Yeah my lazy ass did something.

http://forums.mediarebellion.com

We’re now running phpBB 3 beta. The old forums will remain on our old server for the time being but are now closed. The board is not skinned and like I said it’s beta software so please try to be forgiving, I will be upgrading them along the way as more work is done by the phpbb team.

Thanks, see ya on the boards!

-J

Good question.

The truth is… we’re not sure.

If you’ve never been here before… welcome, sorry there’s not much going on. If you are / were a regular… thanks for your patience.

About 9 months ago the site officially went on hiatus. During this time our articles began to corrode with comment spam and our hosting seemingly went up and down on a whim: locking the regulars who visited this site out from enjoying the forums or much of the existing content.

About a month ago I got fed up with it and switched hosts. I moved the content over from one server to the other and migrated our content management system from MovableType to WordPress. In the process I de-spammed our whole archive while maintaining our user comments. Hopefully this will be the last time MR will switch CMS systems and the last time we will break our link structure.

Shortly after that… our aging forums were hacked and taken down by a hacking group. I plan to move the forums once again to a new system. I’m evaluating a few, as I hope this to be the last switch we make, and I hope to switch to an open source alternative, as I did with WordPress. While it might shortchange us temporarily on features, it will future proof us from lock ins and costly upgrades.

It’s never been a secret to anyone visiting or participating in this site but I’ve been running this site out of my pocket at a loss for years. I have never once regretted it, but the fact of the matter is, once I got involved seriously in the working world, it sank low on my piorities. It’s also never been a secret that I’ve wanted to find a way for the site to be self sustainable, both financially and functionally. Switching to WordPress and a new forum environment will allow us to look into these possibilities, due to their Free Open Source natures, which allow us to customize and if need be… commercialize.

I still want to keep the heart and soul of this site the same, since it’s inception there has always been an anti-corporate vibe from this site and it’s members. It is my hope that we can change / grow without losing that.

I am prepared to make a promise to prove this:
Regardless of what happens, so long as I am running things. MediaRebellion will always release it’s content for free, and under some sort of Creative Commons license. We will never force a membership fee on anyone.

So I’m beating around the bush still. What is actually happening?

I don’t know.

For one, we’ve volunteered message board hosting to New Wave / Punk band The Epoxies, please feel free to check them out on their official site or pop into the message board. This should have no affect on the rest of the site however. Participation is highly encouraged though. The Epoxies rock and I wouldn’t have volunteered such a thing if they weren’t genuiniely cool people. They are, in my opinion one of the most interesting musical acts around these days and I highly recommend checking out their latest release: Stop The Future on Fat Wreck Chords. I’m saying that because I believe in it and them, and I promise you I’m not getting a thing out of it.

But for the main site: We / I have had a few ideas, ranging from a web comic to a Digg.com clone to a podcast hosting site. There are a lot of ideas being kicked around right now and the fact is I’m not sure. The answer could be a mix / variety of those ideas. One thing is for sure… we’re dropping the BaloolaPalooza name for good and moving entirely to MediaRebellion. I’ve registered us a MySpace account which ultimately we will use to promote ourselves, right now it’s barren but feel free to add it to your friends list, it will be very active in the near future.

This is the real reason I’m posting this… I’d like to open a discussion. What do you think MR should become? What should we do? What shouldn’t we? What should be kept from the previous incarnations? What should bite the dust?

What I’d also like to know is, what are some sites you visit on a daily basis, or that inspire you. These days I spend a lot of time on Digg and Flickr and these sites inspire the heck out of me to do something interesting with MR and to finally live up to the potential it’s had.

Please drop us a reply here in the comments or on the forums. Thanks!
-J

On behalf of myself, J and the rest of your local MediaRebellion.com Staff, we want to wish you a wonderful and safe holiday season.

Hey as you’ve probably noticed we’ve hit a lull here for a while.

I’ve got a ton going on right now that are keeping me away from the organizational things that the site requires to keep running smoothly. There have been a lot of things in the works for the site that are still coming but at the moment need to be put on hold till they are ready.

I love this site, I love the people involved and the ideas and actions that come from it. We will be relaunching with a ton of new ideas, focuses and features and I promise when it happens we’ll be stronger than ever. I can’t say exactly when for sure at this very moment but I promise it will happen, and it’ll be awesome. But I’m not going to do it until it’s 110% ready. So it might seem like there is little going on here but I assure you behind the scenes it’s far from true.

However in for immediate future I have more important things to focus on. But I will be back.

Stay in touch people, the forums are still open and Bear is posting up a storm lately in his blog. I’ll still be around. If you need to contact me please hit me up on AIM: RuntRebel, or via email: localcelebrity_AT_mac_DOT_com.

Thanks
-J