timc Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 [This message was sent to our email lists Feb 6th, 2015] The CR Society will be moving all of our member discussions onto the CR Society Forum on February 15th, 2015. This message explains the background, the reasons for the change, and what you need to do to transition to our new home. Discussion forums have always been central to the CR Society as an organization supporting the CR practice of real-world human beings. When Brian Delaney, Roy Walford, and others founded the CR Society in 1994, it arose primarily from discussions on the newsgroup sci.life-extension, and our most active way to welcome newcomers and help human CR practitioners establish and maintain a sustainable, healthy, scientifically-informed CR practice while minimizing the risks was through the CR Society email distribution List. Over time, the tools available on the Web became more sophisticated, and connection speeds and data limits expanded, and a new tool for internet-enabled group discussions appeared: the internet discussion forum. These have several advantages over email distribution lists: they make the entire discussion visible at once, so that context can be better assessed; they have a range of powerful tools; one can directly post graphics and other rich content (for instance, Michael could never have posted this on the List); it is easier to make quotations from previous posters and outside sources visible; it’s easier to follow content that interests you but ignore content that doesn’t; and so on. For these and other reasons, usenet is almost dead, email distribution lists are on the decline, and Forums have become the dominant place for detailed, analytical discussion of subjects of sustaining interest. At the Sixth CR Society Conference (CR-VI) at the Gerontological Society of America meeting in 2009, CR Society members voted to move our discussions toward Forums. At first, we hosted both the List and the Forum, and then at one point made gentle moves to nudge people to transition over to the Forums. Few people were ready to make the transition at that time: people were familiar with the old system and didn’t want to adopt new technology, and the Forums were very sleepy and seemed uninviting compared to the robust and long-established traffic on the List. Meanwhile, newcomers to CR and the CR Society have mostly jumped on to the Forums as a more familiar (to most of them) and obvious place for discussion. The time has now come for the whole community to join together on the Forums. Uniting Two Solitudes The List is mostly populated by long-time CR practitioners who are familiar with many of the scientific and practical details of CR and are comfortable with their established views and practices. This has reached the point where discussion has almost petered out because of predictability, or been reduced to variations on an old cartoon: two old men sit in rocking chairs beside each other in silence, until one calls out “Number thirty-seven.” The second one laughs briefly, and then silence returns for a while, until the second man murmurs, “Sixty-four,” eliciting a chuckle from the first — reminding each other of old chestnuts they no longer have the energy to repeat. Meanwhile newcomers find that there is little traffic on the Forums both because the plurality of members are still List-only, and because they are still mostly populated by newcomers, who can’t offer as much expert guidance on both CR science and the practical details of CR as List members would – if anyone ever asked (which they don’t). Additionally, the incessant technical problems with the List software and hosting are wasting an enormous amount of volunteer time and frustrating members with routine unsubscriptions, dead Archives, undistributed messages, and so on. The Forum software is more robust, better supported, and easier for volunteers to maintain. So after years of parallel paths into two solitudes, we are bringing everyone together at last in the CR Forums. Getting Started If you’re not already registered, your first step is to create an account. Setting up an account gives you access to all the available tools (see below) and protects your online identity against being accidentally or intentionally “adopted” by someone else, leading to confusion or worse. It’s important that you do this and activate any subscriptions you want (below) before we finalize the transition: while we could have automatically subscribed everyone on the List to the Forums, this would probably have tripped up a lot of people or software spam forums, and would have given people Forum handles or subscription options they wouldn’t have chosen and might not like. Once you’re registered with the Forums, you’ll want to make sure you sign in each time you visit. You can select a checkbox to keep you logged in on a specific computer until you actively log out, although your browser preferences may be set to override this and log you out every time you close the browser. You can also check a box to log in anonymously, so no one can see that you’re online (although your posts will still be credited to you when you make them). We wish we had a more robust tutorial on how to get the most out of the Forums. Here is some important information on subscribing to topics and threads; here is a general guide (from another Forum, but mostly translatable) to the basics of using a Forum; here is a guide to some of the editor tools that let you insert links, graphics, external quotes, etc into your posts. We will keep the List active for one purpose and one purpose only: for Al Pater to post his resources. These will still be searchable and linkable in the Archives, so that Forum users can refer to them and link them in their posts to make use of their content for personal use or to extract in their posts. Otherwise, messages sent to the List will bounce after February 15th. Come over to the forums; kick the tires, try the tools out for a spin, and let’s see what happens when the whole community gets together at last! -- From the Board of Directors, The CR Society International Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saul Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Hi Tim! I believe I'm subscribed to all of the Forums -- but I have not been receiving email notifications when a new post occurs on one of the Forums -- which is what I would like to happen. About a year ago, I did get email notifications about all new posts to all of the Forums -- but these have stopped coming; I don't know why. I'd like to get this fixed. Thanks, -- Saul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Hi Saul, You now have several email addresses, whereas when I first 'met' you on the List you only had one; is it possible that it's being sent to the wrong address? Look under the dropdown with your username ("Saul") at the top of each page on the Forum; select 'my settings'>'email and password'. Also, you may have opted not to get any email notifications. Again in 'my settings', look under "notification options." I have just about everything checked off... -Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saul Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Hi Michael! I also have just about everything checked off -- and I did get your email at the email address that I always use for crsociety material: My gmail address: saul.lubkin@gmail.com. I don't know why I am no longer notifications when there are new posts; or new topics added. :( -- Saul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Hi Saul, Huh... and you ARE subscribed to both 'Science' and 'Practice', I see. Er, have you looked in your spam folder ...? (And how did you know I had replied to you? You responded very quickly ...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saul Posted February 7, 2015 Report Share Posted February 7, 2015 Yes. I even looked in my "All Mail" folder -- not there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Cain Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 There is also this "new content" link for a quick check-in. I don't think you can subscribe to it as is though. http://www.crsociety.org/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=viewNewContent&search_app=forums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest saul Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Finally! I have received a forum post (the one above, from James), in the new email account that I set up. So, if everything is OK, I should be able to receive forum posts now, for the forums to which I am subscribed. :) -- Saul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Finally! I have received a forum post (the one above, from James), in the new email account that I set up. So, if everything is OK, I should be able to receive forum posts now, for the forums to which I am subscribed. :) -- Saul Good to hear Saul. I updated the SPF records yesterday (a DNS thing to prevent SPAM) for our new IP address. Is there a preference here for HTML or plain text emails by default? It might still be adjustable per user... ? -Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Hi Saul, Great this is now working for you. Do remember to log in before posting! -Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saul Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Thanks, Michael! I will be sure to login! And thanks, Tim (I'm assuming that you're the moderator.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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