be slowing down but I'm keeping an eye on it closely.  And I'm looking into long-term solutions to avoid DDOS-related slowdowns in the future.

6

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Membership

« on: December 23, 2014, 02:51:50 AM »

Yes, did the membership pack ever arrive?  There was a period where they were quite delayed but I think everything up until a couple of weeks ago should have been received by now.  If not, please email me ([email protected]) and I'll refund the Paypal.

7

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Poor Server Speed Affecting Site Viability?

« on: December 23, 2014, 02:39:40 AM »

Very sorry about the poor performance you're all experiencing on here recently.  I've done some investigating and the site is being attacked by a handful of Tor nodes as well as IP addresses in the Ukraine, Luxembourg and a random assortment of other locations from which we're usually not getting hundreds of access attempts per second.  Very annoying.  I'm working with the hosting service to get this sorted out.

Thanks to Jroa for alerting me.

And, as PizzaPlanet mentioned, we're trying to work out some way of 'merging' the two sites so that the forums are in the hands of the more technically capable tfes.org guys.  Still ironing out the details of that but the sooner it's done, the happier everyone will be, I'm sure.

8

Announcements / Re: Join us on social media and become a Flat Earth Explorer!

« on: August 23, 2014, 06:41:30 AM »

As an aside I do believe these images contain the most amount of Daniel face ever encountered on the interwebs. It's not much, but it's a start.

Yes.  There's no need to continue speculating about whether or not I have a chin or mouth -- the proof is out there now.

Never had a problem with the multiple orders I have made and always a few extra goodies thrown in. Which is nice and well appreciated.

That's good to hear.  I've generally had very good luck with the postal system but things do occasionally go missing.

Anyway, about the shirts: I've had a new batch printed now.  I'm just waiting for them to be delivered.  That should be on Monday.  Once they're here, I'll let everyone know that the shop is open again.  I got about 100 shirts printed this time.  If those sell out quickly, I'll get another batch done. It should be easy now that I've found a good t-shirt printer here in HK.

9

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

« on: August 12, 2014, 02:02:39 AM »

I'd say God's judgement's are just but then again all of us deserve death and it's only by the mercy of God that we have been given any sort of life at all. So if everyone deserves death then it's not wrong for God to save those whom he chooses to save.

Why would a loving and just god create beings that are immediately deserving of death?

10

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

« on: August 11, 2014, 07:37:40 AM »

I first discovered gnosticism in Philip K. Dick's "VALIS".  I'm agnostic but I certainly see the appeal of gnosticism over the standard model of Christianity -- specifically the gnostic concept that the God of the Old Testament is a flawed 'local' god rather than an omnipotent, omniscient deity.  It's difficult to reconcile the idea of undeserved suffering (or any suffering, really) with an all-powerful, loving creator god.  The gnostic concept of a greater, purer but ultimately unknowable and distant Godhead helps make sense of that.

11

Arts & Entertainment / Re: post MUSIC VIDEOS THAT YOU LIKE.

« on: August 11, 2014, 07:11:06 AM »

I saw about a minute of this on "Off the Air" on Adult Swim and immediately fell in love with it.

Rone - Bye Bye Macadam
#ws" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">

And while I'm on the subject: "Off the Air" is amazingly good, particularly the "Worship" episode:

#ws" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">

12

Arts & Entertainment / Re: which is better Happy Gilmore or Billy Madson?

« on: August 10, 2014, 07:48:12 AM »

The correct answer is Happy Gilmore.

13

The Lounge / Re: Why can't we be friends?

« on: August 10, 2014, 06:53:11 AM »

Hi.  I just discovered this thread and figured I should probably chime in to reassure everyone that this is a good thing in the long run.  I'm realising now that I just don't have enough time to give the forums the attention they deserve while doing the other things I have to for the Society -- building/curating the Flat Earth Library, handling memberships, working with our social media accounts (which Lord Wilmore has been massively helpful with over the past few years), trying to drum up media attention, occasionally dealing with merchandise, etc.  If we can merge the two forums and end up with a single forum that runs smoothly, reliably and is well moderated, it's a win for everyone. 

We're still working on the details but, as Parsifal said, the general idea is to keep things under the theflatearthsociety.org umbrella, at least as far as the end user is concerned.  Most of the site will remain here on the current theflatearthsociety.org server but the forums and possibly/probably the Flat Earth Wiki will be hosted on the tfes.org server but both will appear to users as though it's still here.  So, again, as far as anybody sees, everything will be at theflatearthsociety.org.  The big advantage of running the forums on the tfes.org server is that the technical crew there will have easy access to the behind-the-scenes parts of the forums for maintenance/upgrades/repairs/whatever.

Anyway, we're still hammering out the details but I'm hopeful that this reunification will be a very good thing for the forums and the Society as a whole.

14

Announcements / Re: Join us on social media and become a Flat Earth Explorer!

« on: July 20, 2014, 09:32:38 AM »

I've officially announced it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

15

Announcements / Join us on social media and become a Flat Earth Explorer!

« on: July 19, 2014, 10:14:58 AM »

I'll be making an announcement about this more publicly tomorrow but I wanted to give the forums a heads-up.  The Flat Earth Society is expanding its social media presence.  To kick this off, we'll be running a celebratory campaign that showcases our supporters all over the Disk.  We'll be asking people who have FES t-shirts to Instagram themselves wearing the t-shirt wherever they are and tag @FlatEarthToday and hashtag #FlatEarthExplorer.  Please geotag or hashtag your location as well.  We will be regramming the photos across our social media network so people can see our supporters all across the world.

No Instagram? No problem. Send them to us via Twitter, Facebook or email. 


Follow us on social media at:
Instagram: http://instagram.com/FlatEarthToday
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FlatEarthToday
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FlatEarthToday
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flatearthtoday/
Tumblr: http://flatearthtoday.tumblr.com

16

Announcements / Re: Feature in Pacific Standard Magazine

« on: May 05, 2014, 03:56:11 AM »

They seem to have caught Daniel mid-update, but press is press I guess:

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/nature-and-technology/earth-still-flat-80330/

Er, yeah, not the best article.  But I tweeted her after the update was complete so hopefully that got us a few views for the new site.

17

Announcements / The new site is up and running!

« on: May 02, 2014, 01:02:31 AM »

After far too long, the new front page is up and running.  There are a lot of small changes and a few big ones.  The biggest is the Flat Earth Library.  It used to contain maybe 300-400 pages of material.  Now it's closer to 4,000 pages, including a lot of books, journals and pamphlets which, as far as I know, aren't available anywhere else.  And, of course, notes and letters from the Samuel Shenton archive. 

The membership register is up and running again.  And it's searchable/sortable.  And new member registration is available again!

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org

If anyone has suggestions -- things to change or add -- then please let me know.

18

The Lounge / Re: FES not very active.

« on: April 01, 2014, 06:24:55 AM »

Also, lol@Ski's ass-kissing.  Keep it up, big boy.  I'm sure Daniel will notice you there eventually.

I've noticed.  A tasteful bouquet of flowers is en route to Ski even as we speak.

19

Announcements / Moving to a new server today..

« on: December 01, 2013, 12:41:36 AM »

Just a quick heads-up: we're finally moving to the new server.  The forums post database was initially moved a few weeks ago so we'll lose a bit of content.. but at least the errors and bandwidth issues will be a thing of the past.

With the new site up and running, I'll also be adding thousands of pages of new documents from the Samuel Shenton archive.

20

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Its hard to get here from google

« on: October 20, 2013, 05:19:17 AM »

When is there no homepage?

It's missing at the moment.  A few weeks ago, we had an attack on the site that damaged that folder.  There's a working (and updated) version on the new server already, so I'm holding off on fixing the broken one here.  John has the forums on the new server nearly set up, so we'll be switching over soon (yes, I know you've all heard that before) and the broken version will be irrelevant.

21

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: www.theflatearthsociety.org doesn't work

« on: September 17, 2013, 07:27:41 AM »

The admins and owners here are incompetent. I don't understand how it can possibly take this long to switch servers. They are having us on I'm telling you.

Moving to a new server doesn't take this long.  The main site's CMS is already up and running there.  Moving the forums is what's causing problems.  We've got a huge forums database and there have been major problems getting that moved over without losing tons of messages in the process.  As soon as that part is resolved, we're good to go.

22

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: www.theflatearthsociety.org doesn't work

« on: September 13, 2013, 07:08:11 AM »

Sorry about the technical problems (and general lack of attention from me) recently.  As soon as this server move is finalized, bandwidth problems and keyword filtering will be a thing of the past.  I also have hundreds and hundreds of pages of new document scans (lots of letters, pamphlets, entire books..) that will be available on the new site.  And a new episode of the podcast which, among other things, will explain why I've sort of disappeared for the past few months.  Big things on the way very soon!

23

Announcements / "Lost Password" emails..

« on: June 11, 2013, 04:49:01 AM »

I've had a few reports of people receiving emails saying that they had clicked on the "I forgot my password.." button.  I believe this is someone spamming members.  Please disregard the email and do not click on any links included in the email.

24

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: The Flat Earth Society needs an anthem

« on: January 12, 2013, 11:51:18 AM »

Hi.  A couple things:

Yes, I'm not the most active person on the forums, but I do keep an eye on things and when there's a major problem, I'm pretty good about responding.  I imagine that anyone who's ever contacted me on Twitter about a serious technical problem on the site saw action pretty quickly.  Just because you don't see me posting a lot doesn't necessarily mean I'm not around.  And I do sometimes participate in threads as well, so it's not as if I'm a complete ghost on the forums.

Also, the Flat Earth Society is more than just the forums.  Adding materials to the library, email correspondence, memberships, the podcast, occasional batches of t-shirts, etc are also part of the job and you'd be surprised how much time a lot of that stuff takes.  And then there's background maintenance stuff that generally doesn't get noticed but would get noticed if it wasn't happening.

I know there was a period where, as Wilmore correctly pointed out, I wasn't very involved with the Society and it suffered a bit because of that.  But that was quite a while ago and certainly isn't the case now.

25

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: The Flat Earth Society needs an anthem

« on: January 09, 2013, 03:00:29 PM »

You know what we need?  A secret handshake.

26

Announcements / Re: New Forum Theme Competition

« on: December 28, 2012, 02:52:17 PM »

Ok, latest version is running now.  And I've fixed a few of the missing stars and the 'user online' image.  Anything else missing?

27

Announcements / Re: New Forum Theme Competition

« on: December 28, 2012, 01:51:53 PM »

Hah, just noticed one right now.  The "online" notification thing next to your names isn't showing up.  Probably just accidentaly the image when copying over.

I just fixed that.  Shouldn't be an issue anymore.

28

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: site not working

« on: December 28, 2012, 01:16:05 PM »

Yes, things will be a bit bumpy for the next couple of days.  It's unrelated to the theme.  Other stuff I'll explain more about when it's finished..

29

Announcements / Re: New Forum Theme Competition

« on: December 28, 2012, 09:49:15 AM »

Tintagel,

The theme looks absolutely amazing.  A huge improvement over what we've been using.  Thanks so much for setting all this up.  I'll email you about what you and Wilmore discussed..

30

Announcements / Possible down-time over the next couple of days..

« on: December 27, 2012, 05:20:49 PM »

I'm doing some major upgrades over the next couple of days and it's possible the site may go down from time to time.  This will affect the forums as well as the front page.  I'll keep people updated via Twitter (@danielshenton) as things progress.