Sorry folks,
The old Alabama in the Civil War Message Board may be gone and unavailable. Yesterday evening I sent out a notice by email to all of the visitors to the old board who had included their email addresses with their messages. In that email I explained why I was moving the board which included complaints about the service from Server.com, the provider of the old board and the benefits of the features on the new board.
In an attempt to do what I thought was the "right thing". I included an email to the folks at "Server.com", so that they were aware of our move and why we were moving. I felt this was appropriate and due to my business background thought they would want to know why their "customer" was leaving.
Unfortunately, the reaction from Server.com is to "discontinue" service to the old board immediately. I have sent a followup email which I hope their management will read and return service but I am afraid the old board may not return.
Just for the record, I'm including the original notification email the responses from a representative of Server.com and my responses to her.
I repeat I apologize for the lack of service to the old board. NONE of the messages have been lost through last night and I will be making them available as an archive link to this site, hopefully as early as today.
I guess I must be and "old guy" or have a different business experience than internet business people. Since my business is industrial sales, I receive and lose large orders all the time. It sure hurts when I lose a big one, but in spite of that, I want to know why, even if I disagree with my customers beliefs and perceptions.
Unfortunately, Server.com doesn't see it that way.
Jim Martin
-----------------------
Here's the exchange:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
To: <contributor@history-sites.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 5:26 PM
Subject: ALABAMA IN THE CW MESSAGE BOARD IS MOVING!
THE ALABAMA IN THE CIVIL WAR MESSAGE BOARD IS MOVING!
As a past visitor and contributor to the ALCWMB, I want to make you aware
that the web-site is moving to a new home. For a number of reasons,
including intermittent and more frequent slowdowns in access times, an
increase in the advertising from the web-space provider (Server.com),
feature limitations in the “DiscApp” message board software, etc., we’ve
decided to relocate the message board.
The new URL (Internet Address) for the Alabama in the Civil War Message
Board is:
http://history-sites.com/cgi-bin/boards/alcwmb/
PLEASE UPDATE YOUR LINKS!
If you are a current contributor, “thank you” for your continuing support of
what we believe is a valuable historical and genealogical resource. If you
haven’t visited us recently, we’d love to hear from you and know how your
historical and/or genealogical research is progressing.
Since the Fall of 2000, when the message board first appeared the site has
grown dramatically. We’ve received almost six-thousand five-hundred (6,500)
messages and our average number of new messages per day is approximately
forty (40). According to our most recent count, we have twelve (12)
published book authors who regularly contribute to the site, plus educators,
professional and amateur historians, genealogists and family researchers
and historical re-enactors. If you haven’t visited the site in the last
ninety (90) days, do yourself a favor and become reacquainted.
SOME NEW FEATURES ON THE MESSAGE BOARD:
The new message board is more flexible, faster and offers a number of new
capabilities that you will enjoy and find useful. Here are just a few:
1) Automatic “Fill-in” of name, address, your web-site link and images
The system can now recognize you on subsequent visits and will customize the
layout of the board to your individual preferences. In addition, once you’
ve submitted your first message the system will remember your name, email
address (optional for automatic notification of responses), your web-site
link and title, if you have one, and any image you might like to attach to
your messages.
This feature eliminates the keystrokes and “cutting and pasting” necessary
to identify your messages each time you post.
2) Automatic Email Notification
When you post a message, if you include your email address, the system will
automatically inform you by email of any responses to your message.
3) Security
Your email address, should you choose to take advantage of the “Automatic
Email Notification” feature is kept in a secure, encrypted, binary file
which is not displayed with your message or included in the “html” source
file. Your email address is only accessible to the administrator of the
board and will not be shared with any outside entity or other message board
contributor without your permission. You can also use an “alias” if you
choose, so that neither your name nor your email address is displayed. This
could be particularly attractive to recognized authors, professors, NPS,
federal and state government employees, who might be deluged with emails or
subject to unfair criticism or insult.
If you setup a “User Profile” (discussed below), you can guarantee that no
other user can post a message under your user name or email address. Your
user identity is completely protected.
4) User Profiles
You can now setup a password protected “User Profile” where you can tell
others on the board, as much or as little as you like, about yourself. For
authors or those engaged in Civil War related commercial pursuits this might
be an excellent place to do a little self-promotion. As a contributor to
the board we are happy to extend this privilege as long as this
self-promotion is reasonable and in “good taste”. The password protection
allows you to return at a later date and edit your personal information.
5) Message Preview, Spell-Checking and Editing
With the new software you can see how your message looks before you post it,
you can even run a spell-checker to see if you’ve made any typographical or
spelliing errors. :-)
6) Hotlinks
The old message board was unable to recognize URL’s or email addresses
included in the body of your message as active links. Now if you’d like to
include a hyperlink or email address in the “body” of your message you may
do so and the software will automatically recognize and display the URL or
email address as a “hot” or active link. There is no need to cut-and-paste
the addresses into your web browser address line. Just click on the link
and you will be taken to that URL.
7) User Preferences
You can customize how the message board is displayed according to your
personal preference. You can display messages by “thread”, chronologically,
condensed or however you choose. You can also determine how many messages
will be displayed by days, weeks, months or since your last visit.
8) Digest Version
If you subscribe to the message board “Digest”, you will receive a daily
email listing of ALL the messages posted that day. For our unit and county
historians and other “expert” researchers this is especially useful to
eliminate the need or possible oversight of visiting the message board
regularly. I have also included an updated “Frequently Asked Questions”
page to inform contributors how they should post their requests for
information, so they will remember to include pertinent information in their
message headers. This should make it easier for digest users to quickly
scan the header list and determine which messages lie in their area of
interest and/or expertise.
Sorry for the length of this email and if you’ve gotten to this point,
“thank you” for reading this message. We’re very excited about the features
and capabilities of the “NEW” Alabama in the Civil War Message Board and
hope you will be, too.
Webmaster
The Alabama in the Civil War Message Board
THIS IS A “ONE TIME” MASS MAILING TO EMAIL ADDRESSES COLLECTED FROM THE
“OLD” ALABAMA IN THE CIVIL WAR MESSAGE BOARD AND IS TO BE USED FOR
INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THERE IS NO NEED TO “UNSUBSCRIBE” FROM THIS
MAILING LIST, AS YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE ANYMORE UNSOLICITED MAILINGS FROM THE
ALABAMA IN THE CIVIL WAR MESSAGE BOARD. WE APOLOGIZE IF YOU RECEIVE MORE
THAN ONE COPY OF THIS MESSAGE.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
To: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: ALABAMA IN THE CW MESSAGE BOARD IS MOVING!
Jim,
Some of what you said here was untrue and unfair. There is NO increase
in advertising on your DiscApp and slow downs are a result of internet problems
outside of our control.
Please send a new message that is truthful.
Tamara
webmaster@server.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
To: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 8:48 PM
Subject: Re: ALABAMA IN THE CW MESSAGE BOARD IS MOVING!
Dear Tamara,
I want to thank you for your help in the past. You have always been quick
and helpful in your response to my questions. I am honestly sorry if you
are upset by my message and question its truthfulness.
I did "not" have to include you on the mailing list. As a business owner,
even when I get bad news, I want to know why my customer did not buy my
product. I included you on the mail list so that if you have a problem or
your customers "perceive" you have a problem you are aware of why I felt I
must move the message board.
Here is my perception. Over the last couple of months, if not more ads,
apparently different type of ads have begun to appear which my visitors have
complained about. The "popup" windows, the credit card ads that appear
within the page, the "flashing" ads which are uncomfortable to look at
especially for my older visitors and slowdowns in retrieving individual
messages from the main page, apparently due to some problems connected with
the ads have caused many of my visitors to complain. In addition, a number
of visitors over the last few months have complained about errors on the
page, probably "java" errors. Some browsers, as you know, display the
little gray box, with the error information and you must hit the "OK" button
to go on. If you have not increased the number of ads, then you your
company has certainly begun using some new or different ads. The very fact
that they are more agressive or persistent types of ads, gives the
perception there are more of them.
If you had problems outside of your control a message to your users stating
you were having a problem would've been nice. The problem I have with
internet problems outside of "your" (your company's) control is that I don't
have just one message board with your service. On the same days I was
experiencing problems on my higher traffic board, my lower traffic board was
just fine. I noticed that when your DiscApp support forum would give a
"404" error or was very slow, my high traffic board was also very slow.
But, here again, my lower traffic board was just fine. Just for the record,
this is not due to the fact that I was accessing a cached page. Just to be
sure I always "refreshed" my pages.
It may be harsh, but I am probably dealing with your company the way my
customers deal with me. Nothing is "beyond my control" when it comes to my
product. My customers don't care that I have a trucking or crane problem,
hauling or unloading my machines.
Finally, few if any of the people I sent this message to have message
boards on the internet or are likely to.
Your final sentence is most disagreeable to me. You've basically called me
a liar. When you say "send a message that is truthful" that means I produce
a document that is untruthful or a lie. As the source of that document, you
are calling me a "liar". My perception, which is the "truth" as I see it,
is that there has been an increase in your advertising (or the
aggressiveness and style of your advertising) and that your service has
provided a slowdown in service.
I would like to close my relationship with Server.com as nicely as possible,
by stating I still believe yours is the best "hosted script" message board
service. I am not moving my message board to your competitions site,
rather, I'm placing it on my webspace under my own domain name,
"history-sites.com". I would have moved the site anyway at some point in
the future. Some of the recent complaints I've state above have just sped
up the process.
I wish you and your company well,
Jim Martin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
To: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: ALABAMA IN THE CW MESSAGE BOARD IS MOVING!
Jim,
If you were experiencing problems such as 404s and such, how come you
never reported them?
As far as internet problems, there is no way for us to know that Joe Bob's
ISP which happens to be a transfer point between our server and your ISP
is having a problem. For each webpage that is loaded involves travel through
up to 20 different servers and if there is a problem anywhere in that path you
will see slow load times and other anomalies. Any time in the 6 years we
have offered forums that there has been a problem, we have always posted
a message letting people know. The last serious problem we had was at
the tail end of winter and we had a message up on the site plus we sent out
an email to all DiscApp hosts explaining what happened.
As far as advertising, I'm not sure if you are aware that our industry has been
in a depression for nearly a year. Users are not clicking ads and advertisers
are desperately trying to find methods which will be effective. At any point,
we have give all hosts the option to lease the DiscApp in which case they
would see no ads.
It just really bothered me that you felt it was necessary to portray our
service
in a poor light. If all these problems existed from your perspective, you
should
have notified us that you were having problems or receiving complaints of a
particular nature.
It would have been much nicer if you had simply said I have my own forum
software,
would everyone please start posting on the new board.
Tamara
webmaster@server.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
To: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 10:17 PM
Subject: I'm gonna try to be nice!
Dear Tamara,
Please return my webpage to its previous state or I will copy our recent
email exchange to every Server.com application webmaster. And if this
persists, I will contact my attorney for violation of contract.
Jim Martin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
To: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:16 AM
Subject: Re: I'm gonna try to be nice!
Jim,
What contract are you referring to?
Tamara
webmaster@server.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Martin" <alcwmb-admin@history-sites.com>
To: "Tamara" <webmaster@server.com>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: I'm gonna try to be nice!
Dear Tamara,
My reference to a contract is to your "Service Agreement" which I believe is
a contract between Server.com and its users.
I'd really like for this to end and for you to just let me "fade away" after
there is no activity on my message board for six weeks. By sending you my
reply, I was attempting to get your attention, as I was concerned you were
going to possibly "shutdown" my board and I would lose my unarchived
messages which are a valuable reference source to visitors at my site.
I an attempt to be fair to your company, if you'd like to post an official
response on both the old board and my new message board, please feel free to
do so. If I do respond to your posting, I will simply restate my
perceptions as earlier noted and will again recommend your service as my
favorite "hosted script" message board.
I can't do a mass email again as I stated in the last line of the message:
THIS IS A "ONE TIME" MASS MAILING TO EMAIL ADDRESSES COLLECTED FROM THE
"OLD" ALABAMA IN THE CIVIL WAR MESSAGE BOARD AND IS TO BE USED FOR
INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THERE IS NO NEED TO "UNSUBSCRIBE" FROM THIS
MAILING LIST, AS YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE ANYMORE UNSOLICITED MAILINGS FROM THE
ALABAMA IN THE CIVIL WAR MESSAGE BOARD. WE APOLOGIZE IF YOU RECEIVE MORE
THAN ONE COPY OF THIS MESSAGE.
Finally, I will reiterate what I said when this conversation began, "I did
not have to include you in the mass emailing". I may be from a different
generation and work experience; however, in my industry, even if I disagree
with my customer's reasons for not buying my product, I want to know "why".
Whether their reason is real or imagined is unimportant to me, "I still lost
the order" and I want to know what I might do in the future to change their
"perception". Would you prefer that all of your subscribers left quietly
and in secret or would you prefer to take a few "zingers", even if you
disagree with them, and know what are the perceived strengths and weaknesses
of your company.
I have tried to thank you for your personal support, I have stated that I
would still recommend your site as a "hosted script" message board and I've
offered you the opportunity to post on both the old and the new site your
company's official response. Please give me the "benefit of the doubt" that
I sent you a copy of my email thinking it was the appropriate thing to do.
With best regards,
Jim Martin