The State of the AC 4/3

[paulcalloway]

Some of you will find this a terrible yawner but I've been wanting to write something up for awhile now. A few of you that have watched the AC come and go may appreciate some of these thoughts. If too terribly bored, please skip directly to the end where I share with you where I see this site going from here.

Where We Were:
This site was founded Founded July 6, 1999. Hard to believe we've been doing this as long as we have. It was only a small collection of links to various and sundry research articles and authentic units. Our forums were first founded on Ezboard Jan. 24, 2001. We endured the Ad banners on Tripod for quite awhile until we had an offer for free webspace.

Through 2002-03 we struggled with a lot of server downtime. It's hard to complain I guess when the service is free but in the end the downtime really started to get problematic.

On December 6, 2003 our website went offline again and enough was enough. Having no idea how to set up my own forum, we ventured off into the unknown. Most of you remember those few weeks where the site was down a lot more then it was up... but we muddled through. In the end, we decided to go on without all the posts from our old database... and in some respects, a fresh start probably wasn't a bad thing.

It had gotten to the point where I couldnt do much to the site - and if you all haven't figured it out by now, I'm most happy when I'm tweaking the site and adding features. When stuff stagnates I get frustrated.

Where We Are:
Once I figured out enough php to just be dangerous we got the forums to where they are now. I managed to find a plugin that has allowed us to have our frontpage dynamically updated from the forums which has been a positive change in the opinions of most.

Our software is pretty stable now - ie. what bugs and issues we have seem to have been largely eliminated. There were some security issues with the beta version of the forum software we were using but those have been resolved.

• Commercial Server: We're now paying for our webspace but it's a pretty slick deal. Our serverhost works for us now and besides a periodic outage of 20-30 minutes every 2 or 3 weeks, everything has been solid. We get about 25gigs a month throughput and will probably have to increase our bandwidth soon.
• Vendor Sponsorship: I never was real comfortable with requesting donations to pay for the site. Vendor sponsorships and the T-shirt preservation drive have allowed us to become self-sufficient. Our costs to run the site fall into the range at about $50 a month.
• Our Bills: Most of the payments we've received from Vendors, your donations and the preservation project go straight into a PayPal Account. We maintain the ballance there and our service provider makes deductions every month from the same account. It's working very smoothly.
• Our Moderators: Our team of moderators has been really clicking lately. The boards have been kept fairly clean of refuse, much of that is a credit to all of you that use the alert button.
• Our Main Challenge: It seems to be keeping "trolls" aka trouble-makers off the forums. We've had a lot of late but have taken steps to curtail the problem, and it would seem those steps have been successful.

Where We're Going:
We're going to continue to add nifty features to the site, because I enjoy flipping switches and watching the lights go on and off.

My goal for the site is threefold -

1. To promote a more Authentic way of Reenacting & Living History, pretty much what we have been doing now for nigh on 5 years.
2. To promote Civil War Preservation - we've toyed with it but now we're going to get serious. I want to attract Professional Preservationists to this community and that means the AC needs to become one of the premiere places to find current information on Civil War Preservation.
3. To promote Civil War Research - Editorial articles about reenacting are fine and dandy but real research is much, much more then reading what someone else has written. I want to attract Professional Historians to the AC community and that means we need to become one of the premiere places to discuss Civil War history.

To share in this vision, refer your friends here, be vigilant in reporting counter-productive posts and contribute in the manner of useful information.

I invite discussion on these points. It's fun to be here again and I finally feel like I can settle down and participate like a regular poster now. It's a great feeling.

Thanks to all of you who've been here and contributed to making this forum what it is today. You know who you are and most of us know who you are as well.

[Secede1863]

Re: The State of the AC 4/3

Some of you will find this a terrible yawner but I've been wanting to write something up for awhile now. A few of you that have watched the AC come and go may appreciate some of these thoughts. If too terribly bored, please skip directly to the end where I share with you where I see this site going from here.

It is my pleasure Paul to be here today, I registered Early December of last year but started tuning in in May 01'


I am glad to see this place going steady. It is a colmination of many different skills and works of very talented living historians.
As for the trolls,
They will no doubt keep coming, but these trolls cannot stop this forum from acheiving its fullest maximum capacity.
I would also like to thank the moderators and vendors here. Couldnt do it without any of you. The comradship for the most part on this forum is great. It is almost my second family away from family.

Cheers,
Andrew Stebbins

[billwatson]

I remember

Paul,

I remember in 1998 and 1999 when you were thrashing around Betty Barfield's list and other places and asking "but isn't there any one place to go to get quality discussions and reliable information?" This is the end result -- proof that if you've got a vision and determination and relentless energy, good things happen. This forum is now an institution with an enviable reputation. :-)


Bill Watson
Stroudsburg, Pa.

[paulcalloway]

Re: I remember

Thanks Bill... funny the things we remember. You're right, I did ask those very questions. But even then I had no concept of what I was really even looking for - it was just a germ of an idea.

[dusty27]

Re: The State of the AC 4/3

Paul,

This goes without saying, but I will help you in any way to make this site THE online source for reenactors and preservation. Recent cooperative efforts between preservation organizations and living historians are helping to bring the issues to the forefront.

Your willingness to help get this word out via this website and forum are appreciated. I also appreciate being able to be part of the moderator team. I'm glad to see that the Preservation folder is no longer the step child of the forum and it now receives a good number of hits and posts from different folks.

Thanks to all those out there that feel that reenactors can be a force in providing financial and volunteer help with preservation causes. The recent donation from the T-shirt project and the Mansfield effort put together by Doug Cooper and others has demonstrated what can be done when we put our minds, and more importantly, our numbers to work.

I hope that we can become what Paul wants us to become. I was contacted by the CWPT on Friday and our efforts are being recognized and appreciated. They are looking for future cooperation, as many other organizations will be in the near future.

Thanks again to everyone.....