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Message |
    
David Griffel
Peacock
Username: dgriffel
Post Number: 132
Registered: 04-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2025 - 08:39 pm: | 
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The discussion board was moved to a new server in March 2003, I think? I would really like to see older postings, at least the threads which I started. Is this possible?
[The reason is that I'm planning to bequeath some of my items to the Bristol UK museum & art gallery (which has a fine collection of far Eastern ceramics). And naturally they would like as much information as possible.] |
Jan-Erik Nilsson
Dragon (Board Admin)
Username: admin
Post Number: 14010
Registered: 04-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 01:37 am: |
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Dear David,
No, this Board was created in April 2003, and everything posted before that was lost along with the final version of Yahoo Groups, which disappeared into cyberspace at the time. I am sorry about that, but to be able to keep our posts as they were written, was one of the reasons why we decided to move onto our own server which we did in April 2003. I might have tried to manually lift some longer posts from Yahoo to ourselves, so if any of your older posts exists they should still be found here among the earliest posts.
The full history of this from my point of view began with my first wish to find a place where I could talk to other collectors. It was obvious that nobody can know everything, but if we created a group with all kinds of specialist collectors, we would be able to cover more topics that any other living being could do alone. No museums and no auction houses could cover everything.
At that time there were lists that you could access from the DOS prompt. Usenet still exists, while it's not as widely used as it once was. There were several 'Newsgroups' around, but most members were only interested in identifying what they had so they could sell it on eBay. Very few of the members were also willing to help.
A little later the technology got better and you could join a "list," create a topic, invite interested people, and start sending emails that included images, to each other. In June 1999, I started one of these email-based group chats, initially through an organization called ONElist. In February 2000, this list transformed into something called eGroups, which did not last long before it was sold to a company called Yahoo, who also ran a manually moderated search library. (The beginning of Google).
By April 2003, the Yahoo Groups mailing list had rapidly become so cluttered with advertising that meaningful discussion became impossible. All messages also vanished as their aged pretty much as Facebook does until today. A solution came from our group member Lee Inness Brown, who even offered to buy us a license to the best and most advanced Discussion Board software available at the time. It had been developed for university use and was solid and reliable. I took the advice but paid for it myself so we could anchor this list our own server, and installed it in April 2003. This is why our earliest members have April 2003 as their registration date.
The idea with a perpetual archive was popular and in January 2006 we had grown so much that my web hotel started to send angry letters. This forced me to move our entire Discussion Board to a private server of our own, the Dedi39, hosted by FS Data in Helsingborg, Sweden. In reality this was just paying for more space and all data was brought over as it were.
From 2006 this gave us near endless space but it also made the running costs too high for me to manage alone. At that point, we introduced a membership fee to help cover part of the costs, and to ensure we could say no to advertising and any commercial compromises.
We are still on this same software today, after some rather difficult moments transferring it and the archive to a more modern server just a few years ago.
So, to address your concern — every single post ever made on this Board is still here. I believe you can find them by adjusting the search criteria in our search engine. Anything earlier than that is with Yahoo or just gone.
JE |
Jan-Erik Nilsson
Dragon (Board Admin)
Username: admin
Post Number: 14012
Registered: 04-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 05:56 pm: |
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Dear David,
It also occurred to me that you could repost the pieces you have a special interest in.
I think it would be very interesting for those of us who are still around, to see them again — and who knows, maybe we have learned something we can add in the 25 years since we last saw them?
JE |
David Griffel
Peacock
Username: dgriffel
Post Number: 133
Registered: 04-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2025 - 09:35 pm: |
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Dear JE,
thank you for your most interesting reply. I, and all other members I'm sure, are extremely grateful to you for the time and energy that you have put into the discussion board, as well as your expertise. It is an amazing resource.
I'll take up your suggestion of posting some of those early items. My current camera is a good deal better than my 2002 model!
David |
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