Well Deserved Recognition (v1.26)

I was thinking about why I've kept up close friendships with people from NBTSC/QV better than I have people I've met elsewhere, and I realized that part of it is having such a strong online community. Without the original listserv, wiki, IRC, I would have lost contact with some of those people, or never developed a stronger connection with them. Thank you to everyone for maintaining and making this such a great community, from having great discussions to running the server. I think my life would be poorer without it. —Rion Reply

I love the copy/paste characters at the bottom of the editing pages. I don't use special characters that often, but it's very nice not have to go into Word's special character file when I do need one. —Elizabeth Reply

Appreciation to Ari! This morning I called her to tell her that the server was being sluggish again, and that she could catch it in the act if she wanted to check it right then. She figured out that it was a problem with RecentChanges slowing down the server (caused by the way the PHP programming language handles memory), so she set out immediately to rewrite RecentChanges from scratch in Ruby (a programming language with better memory management). Several hours later, we have a bright new shiny RecentChanges! Thanks for being on top of things! —Rion Reply

Ari, I love the music notation (as in UnderTheFullMoonLight)! Very smint. Is there some documentation on how to write music into wiki? —Rion Reply

• http://www.lilypond.org/

As a footnote to Charlie's exhaustive appreciation of the effort that was put into this thing, I have to mention that the inversion of RecentChanges is the best thing to happen to Wiki in a long time. It's much easier to view now. Yay. Thank you. —Mitchell Reply

Several people have helped to bring you nbtsc.org. Reply

Let the ego-fest begin. Reply

• Nick started the listserv, web site, IRC channel, and a few other random things. A while later he bought, built, and housed paradoxical (this server) to run them on. Thanks to him, you can have your own @nbtsc.org e-mail address. One time he drove 300 miles on a few hours notice because the server needed fixing.
• Arianna wrote wiki. Stop and think about that for a minute. This thing you're using right now? She made it from scratch. Ari also provided a lot of useful information when the server was being created, and designed the current web site. She and Nick are primarily responsible for keeping everything going.
• * I'd like to point out that the new WikiWiki is really effeciant! much faster, and it turns out exellent readable HTML code! Kudos to Arianna and anyone else who helped out with the new design! —Neal

• Justin helped write an amusing pig-latinifier once. Together with Arianna and Nick, he spent several months paying to keep the server on-line. Sometimes he points out security holes on the server. Sometimes he even patches them for us.
• Dahti and Steve, Nick's parents, are currently paying for the connection this server uses. It lives at their house (because it's faster than the connection at Nick's house.) In return, Nick set the server up and loaned them some equipment so they and Mical could all use the connection at once, and he keeps their computers running. If you like, send a short note to dahti at olympus.net and tell them how much you appreciate their keeping nbtsc.org on the wire.

• Phyllis, Nick's former high school teacher (back in the dark ages when he still went to high school) graciously provided a net connection for the first year of the server's life, on the condition that Nick always make himself available for technical support. Nbtsc.org might never have gotten off the ground without her donation.
• Noam has contributed many hours of administrative work, and spends a lot of time answering people's questions regarding the functioning and use of the server. When something goes wrong, he's usually the first geek to notice and start working on a solution. He also created http://www.nbtsc.org/schoolfree/ which has inspired a lot of people towards unschooling.

• Erek helps with the grueling task of system administration, and also answers a lot of questions. Talk to him if you're looking to purchase a few dozen computers.
• Charlie does administration stuff on occasion, answers technical questions, and leads a noble crusade to badger people into writing things on-line.

• Reanna made that kick-ass logo you see near the top of the page, and helped a lot with the initial web site design.
• Tim Rodriguez helped with the original site design.

• Ned got to talking with Nick at NBTSC '96, and said, we should make a web site. The next year he hauled his desktop computer to camp for us to play with. I repeat: he left his computer in the hands of unschoolers for a week. Didn't even flinch.
• Grace said, sure, you can register nbtsc.org. We registered it in her name, so she legally owns the domain, but continues to let us use it. She also started and toils year round to bring us a little thing called Not Back To School Camp.

• A whole lot of people I'm forgetting contributed suggestions, help others make use of the server, and generally make our lives easier.

— Platypus Reply

I've seen this in action. I've been on IRC as Rick worried terribly over some minor bit of code that he really, really wanted to get just right for us. I've been hanging out with Nick when the server went down, and we hopped in the car to Port Townsend almost without stopping for to put shoes on. I've been in the middle of a conversation with Noam as he noticed a probably harmless security hole — and promptly fixed with several hours' work. Reply

These people are giving you — Reply

• free unlimited webspace,
• free reliable hosting,

• free cgi support,
• free friendly IRC,

• free listserv support (including the ability to make your own),
• free helpful tech support,

• free tutorials on HTML, FTP, PHP, SQL, Perl, Python, C, Linux, and what-not.
• free access to a full-featured Linux box,

• free webmail with unlimited e-mail addresses,

and, as we're now experienceing: Reply

• free cutting-edge peer-to-peer media experimentation.

The service here is fantastic compared to Yahoo, LiveJournal, GeoCities, or anything else. We're faster, more reliable, more friendly, more permissive, and more concerned about you — not you customers, but you, our friend. Those people up there want this to work, and part of its working is that they do it for free and not expect a lot of compliments. There is no sign-up fee here, no subscription, no premium membership, and no ads. The people who do stuff aren't in charge, they just happen to be the people who do stuff. Reply

If you want to thank these people, go ahead and flood them with one-line e-mails saying Thanx for teh server!!!! — that's kinda cool. But here are some harder things that they might appreciate more: Reply

• a really great personal website;
• a really great conversation on IRC;

• a really great wiki post;
• a long, sincere letter about what exactly you like about the server and what you want next;

• for you to send along a one-line e-mail about how much you like what they do — but in six months, when it's not a hot topic;
• for you to take the time to learn what they do and how the server works;

• for you to tell them quickly, honestly, and fully when you think they mess up;
• for you to send them weird ideas for stuff the server could do.

Really, their time, money, and worry is repaid in only one way: by your doing cool stuff with this server. They feel overpaid. Reply

I am proud of nbtsc.org. I believe it's worth working for because I've never seen anyone here walk away from a good idea. Reply

— Charlie Reply

You guys are amazing and I really appreciate all the work you do as I'm sure all the rest of us here do to. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.—-breetel Reply

• *Hats off to that Charlie, very well said. —Heather
• *Thanks for saying that.

I didn't say that; Nick said it. I said me too. — Charlie. Reply

ari put a bunch of little characters for copy and paste at the bottom of the edit pages, which i am extremely pleased by, and may seem like a triflely little thing to mention on this page but actually means quite a lot to me. :) thank you ari. —eli★ Reply