NeuroTalk Support Groups - View Single Post

Joselita · 09-30-2006, 09:46 PM

Kathy,
Hey there! It is so good to see you! I am very glad that you made it here!

I know that Pat got here first and suggested to go to the Forum Feedback to read posts to find out what the lowdown on everything is. That is a good idea....unless you don't like, or easily upset or stressed out by a bunch of arguing and whatnot. Then....you might want to proceed with some caution.

That kind of stuff only happened because so many folks were so hurt, confused, upset and feeling abandoned by OBT and the Admin there. There are still lots of conflicting feelings about all of that, by many many forum members all over these boards. But...Maybe if I try to answer your questions about "What happened to BT1", and "Is everyone here", it will help to shed some light on the matter?

Either that, or just muddy it up worse. LOLOL. Hopefully not though. So, here it goes...to the best of my knowledge, from what I have been able to piece together.

It seems that OBT (Original BrainTalk - aka BT1) crashed at the beginning of July. There was quite a long period of time, with no message/update as to what was going on. When it did come up....it explained that John Lester (JL) had been out of town for most of July/August...and that the crash happened at the worse possible time, and that he would work on it as soon as he was able.

That was it, for a long time. No other word.

Then...weeks later (end of Aug? I think? Can't remember for sure, as I wasn't on the computer much my self during all of this time) saying that whatever "parts" he needed had been ordered, and would arrive on or around Sept 5. He was unsure of how much data he would be able to retrieve from the system. Kinda sorta a similar thing to what we have heard in the past when there have been major crashes. The way that the message was written lead folks to believe that once the parts arrived, it wouldn't be long before OBT was up and running again.

You can see...it is not, and here we are knocking on October's door.

The last "update" was sent out by email just this past week. I received one. I will copy and paste it:

Quote:

Subject: Braintalk Returns!
From: "braintalk@gmail.com" <braintalk@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:34:50 -0400 (EDT)

Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in the next few days.

Take care,
— John Lester

As you can see...he says that OBT has been down "about a month". I don't know by who's counting....but I have always known months to have about 30 or 31 days (unless we're talking about Feb...and it's a leap year...or not...but since this is Summer/Fall we are talking about, Feb isn't an issue. LOL). I have heard that OBT went off line on July 8th. Starting with July 9th, and ending with today, I come up with 84 days so far that OBT has been down. I don't know how that adds up to "about a month" in anyone's book? But...that might just be me....

Anyway...as you can imagine, that email kinda sorta sparked things up a little bit. Lead to lots of questions. Well...that isn't really true. It just brought back up to the surface lots of questions that lots of folks still may have....and may be feeling hurt about.

Another reason for some of these hurt feelings, is that Braintalk Forum Boards, aren't the only thing that runs under the "BrainTalk Communities" name. There are other things that run under it as well. All of those other things seem to be working fine...not a blip in their running at all. THAT has leads folks to have hurt feelings and questions...about all sorts of things. That John Lester has evidentially been on line and posting to otherwheres (I don't know where, nor do I much care at this point), but not saying a WORD about the Message Board....is ALSO fanning flames.

Long time members of OBT, that used to be able to "talk" to JL,,,and get responces from him when things like this crash happend....have been made to feel "shut out" and gotten NO responce to repeated emails. Folks that have sent donations....some ones that were pretty darn hefty...same thing. No word, no response...nothing to tell them anything about what is going on. That is not how things have ever gone before. THAT has lead to hurt feelings and what not too.

Then, you have all of the folks, like us, that use the boards, that were pretty much left in a lurch. Some of us knew how to contact some folks...but not others. Some of us had little "life boats" of support out there, but some of us did not. Some of these boards deal with folks that are shut ins...and have NO other way to get support. Folks that, sad as it may seem to other folks, TOTALLY Depend on the message board as their way to communicate with other people. There are folks with Autism and Aspergers (Man..I think that I totally massacred the spelling of that...so sorry if I did), that have a hard time forming relationships with other people, even through the computer screen. They have been left too....for much much too long. It is kinda scarey to think about all of the different kinds of people with all of the different kinds of problems that use the message boards that were just left in a lurch with NOTHING. No word about what was going on...no nothing. Just kind of drifting around....hoping to find some of their friends in this huge wide world web thing. Or..worse...not even drifting, just going back again and again, hitting that link to OBT, hoping and hoping that if they hit it enough times, it would work!?

I could keep going on and on about OBT, and what happened, and why folks may be upset with it and JL. But....that really serves no good purpose here now, right? The GOOD thing is that we have all started finding each other again on this NEW board, that "DocJohn" (Not JL....but another John who just happens to live in Boston too. LOLOL) was kind enough to set up and run for us all here. First, it was just a temporary thing, until OBT got back on line. But, as more time went by with no sign of that happening, he asked, and it was well received for this BT2 to be a permanent thing. It is run very differently from OBT...and IMHO, much better. We have a voice in making this place what we want it to be....and we don't have to be afraid of getting the ax from the Mods for stupid reasons. I personally saw that happen in other rooms at OBT, on my many visits around. It was awful, and I was so very glad that our RSD room just kinda stayed under the Radar. Still in all...things had changed so much...and folks were so uncomfortable with the new direction they were going (ever since JL made BT a non profit thing, and set up different folks to "Help" him run it, while he did other things ....created new and more exciting things under the "BrainTalk Communities" umbrella), that lots of "Oldies" just....faded away. Either totally left, were banned, or switched to total "Lurker" status. That is kinda sorta what I did; I was basically a lurker in what had once been my "home".

There are lots of folks that have said that they are ready and just waiting for OBT to reopen for business, and that they will be flying back there in a heart beat once it does. I don't think I will. I think instead I will go to "Visit" and see any old friends that may still be hanging around there.....but that is probably it. It doesn't feel the same to me, and it hasn't in a while. So far, I really like THIS place much better than I have OBT for the past year or so.

As to if everyone has made it here yet or not...Nope. I don't think so. But, more and more folks are trickling in every day. Artist here has been busting her tail trying to find folks....I think that she was the first one here in the RSD room, and was quite lonely for a while. She is so tickled to have us that have made it so far here...I dont think that she quite knows what to do with herself! LOLOL. But, like she has asked...if you know how to find anyone....let them know where we all are. Seems that is the only way to do this...and to help get the name higher up on the search engines.

Oh...I believe that the name of this place will be changing from "BrainTalk 2" to something else (I think that NeuroTalk was in the lead....in the poll that I saw a while back? But I don't know that that had been totally settled on as a name yet) if/when OBT ever comes back online. So...that needs to be known too.

You all can go and read this all......long rehashing with lots of anger and hurt feelings and lots of speculation and innuendo and what not....on Forum Feedback, as Pat said. It is very informative. I only wrote what I did here, for those that might not feel up to reading through the arguing ("OBT is BEST!!!" "JL IS BesT!!!!" "HE is a SAINT!!!" "I will be going BACK ASAP!!!"! or "I HATE HIS GUTS!!!" "He is CROOK!" "HE Doesn't give a CRAP about ANY of US anymore!!!!" "DOWN WITH OBT!!!" That kind of stuff. LOL) a kind of summary of sorts. If you want to go and read at the Forum Feedback, look for "Locked" threads. DocJohn has said that there can only be ONE thread discussing (arguing about..lol) OBT and JL at a time, and not numerous ones, making Forum Feedback nothing about THIS community and all about OBT instead. So, there is only one about OBT open last I saw, and it is titled something like "BT Update" or something like that. The others are locked and easy to find, if you are looking for them.

Hope that this helps....?

And...Kathy?? I am really very very VERY glad that you are here! Sorry to hear that you too have suffered some spread. Seems like that is a theme around here right now, so you are in good (if painful) company. Makes me sad to hear, too....been there and done that, and trying to NOT do it anymore! Keep fighting the "Good Fight"...you are a special lady...and I SOOOOO Happy to see you again!

Love and (((Hugs)))
Jose