About the Forums [historical post]

[admin]

The post below is for historical curiosity, mostly: These forums began life as "newnewforum.com" for people to post about their new projects; it then morphed more and more into forums for Critique.org/Critters, which is now the sole purpose. Posts about new projects are still welcomed. The post below was the old "about the forums" post:

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First the background. I like to create things. Back in the day, I founded the world's first free Internet service (Nyx.net; apparently it was the first public Internet service of any kind). I started one of the largest Internet writers workshops (Critters.org). I've written a ton of tools of various kinds. This story concerns one of those. I created a small tool for web designers, to make their life easier ( http://tech-soft.com/ht , not that it matters).

License terms are generous (Creative Commons), so I announced this tool on sites for web developers, just as in years past I'd announced Nyx, Critters, and other creations. I've found this specific tool immensely time-saving, and so might the readers on these sites. This is the same sort of announcement that informed the world of the births of Linux, PERL, and many other useful tools.

On most of the sites my posting was deleted as "spam" and in many cases I was banned as a user.

I was at first inclined to blow this off, until I realized what a negative impact this behavior was having on innovation in general. What if Linus Torvalds was banned for announcing Linux? What if nobody was allowed to hear about the birth of PERL? Etc. I've written an extended article on this subject at http://critique.org/assass.ht.

It's essentially an essay on why discussion forum sites should allow and, indeed, ENCOURAGE creators to post notes about their creations.

I went looking around a little for sites that permitted people to announce their new products/services/web sites/etc. and found very little.

My hope is that this site will become unnecessary -- that the existing sites where people talk will change their policies to allow and encourage announcements of new things. These kinds of announcements are NOT spam. They're vital for progress and cross-fertilization of even newer ideas.

In the meanwhile, until this site is unnecessary, you're free and encouraged to announce your new stuff here and discuss just about anything.

The only moderation I'd like to see is to prevent (1) topics that are purely off-topic advertising or illegal -- e.g. viagra ads in a software forum; (2) bots -- you have to be a real person posting; or (3) overly repetitive ads -- announce your New Thing once only, no repetitively posting it as that will drown out other people. (See the official forum rules for details.)

Lastly, while most of the good domain names were taken, NewNewForum.com was available, so here we go.

Please enjoy the site and let others know about it.

--Dr. Andrew Burt