I appreciate this board as much as anyone, but I miss the efficiency of the old site, and there are things many of us would like to see done a little differently maybe.

Does anyone know what it would cost to buy the software and host a site like this? I'm thinking of maybe sponsoring a site if the cost is reasonable.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rustythevibeguy,

Rusty,

In case you haven't already figured it out...click on the word infopop that's along the bottom border of your posts. It's a link to infopop where you can find out about pricing and such.

The VI just upgraded their boards and came into the modern world....

The most important feature of a board in my opinion is the participants. As far as I know reliability magazine had the best bunch of participants around and most have found their way here.

Vib institute board always seemed to me like a cluttered bunch of meandering discussions. I know there are many great folks at VI but I couldn't tell it from reading those boards.

On the old board: There is nothing technical to prevent using it as it is. There was no hacking of importance there and it would be a few minutes task to erase any unwanted postings. I have offered Terry to do that, and also given precise info what would make the old board operational or as a minimum readable. Terry has said yes, fine, but he does not act. I think we have to respect that Terry has another agenda and since he pays the bill here, there is not much we can do about it apart from voting with feet.

Two other boards have been started recently. One in spanish and one with origin mid NY State. Both can be found if you browse the VI board recent month of postings. Would you think there are better chances to contribute well on those two, Rusty? Best regards Arne

Rusty, I have tried out of my company money to make what you like to have and to me it is that, part from the discussions, maybe I am to much business or you don´t like me. Have a look anyway, everybody is welcome and registration is automatic only valid email reqrd. There are no banners, no business based censoring.
http://www.vtab.se/PHP-NBoard/html/modules.php?name=Forums
Welcome to Good Vibrations Forum.
If there would be more real discussions going on I would upgrade to the latest software as this version is 3 years old now and have some quirks required to keep the b´stards out that hacked the old reliability board I had mine hacked the same way but found a way to keep them out as they are really simple minded. It does take some time and effort to do that and the volume of discussion has so far not justified it. Pete if you look at the uploaded data I salvaged from the old board you will find your picture if you know the name or recognize it, you can repost it wherever you like. So keep the discussion up and I will improve anyway you like and that is possible. Welcome everybody.
Also discussions in French, German, Swedish etc. are welcome, why don´t you give JMARC a reply in his native tounge, I never learnt French so you can say with you think of me w/o me being able to censor it :-). You are welcome to do that.
Olov

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OLI,

Arne - you are due my apologies as you did provide great instruction on repairing the old boards and making them useable.

No excuses but you can trust I have not been living at the beach (and it is only 5 minutes away) as travel, my work on the Magazine and other web sites has kept me full of activity and workload.

Our blogs (www.maintenancetalk.com) were brought down about a month ago by heavy spammers hacking in (stay away from open source software) and they wiped out a big bunch of archives. We have over 25,000 RSS subscribers who get our information delivered to the desktop by our Tristana NewsReader and we went quiet for over 4 weeks!

It has been a Herculean task to replace the entire platform with an industrial strength blog platform but we are finally up and running again with much tighter security.

Again, no excuse and we do have some upgrades planned for this board (more storage, more speed, chat etc...) and we are happy to hear anyone's ideas for whatever else they want to see. You can email me off board at tohanlon@reliabilityweb.com or simply post it here. I will read it and respond.

I was a rare visitor (again - too busy) to the old boards but I will admit to cruising these boards a couple of times a day and I am learning a ton and really enjoying the conversation.

I am not sure if we will end up pleasing everyone but I hope we can keep most people on board. (no pun intended)

One thing that may help people who want to become "power users" is to read the help files under the tools tab.

I am really happy to see you here Arne. Your spirit and contributions are a major part of this community.

Terry O

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty:
I appreciate this board as much as anyone, but I miss the efficiency of the old site, and there are things many of us would like to see done a little differently maybe.

Does anyone know what it would cost to buy the software and host a site like this? I'm thinking of maybe sponsoring a site if the cost is reasonable.

Rusty - just so you know our stand - we support any forum that connects maintenance and reliability professionals. We have a free links area to the other related boards we know about and we invite you and others to links your favorite boards (or any new ones you start) here:
http://www.maintenance-news.com/links/discussion_groups_links.htm

It includes links to the Idcon board, ReliabilityDirect (You see many of Dave's postings here as well) and others.

Again - please post any others or your new board when you get it going.

Terry O

Rusty: Snitz Forums is a free web based forum program that is now being used by the Vibe Institute. It is available for download at:
http://forum.snitz.com/specs.asp. Infopop that is used here is one of the better fee based solutions available. I have been asked by many to put a forum on www.reliabilitydirect.com. I have not done so yet as I feel sites such as this, VI, Ollie's and others do a fine job and the board's value and success is ultimately determined by the quality of it's participants. Just a reminder to you that it is tough for an individual to implement, maintain and grow a forum without commercial assistance. Best wishes to you if you decide to pursue your forum.

Dave, Snitz is ASP based board requiring windows server, part from my love hate relation w. Billy Gates, I use Linux and we also got hacked by the same guy that hacked the old Reliability Board but these creeps are narrow minded and only follow a narrow path they found somewhere so I was lucky and had a backup.... And it´s possible to keep them away I hope.
So I use freeware to be able to take the cost of it and I see it as a hobby of mine, everything is not vibrations, I think?

The old board was running on a SUN Sparc station using Solaris O/S I doubt that there is info enough salvaged to rebuild it since Terrence downloaded from me what I got from it and that is not enough to rebuild as it was a flat file system not a modern SQL database. I recycled my last SUN machine a few weeks ago due to lack of space and cost of upkeep. So if the old machine does not exist or a backup that can be read I think it is a huge task or a effort for a software student work. Only my opinion.

Terrence I have now added my link, hope it will be accepted, by the way I entered the Gadget send out and it was never accepted and sent how do you qualify for that? Olov

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OLI,

Thank you Terrence for speedy update, weekend and all, Great Service! Olov

Thanks Olov - we added your link to the discussion boards link at Maintenance-news.com.

Dave G - we have a link to ReliabilityDirect in the discussion board link area. For some reason I thought for sure you used to maintain a discussion forum. Please confirm that you do not and I will remove that individual link (no worries - we will keep all the other links live).

Re: Gadgets email - we use a "confirmed opt-in" email registration for most of our email newsletters. In other words - you enter your email address and we send you an email requesting that you confirm you "really" want the email subscription. Once you click the confirm button - you should be on our list. You can unsubscribe from the bottom of each email newsletter we send. I will check to see if you are pending Olov.

As we have painfully learned over the years and Olov has somewhat echoed - starting something like a board on the web is pretty easy - maintaining it, growing it and keeping it useful is another story.

We are very lucky to be able to stay in this web world full time and we hope we are beginning to make a difference. The great news is that there is plenty of room on the World Wide Web and it supports many voices.

Maintenance still has a long way to go so the more voices moving it forward - the better.

Terry O

Olov - I just read your other post about "where in the world" and we would be happy to send news about your company and product to our Gadget list. Just email me a photo and 100 words with a URL and I will post it.

Just remember me when you are rich enough to buy one of the fighter jets!

Terry O

Terry,
I am not sure you would dare to take a ride with me in that thing, software do now stop the driver from overdoing things, but I am a hacker.....
I for sure have paid enough taxes to own at least a wing tip of one of them. Only income I have had is training the guys that build the engines in balancing, still only 3 planes crashed during all testing and commission 2 with the same pilot in front of TV crews, no fatalities. (Not due to engine failure!)It now flies in regular airforce since several years I think that is outstanding. In the recorded landing crash you can see the full power of composite ("plastic") wings, it flips over several times at fairly hi speed and only a few flakes of plastic fall of, for sure saving the life of the pilot.
I will be back with the gadget info.

Dave I would also like to thank you for the reference, didn´t know you also had a list.
I will try to do the same. Olov

Thank´s Terry for the Gadget mailing, I got like 7000 page views in the first hours! I put a link in my news scroll to the Gadget site so you may get some Swedes as subscribers! Olov

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OLI,

I'd just like to see a board that is fast and convenient... the "Condition Monitoring" and "Vibration" forums seem to overlap here, so stuff I'm interested in is in two different places, unlike with the old board.

And our request for a "used equipment" board was met with "just use Ebay".... makes me wonder if there's not another agenda... seems like a used equipment forum would be really easy to do, and we asked for it, so why not?

Obviously, these forums are just one of many things going on at this site, and understandably, are not going to be a top priority. Hence, my query about starting another truly independent forum somewhere.

Rusty -

No agenda about used equipment but we do have an agenda with keeping business off this site. (I actually own eBay - no I am just kidding).

This site is primarily for exchanging information - not for doing business although if a few people want to sell used PdM equipment - it will be fine with me - unless we got complaints.

I did not say "just use eBay" I simply suggested it is a much better solution as the seller can meet more buyers than he will meet at this board and that is for sure. If a seller is serious - he will use eBay, but again, he is welcome to post here as well.

I do not understand why you cannot post used equipment in the category you want to sell - why does it need a new board?

Someone has an IR camaera for sale on the IR board - and it did not create any problem for anyone - at least I did not get any complaints.

As for having condition monitoring and Vibration boards that overlap, this board always had condition monitoring as the catch all category and then we got multiple requests for specific vibration (then IR) so we went ahead and started it.

Goes to show you - you cannot please all the people all the time.

If I hear from a few more of you about wanting a used equipment board and we get more than a few posting there - I will be happy to start one - so let me hear from you.

Again, we are happy to link to and support any new board - including a used equipment board that you start as well Rusty. I also would not suggest that would have an agenda to start one as it really does not matter - if it is good - agenda or not - people will use it.

Terry O

Well Rusty, I have a garage sale area, you are welcome to post. Olov
http://www.vtab.se/PHP-NBoard/html/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=7&sid=f465ed08c33e3db8e498862a427941be

Terrence, on the old board folks really didn't like anyone "commercializing" the vibration forum -- it was really frowned upon. On the used equipment board, you could however be as "commercial" as you liked, because that's what it was for. I too think it best to keep the main boards "non-commercial" hence my desire for a seperate used (or new) equipment board.

As for Ebay, I once bought a 4-channel DAT recorder off the used equipment board from a paper mill. That would have never showed up on Ebay, because many corporations avoid it like the plague (selling, or buying). And believe it or not, many (if not most) of the guys who frequent this board, don't buy things on Ebay for fear of being scammed or taken advantage of, or just not understanding how it works. But if someone who is "known" on this board were to offer something for sale, they'd be comfortable with it.

I just thought it would be a reasonable service to offer here.... guess not.

Terry,

First of all, I would like to thank you for hosting these boards, it is a very helpful for myself and many others.

I would like to weigh in on the used equipment issue, I would like to see a separate category for equipment for sale.

Thanks, Rick

Thanks for the nice comments Rick - as with anything in life - the more you give you more you get. The knowledge shared on this board is great for learning and I absorb most of it.

Re: used equipment sales - two votes are only one away from a group so is there anyone to provide a 3rd request?

Terry O
Terry O