THE FUTURE IS UPON US

[Judy G. Russell]

Gentle people, I have been quietly paying for this website in the
background for years while not participating in its activities. It's
time for others to either take over or for the website to close. I will
pay for the web hosting through the end of May 2021. At that point,
somebody else needs to step up. I'm happy to transfer the account --
it's a whole whopping $9.99 a month. But as I begin my 71st year and now
fully retired, those who use it need to take care of it.

Lemme know. You can reach me directly at jgru...@gmail.com

-- Judy


--
Judy G. Russell

*-- jgr*

[Judy Madnick]

Hi, Judy (from another Judy!),

 

First, as I will be 78 in October, it would be a step in the wrong direction to take on more responsibilities than I already have. But...are you the same Judy G. Russell who's the genealogist and a Facebook friend of Stuart Haley? If so, it's a small world. If not — sorry to waste your time with such questions. LOL!

 

Judy (Koblintz) Madnick

---

Original Message

From: "Judy G. Russell" <jg...@jgrussell.com>

To: Dixo...@googlegroups.com;

Date: 3/18/2021 8:58:40 PM

Subject: [Dixonary] THE FUTURE IS UPON US

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[Tim Lodge]

Hi Judy

It's nice to see you here again after all these years.  You'll no doubt recognize the names of a few of the current players, but sadly some of the old timers have fallen by the wayside.

I'm not really the right person to answer you on this.  Dan Widdis and Paul Keating are - I think - the nearest thing we've got to webmasters.  When you say "this website", do you mean dixonary.net?  As far as I can see, we've transfered everything to Google Groups and Google Sites, and I don't think we have to pay for those.  In fact, when I tried to look at www.dixonary.net just now, I was redirected to https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs.  So I don't think we're actually using any non-Google web hosting  The domain name is still active - have you been paying for that too?   I see that domain is registered with a registry in Panama and expires in October 2021.

If I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, would someone please jump in and correct me. 

--  Tim L

[Paul Keating]

Dan Widdis set up a two-way exchange of messages between tapcis.com and the Yahoo group, and subsequently the Google group, after the game moved from CompuServe. The intent was to keep the game platform-agnostic, and it succeeded remarkably well, to the extent that I had forgotten all about tapcis.com until last week, when I could not find pleught in any dictionary, and Google turned up a hit: the round announcement in The Parlor.

But I haven't logged in there since 2014 (un til today, to find that out) and I think recent players aren't aware of its existence, let alone have an account.

If there are still players who play the game in The Parlor then I should hope that one of them might be ready to volunteer.

P

[Tim Lodge]

Paul

Thanks for putting me stright. I'd totally forgotten about tapcis.com too.

--  Tim L

[Judy Madnick]

Ah, Tapcis! At the time it seemed like modern technology!

 

Judy

---

Original Message

From: "Tim Lodge" <d...@timlodge.co.uk>

To: dixo...@googlegroups.com;

Date: 3/20/2021 7:50:01 AM

Subject: Re: [Dixonary] Re: THE FUTURE IS UPON US

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[Paul Keating]

At the time, it was. And a community, too. The tech got better. I wish I could say the same about the community.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/2E5EF8CF031409013119002004%40LAPTOP-NG0A64CK.

[Daniel B Widdis]

Hi, Judy! Good to see you again.

We initially set up the dixonary game to "echo" into the Parlor at tapcis.com and a few players used it during the transition, but I don't think anyone uses that site any more. I can't even remember my login credentials!

You're probably safe to pull the plug.

If anyone has a special fondness for the tapcis.com domain I'd probably be happy to take over renewing that and point it to our dixonary group.

Dan

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[France International/Mike Shefler]

It looks like no one has left any messages since 2015, and darned few
since 2001.

--Mike

[Ryan McGill]

If there are archived messages there that aren't available anywhere else, I'd like to make sure we can download a copy. Some day, when I have a couple weeks free, I'd love to do an in-depth analysis of the rounds, including word choice in crafting definitions and/or when voting for definitions.

Best,

Ryan

[Stephen Dixon]

Well, I am deep in geezer-hood myself. Not implying that you are by any means the same.

If it seems at all likely that there is some otherwise unsavable content on the site, we should surely be able to gin up some kind of informal GoFundMe among the players. And that includes those, like me, who do not actively play (only occasionally for me).

It would be a pittance per person to raise a year’s worth of funding.

If that can’t be worked out, I will front one year in order to push back the curtain.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/74231b29-2360-4cb9-ad82-3142a50f4c75n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Steve  Dixon

      -- "Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool."  ~Anonymous  

[Daniel B. Widdis]

> If it seems at all likely that there is some otherwise unsavable content on the site ... 

There is.  We set up the "echo" to the parlor from the Yahoo! coryphaeus group in June 2005, when the TAPCIS forum went poof.  We did not move to the current Google group until April 2007.

Yahoo! has shut down their groups and I'm not sure if they have ever provided the archive to Paul that he requested.  So at this point, the Tapcis forum represents the only(?) available full copy of rounds 1614 (YARFA) to 1803 (GOSSAN-GOZZAN).  Google archives start at round 1804.

I'll be happy to pitch in for maintenance as well, maybe even use a "real" web host to do something better than the free dixonary.net hack we've got.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/CAFkjdZP1nydiTFeWYwS6BacuHToJx_1gZPGPP5BLwz2ppGsP6g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Daniel B. Widdis]

> I'd like to make sure we can download a copy. 

I'm guessing that web-scraping the TAPCIS forum automatically will be easier than figuring out how to "scrape" the google group archives.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/74231b29-2360-4cb9-ad82-3142a50f4c75n%40googlegroups.com.

[Paul Keating]

About Yahoo: I asked for copy of the group's data over a year ago. There's not a sign of it. I suspect that they were taken aback at the response and wholly underestimated the effort involved. I doubt if we will ever see the data back.

P

[Judy G. Russell]

Yep, -The Legal Genealogist- are me (or some such). Stuart is a good
guy.

[Judy Madnick]

He and I have tried to find a connection. I'm Judy Koblintz Madnick, and he's a Koblentz. I do have Koblentz, Koblantz, Koblenz, etc., relatives... but so far no connection. Perhaps too many people adopted the Koblenz surname?

Thanks for your reply. 

Another Judy 

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[Judy G. Russell]

FOLLOW-UP: Dan has taken over the reins as webmaster. Now to figure out
how to give him admin rights to this very very old platform. Thanks,
Dan, for stepping up and stepping in.

[Daniel B Widdis]

I have the keys to the castle!

I hear there's a dragon around, so I'm trying to be careful.

I've managed to get as far as creating a MySQL connection from my own computer to the database behind the forum, useful for whoever wanted to try to archive game posts and a heck of a lot better than web scraping.

Hit me up privately if you want to discuss how/what to archive. I likely won't keep paying $9.95/month for 16 years like Judy did but at least I'll kick the can down the road a bit.

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[Paul Keating]

Daniel,

I had not realized that the messages were still available on tapcis.com (because I had forgotten it was there). If they can be downloaded in any reasonable format, then I will be happy to mark them up and make them available as xml the way I did for the messages that Russ Heimerson and Scott Crom archived from the CompuServe forum on zipdisks (remember them?)

P

Daniel B. Widdis

Wednesday 24 March 2021 21:28

> If it seems at all likely that there is some otherwise unsavable content on the site ... 

There is.  We set up the "echo" to the parlor from the Yahoo! coryphaeus group in June 2005, when the TAPCIS forum went poof.  We did not move to the current Google group until April 2007.

Yahoo! has shut down their groups and I'm not sure if they have ever provided the archive to Paul that he requested.  So at this point, the Tapcis forum represents the only(?) available full copy of rounds 1614 (YARFA) to 1803 (GOSSAN-GOZZAN).  Google archives start at round 1804.

I'll be happy to pitch in for maintenance as well, maybe even use a "real" web host to do something better than the free dixonary.net hack we've got.

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Stephen Dixon

Wednesday 24 March 2021 20:10

Well, I am deep in geezer-hood myself. Not implying that you are by any means the same.

If it seems at all likely that there is some otherwise unsavable content on the site, we should surely be able to gin up some kind of informal GoFundMe among the players. And that includes those, like me, who do not actively play (only occasionally for me).

It would be a pittance per person to raise a year’s worth of funding.

If that can’t be worked out, I will front one year in order to push back the curtain.

--

Steve  Dixon

      -- "Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool."  ~Anonymous  

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Ryan McGill

Wednesday 24 March 2021 20:01

If there are archived messages there that aren't available anywhere else, I'd like to make sure we can download a copy. Some day, when I have a couple weeks free, I'd love to do an in-depth analysis of the rounds, including word choice in crafting definitions and/or when voting for definitions.

Best,

Ryan

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'France International/Mike Shefler' via Dixonary

Saturday 20 March 2021 16:57

It looks like no one has left any messages since 2015, and darned few since 2001.

--Mike

Daniel B Widdis

Saturday 20 March 2021 16:55

Hi, Judy! Good to see you again.

We initially set up the dixonary game to "echo" into the Parlor at tapcis.com and a few players used it during the transition, but I don't think anyone uses that site any more. I can't even remember my login credentials!

You're probably safe to pull the plug.

If anyone has a special fondness for the tapcis.com domain I'd probably be happy to take over renewing that and point it to our dixonary group.

Dan

On 3/19/21, 6:40 AM, "Judy G. Russell" <dixo...@googlegroups.com on behalf of jg...@jgrussell.com> wrote:


Gentle people, I have been quietly paying for this website in the
background for years while not participating in its activities. It's
time for others to either take over or for the website to close. I will
pay for the web hosting through the end of May 2021. At that point,
somebody else needs to step up. I'm happy to transfer the account --
it's a whole whopping $9.99 a month. But as I begin my 71st year and now
fully retired, those who use it need to take care of it.

Lemme know. You can reach me directly at jgru...@gmail.com

-- Judy


--
Judy G. Russell

*-- jgr*

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--
Paul Keating
Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Stephen Dixon]

I, for one, would love to be able to see some of that old stuff.

I came to the game very early, in its teen rounds. I remember fondly some of the hilarious stuff that played out in the definitions and in the voting. Some people used to include the entire list and comment on each definition as a part of their vote message. Those were some of the funniest things on CompuServe, I think. It was quite a group, including, for a while, one U.N. Ambassador.

Steve  Dixon

      -- "Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool."  ~Anonymous  

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/75ae3095-3f24-01ba-ab51-534c3f7e9d75%40acm.org.

[Paul Keating]

It's all available under Old Games at www.dixonary.net, up to the point where CIS closed the forum, as a bunch of zipfiles. Each zipfile contains the messages in xml along with a .css and an .xsI file. They will render the .xml in an approximation of how they would have appeared in an offline reader.

P

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/CAFkjdZM%3D%3DEyO%2BV2MWVkr3ywww_wQhwSgDYDknCuZTybCMw%2B5gA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Tim Lodge]

Steve

You're referring to Fernando, I think.  The game became a little duller when he stopped posting his Fernandefs, which were outlandish and hilarious.

--  Tim L

[Daniel B. Widdis]

I, too, had forgotten about the tapcis message archive until Ryan asked about "archives not available anywhere else" and realized we had a way to get most of the games played on the yahoo site.   

Looks like we played on TAPCIS until round 1612 and we got the mail echo up somewhere in the midst of round 1614.   

The archives on dixonary.net go up through 1569 with a note that there were HTML files of results messages up to round 1612 present on Yahoo that still haven't been provided.  Looks like 1613 would only be available in the Yahoo message archive.  So that's about 44 missing rounds that we might hope to recover someday.

I'll work to try to export an archive of 1614 to 1803 in some format to get onto the website as a near-term thing, and discuss possibilities for also archiving the google group posts on a regular basis in the longer term.   Appreciate the offer SQL help, Hugo.  I may not be a database design expert but I write SQL queries nearly daily and don't think I'll have any problems figuring out a query once I have time to explore the data.  I'll start an off-list email thread with anyone else who may want to help query and archive this data to discuss the best format.

(Which means if you're interested in specifying what and how you want it saved, ping me off list.  So far Ryan and Steve have expressed interest.  If your name is not Ryan, Steve, or Paul and you want in on the conversation, let me know.)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/75ae3095-3f24-01ba-ab51-534c3f7e9d75%40acm.org.