Farewell to the WCHA Forums

[Dan Miller]

Since the beginning of this year, when the WCHA board determined I was no longer wanted to host the forums, I have only been able to access them on rare occasions. Most of the time I get a server not responding error. Case in point , tonight is the first time in more than three weeks I’ve been able to get access, and I had to jump through hoops to get here. I visit a lot of sites daily and this one is the only one that shuts me out.

Sadly, I am done trying. I expect most forum users won’t care. Should add anyone want to reach me, send an email to dan@dragonflycanoe.com. Don’t reply to this message or send a pm, I won’t see it.

 

[MGC]

I suspect that there are forum visitors who don't appreciate what a loss Dan's departure is to this community/forum. I would guess there are quite a few who don't even know who he is.
I won't attempt to reconstruct Dan's resume, but let's say this, when I am looking at an old Rushton or similar boat and interested in an expert opinion, Dan is the person I call. In this field of canoe history, collection and restoration, Dan is a foremost expert.
Going back to the beginnings of this forum, it was Dan who was there. If I'm not mistaken, the forum was always hosted on Dans server. Dan served as Webmaster. He was the editor of the Wooden Canoe magazine. The list goes on.
I don't know the nature of his access problems, but the resulting loss of his expertise is very unfortunate.
As Dan has become less involved with the WCHA site, he has devoted his efforts to (among a laundry list of things) to Wooden Canoe Museum.

Home | Wooden Canoe Museum

woodencanoemuseum.org

There he has been sharing the contents of his collections and the canoe related knowledge we have come to respect him for.
If you don't want to lose track of the valuable knowledge that Dan has collected, consider visiting that site.
This is an unsolicited and sincere acknowledgement of Dans work and contributions to the wooden canoe community.
With complete respect and appreciation.
Mike

 

[Todd F]

Dan donated an old canoe that was the second I have had. Picked it up at his house on a clear sub-zero morning but was greeted with a piping hot cup of amazing coffee! I will absolutely stay in touch with him for his insight, experience, and encouragement.

 

[Dan Lindberg]

This both very sad and unsettling news.
I keep coming back to the Forum because of the posts by just a handful of people - Dan is one of them.

I predict a drop in membership.

Dan

 

[Benson Gray]

I have just notified the person who administers the server about this issue. It appears that Dan's forum account has a "Super Administrator" permission that is lacking on my account. This has limited my ability to investigate further. I suspect that Dan's issue is likely to be due to some odd technical quirk. The board of directors made the decision to move the forum to a different server but I'm not aware of any other decisions to intentionally disrupt anyone's access to this forum. Hopefully, we will be able to sort this all out quickly.

Benson

 

[Michael Grace]

Agreed that it would be a big loss if Dan were to stay away from the forums because of an administrative issue. Dan's contributions to the WCHA including these forums and our electronic and print press generally have been invaluable. To be plainly clear, the WCHA Board DID NOT determine that Dan was unwanted on these forums, nor that he was unwanted personally to host the forums. This never happened in any way, shape or form, as every board member and our Executive Director (Annie Burke) will attest. One post in this thread (now deleted) suggested that Dan had been "blackballed" from these forums. He HAS NOT been blackballed by anyone in any way. Anyone who hears the many wonderful things that are said about Dan inside and outside of board meetings should be extremely impressed with the depth of his value.

Thank you, Benson, for alerting the server administrator that there may be a problem with Dan's ability to access the site (though he apparently was able to access for his post above?). Hopefully the problem will be rectified and hopefully Dan will return with his wisdom.

Here are the facts about the change in WCHA Forums management (from a non-IT person). After months of discussion, the Board collectively decided to move web forums hosting from Dan's personal computer and personal oversight to a professional web hosting service. The reasons behind this change were:
(1) to move the legal rights to the forums into the WCHA's name in order to protect both the WCHA and Dan,
(2) to separate the forums (again for the benefit of the WCHA and Dan) from a number of other web domains that Dan runs through his personal contract with another web hosting service,
(3) to delegate responsibilities of forums maintenance to an American-based professional company that is contractually obligated to serve the WCHA
(4) to provide a much-overdue upgrade to the software that runs our forums, and
(5) to ensure that all financial and time burdens of the forums are borne by the WCHA and/or its professional service instead of a valued WCHA member.

Please note two things. First, I am not an IT professional, so I hope anything above related to IT matters is technically correct. I believe it is. Second, I personally value Dan Miller as a long-time friend, and I have always valued his amazing knowledge of canoes and his service to the WCHA and other important wooden boat-related entities. Most recently, we spent some great time together at Assembly this year and we happily exchanged a wonderful antique canoe this summer. Since then Dan and I have been engaged in an ongoing and fascinating discussion about this canoe, and we both look forward to learning more about it and to seeing it restored. Bottom line: I value Dan, and the WCHA's Board of Directors values Dan. None of us would ever wish to see him blocked from these forums, and we would be dismayed (I am) with any troubles he may have accessing them. Clearly there is some technical glitch if he is having problems. I would be aware and I personally would put a stop to any attempt to blackball Dan in any way. But that's a moot statement - no one on the WCHA's board would ever wish any personal or professional harm to come to Dan. He is deeply valued.

Sincerely,
Michael Grace
President, WCHA Board of Directors

 

[MGC]

Agreed that it would be a big loss if Dan were to stay away from the forums because of an administrative issue.

I personally value Dan Miller as a long-time friend, and I have always valued his amazing knowledge of canoes and his service to the WCHA and other important wooden boat-related entities.

Sincerely,
Michael Grace
President, WCHA Board of Directors

Michael,
Thank you.
There is consensus that Dan's departure from this forum is a significant loss. Many of us, including yourself, enjoy access to the depth of his knowledge be it canoes, boats, coffee, birds, what have you.
I never considered that his access problems might be a deliberate action. Frankly, I cannot imagine that as a possibility. More likely is that the changes of architecture, personal, KSA's, learning curve etc. that are at the heart of such significant transitions affecting his access.
Having worked for many years as an engineer I am familiar with the frustrations that passing along a product, idea, design to someone else can bring. Unless you have experienced this, you might not be able to appreciate the level of irritation that comes when something that ain't broke gets "fixed" and ends up broken. I don't know if this is the case, but I suspect that plays a part.

In that we all agree that we would like Dan to carry on here, it seems worthwhile for you to exercise your personal relationship with him to reach out to him to try and understand the issue, address it and bring him back. As he has noted, he does not plan to read what we are currently posting. These are well meaning farts in the wind.

I know that for my own needs, I can still reach out to Dan and I will continue to do that. What I will miss are his always keen observations identifying UFO's on this site ad his humorous injections from time to time. Let's not lose that.
Mike

 

[Benson Gray]

The server administrator has responded and confirmed that Dan’s account has not been discouraged, there are no IP addresses on the discouraged list, and none of Dan’s IP addresses are on the banned list. He has also “increased the PHP memory limit, conducted additional database tuning, and increased the number of simultaneous connections allowed to the server” in case this happens to be caused by hitting some kind of resource limit when the problems occur. He has just made me a “Super Administrator” in the forum, so I was able to confirm that the he, Dan, and I are the only ones with that permission.

I have also passed this information to Dan with an apology for his continued access issues with the forum. He had mentioned this problem shortly after the transition and I had hoped that it would be a temporary thing that would have resolved itself by now.

Let me know if anyone would like more details, has any similar issues, or can think of anything else that I can do to help. Thanks,

Benson

 

[Dan Miller]

Well, it seems rumors of my demise are just that. With Benson's help, the current admin was able to track down the problems I was having it, and they seem to be resolved.

In the meantime, thanks to all you folks for your kind words.
Dan

 

[Todd F]

Glad to see you back online. Will always look for insight and advice from you.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Dan, I'm glad that your technical logon glitch seems to have been solved and that you're back posting and presumably administering. Your long experience and service, which have been conveyed to me by many WCHA'ers, are surely invaluable and irreproducible.

I'd like to emphasize that while the Board of Directors did unanimously vote—for corporate/legal succession and financial autonomy reasons—to put the Forum's Xenforo software license agreements, server hosting contract, and domain name registration into WCHA corporate control, rather than under individual volunteers' names, and to pay for all the foregoing rather than relying on individual volunteer wallets, none of those decisions was made on the basis of any dissatisfaction with the individuals who historically had been volunteering their time or money to the Forum.

Also, to the extent that anyone may think any Forum technical problems are somehow attributable to Board meddling, that is most assuredly not possible. While I'm new and don't personally know anyone, I don't get the impression that anyone on the Board (other than me) has any technical understanding of Xenforo software. Moreover, the Board has no Xenforo power to technically administer the Forum. The Xenforo Super Administrator has the ultimate power, and that person is Dan, co-joined early this year by our new web server hosting company—which specializes in Xenforo software migration, hosting and servicing—and recently by Benson according to Benson's post above. My technical powers as a Moderator are very limited and subordinate to an Administrator's power.

 

[Howie]

"...the current admin was able to track down the problems I was having it, and they seem to be resolved."

Whew!