Would it be useful or good to have a thread named JFK Records Act Updates pinned at the top of the forum?

[Sandy Larsen]

This is Ben Cole's idea and I thought it has merit.

I asked Ben what is special about the JFK Records Act that would justify it being pinned. (No other JFKA topic is pinned.) His reply was that it is an unfolding development. Yeah, I buy that.... it is special.

Thing is, I don't want to do it unless it really is useful. And that's why I'm asking what you guys think.

On the other hand, I could unpin it at any time if it isn't popular. In which case it would still be a useful thread, in that only that one thread would be needed to report all updates.

BTW, I would forbid forum members from campaigning or politicizing on the thread. No shaming Biden or shaming Trump. No Deep State theorizing. Just the unimpassioned facts.

What do you all think?

 

(The above plan is contingent on what the admin staff says.)

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

A lot has happened since the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

I usually go to the MF-website to find out about the latest releases.

IMO they keep a good structure, easy to use, most of the time it's the place where I start searching.

But as most know, they don't have it all... Frankly I simply don't know how much is out there in Private Archives, University collections, etcc... it never ends.

Or how much is still to be released ?

So yes, if someone could keep the members here up to date on the latest developments, why not ?

[Roger Odisio]

9 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

This is Ben Cole's idea and I thought it has merit.

I asked Ben what is special about the JFK Records Act that would justify it being pinned. (No other JFKA topic is pinned.) His reply was that it is an unfolding development. Yeah, I buy that.... it is special.

Thing is, I don't want to do it unless it really is useful. And that's why I'm asking what you guys think.

On the other hand, I could unpin it at any time if it isn't popular. In which case it would still be a useful thread, in that only that one thread would be needed to report all updates.

BTW, I would forbid forum members from campaigning or politicizing on the thread. No shaming Biden or shaming Trump. No Deep State theorizing. Just the unimpassioned facts.

What do you all think?

 

(The above plan is contingent on what the admin staff says.)

 

Pinning a thread on the JFKA Act is a good idea. The Act created the comprehensive JFKA Record Collection at NARA where anyone--you and me--can go to determine for themselves what happened that day.  Rather than relying on government to tell us.

 

But NARA has neglected its duty keep the Collection up to date and now Biden is trying to essentially kill the implementation of the Act altogether.

 

The MFF lawsuit is challenging both things in court.  It needs to be followed.

 

There are many JFK records most of us know about that are not included in the current Collection.

 

To be useful, I don't think the thread has to be popular in the sense of having  a lot of posts.  Pinning the thread ensures that when something is posted it will get attention. 

[Sandy Larsen]

16 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Pinning the thread ensures that when something is posted it will get attention.

 

It should be pointed out that what you say is true only for members who visit occasionally. Whenever something new is posted, the thread gets bumped to the top. And so frequent forum visitor will see it even if it not pinned.

But you are right, pinning it would be useful for infrequent visitors.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

I find it difficult to stay abreast of the JFK Records Act, the lawsuit brought by MFF, and what has or has not been disclosed, and then whether there are other docs out there that should be disclosed. 

So a pinned topic makes sense to me.

Joe Backes has been working this area, and perhaps he would post under the pinned topic. 

Right now, the JFK Records Act seems an unwieldy grab-bag of info. 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

One of my concerns is this....

People like Larry Schnapf and Joe Backes, who report JFK Act updates, often (or always?) create a new thread when there is something new to report. If they continue to do so, I see no point in having the pinned thread.

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

One of my concerns is this....

People like Larry Schnapf and Joe Backes, who report JFK Act updates, often (or always?) create a new thread when there is something new to report. If they continue to do so, I see no point in having the pinned thread.

 

I think they would use it, it's faster and easier to post a reply vs. creating a new topic. 

If they don't, we could just ask them to do so...

And it sure would help keeping track of events over the years

Edited September 15, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

59 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

I think they would use it, it's faster and easier to post a reply vs. creating a new topic. 

If they don't, we could just ask them to do so...

And it sure would help keeping track of events over the years

Ditto.

[Joseph Backes]

I'd be happy to keep people informed about what's going on.

There are a few things to mention.  I would need to give some history and context.  So maybe have two threads pinned, one for that, and one for current news.

I would need an ability to post images, and perhaps Excel databases.  Or maybe I could just do that on my substack and put a link here. 

Joe

[Sandy Larsen]

10 minutes ago, Joseph Backes said:

I'd be happy to keep people informed about what's going on.

There are a few things to mention.  I would need to give some history and context.  So maybe have two threads pinned, one for that, and one for current news.

I would need an ability to post images, and perhaps Excel databases.  Or maybe I could just do that on my substack and put a link here. 

Joe

 

Joe,

That would be awesome.

Regarding the two threads you speak of, would they be ones that only you post in? Or would commentary and related things be posted by other members? I can make it work around your needs.

Members aren't given a lot of space for files like images. It would be great if you could host the files elsewhere and just link to them. If you aren't amenable to that, I'd have to see if there is another way to increase your allotted space. (I don't think I can get hundreds of MB. Maybe tens of MB. I think a regular member gets only 3 MB each. Because that's all we can afford given the amount of money we raise through donations.)

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

42 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I think a regular member gets only 3 MB each. Because that's all we can afford given the amount of money we raise through donations.)

 

Sandy, just asking, has anyone ever asked the provider about that 3 MB space/user ?

Many members are having problems with that.

Because by today's standards that 3 MB is really really low, looks like a standard that was calculated long ago (IMO).   I know the budget is limited, I understand that.  

The 3MB/user is just to asure one doesn't exceed the total BW.

One should look at the total available and divided by the number of users. 

Most providers give that information on how much BW is used/month, don't know about this one.

Another option is to allow direct-linking; post only a link to a picture, the picture is shown here but is not taking up space 

Or use Photoshop (or any other photo-editing app/program) to reduce the file size of your pictures, it will increase the amount of pictures you can post by a significant factor, if you do it right you will not loose quality (especially when posting documents).  Often I see hughe files for no reason...

I know this is somewhat off-topic, but considering Joseph Backes' remarks this could help

Edited September 15, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Sandy Larsen]

33 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Sandy, just asking, has anyone ever asked the provider about that 3 MB space/user ?

 

Jean,

We can set the amount allotted to each user. Problem is, our plan limits us to 500 MB total and we are using almost that much now. In fact, I just looked and I can see that we won't be able to give Joe Backes extra space.... just the 4 MB. (I thought it was 3MB, but no, it is 4 MB.)

If we go over the 500 MB limit, we will be automatically bumped to the next more-expensive plan. And our monthly cost will almost double. (That plan would give us 1750 MB.)

 

[W. Niederhut]

On 9/14/2023 at 2:18 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

This is Ben Cole's idea and I thought it has merit.

I asked Ben what is special about the JFK Records Act that would justify it being pinned. (No other JFKA topic is pinned.) His reply was that it is an unfolding development. Yeah, I buy that.... it is special.

Thing is, I don't want to do it unless it really is useful. And that's why I'm asking what you guys think.

On the other hand, I could unpin it at any time if it isn't popular. In which case it would still be a useful thread, in that only that one thread would be needed to report all updates.

BTW, I would forbid forum members from campaigning or politicizing on the thread. No shaming Biden or shaming Trump. No Deep State theorizing. Just the unimpassioned facts.

What do you all think?

 

(The above plan is contingent on what the admin staff says.)

 

Sandy,

    Something about this reminds of Utah's Dead Horse State Park.

    IMO, the topic is the ultimate JFKA forum example of "beating a dead horse."

    It is important, and historic, but so are many JFKA subjects-- and we have already had more than 20 redundant forum threads about the "Biden snuff job" on the JFK Records.  What more can be said?

     Perhaps any real newsworthy developments on the topic could be posted on a thread by Larry Schnapf.

     Also, my prediction is that a thread on this topic that is pinned to the top of the board will devolve into a redundant Biden snuff job MAGA spam thread-- accompanied by a great deal of whining about any moderator efforts to delete the anti-Biden tropes.

[Jean Ceulemans]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Jean,

We can set the amount allotted to each user. Problem is, our plan limits us to 500 MB total and we are using almost that much now. In fact, I just looked and I can see that we won't be able to give Joe Backes extra space.... just the 4 MB. (I thought it was 3MB, but no, it is 4 MB.)

If we go over the 500 MB limit, we will be automatically bumped to the next more-expensive plan. And our monthly cost will almost double. (That plan would give us 1750 MB.)

 

Any idea why we can not use a photo-host, plenty of those around to choose from (lately these are cloud-services, often they will show the link to copy and paste on forums) ?

One only has to post the link here to show the picture (costs zero bandwith to the EF) ? 

I have tried using it here, but it didn't work, strange. Must be some setting that disables those I guess. 

Forums with limited BW use those a lot, works fine in the others forums I was a member of.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Any idea why we can not use a photo-host, plenty of those around to choose from (lately these are cloud-services, often they will show the link to copy and paste on forums) ?

 

You can paste the URL of almost any photo hosted elsewhere and it will display just fine in this forum. Some hosts won't allow it.

I used PhotoBucket for years. And then they started charging a ton of money. Like $400 monthly. Or was it $40 monthly? Either way was too much. (PhotoBucket later changed it's ways. But I'll never use their service again.)

When PhotoBucket went insane, we tried various ways to get free photo hosting. The best method was discovered by DVP. He used one of Google's free cloud storage services (I forget which one works). This alone did not work. But if he displayed the photo on a Blogger page, then Google would allow him to show the photo on any site.

The great thing about using Google is they are not likely to pull the plug on the service.

 

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

One only has to post the link here to show the picture (costs zero bandwith to the EF) ? 

 

Yep! We do it all the time here.

 

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

I have tried using it here, but it didn't work, strange. Must be some setting that disables those I guess. 

 

Try it with another photo. Try this one:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRL3PtnaiokWAaAu7UMulICISxnylr67UU67JdBRCJbSSkxm-IFBcOijuB3y51wM11_IM8&usqp=CAU

 

It works for me.

 

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Forums with limited BW use those a lot, works fine in the others forums I was a member of.

 

Which do you recommend?