Your comments are wanted!

Adrian · 2002-05-01 05:02:27

The New Mars forums will soon be reaching that magical 1000 post mark in a couple of days or so. I'm planning to write a short editorial about the forums on the main New Mars site, and am looking for your views about the Mars Society, New Mars and these forums.

What do you like about these forums? What don't you like? How do you think the Mars Society has changed over the past few years, and has your perception of any aspect of Mars been changed by posts you've read or made here?

GOM · 2002-05-01 11:57:22

I like the forums. You have a wide variety of thought-provoking topics.

The forums are getting tons of views, at least on some topics. However, I wish more people would participate. This seems to be a common complaint on many message boards. Lots of viewers, but not enough of those viewers turn into posters. I'm not sure what the solution is.

Anton Kuratnik · 2002-05-01 13:41:57

the site is a little simple. I didn't realise what it lacks yet, but I'll think about it.

Adrian · 2002-05-01 14:19:40

GOM: You're right about the views/posters. I don't think there is any useful solution to this, but it will sort itself out in time. The forums are getting increased traffic every day, and I think in a year or so the complaint will be that there are too many posters, not too little! These things just take time.

Anton: I'd like to hear your suggestions but believe me, it takes enough time trying to get people to write articles and administrating this forum as it is, especially when I have to balance it with university, my weblog, personal site and various other websites...

Anton Kuratnik · 2002-05-01 15:45:44

I know. I run one small monarchist site without any articles (yet) and it's already hard for me.

BTW, I have an idea: you should add a mars information site or something like that where you can collect info on Mars.

Adrian · 2002-05-02 14:44:23

1000 posts! And a day earlier than I expected - I'm very impressed. The 1000th post was made by (relatively) new member Canth.

It would be nice to construct some kind of Mars information website, and I wouldn't rule it out as long as someone else actually wrote the thing and ensured quality control, but it would be a big project. There are already several excellent websites with more Mars information than could be made without a huge effort, including NASA's Mars page and the Nine Planets guide. For now, I'm happy just linking to those pages.

Josh Cryer · 2002-05-02 15:37:26

It's pretty crazy that I have the most posts, and I haven't been posting much lately! Hehehe...

I like Anton's idea, and I was thinking about starting such a site myself. But archiving everything there is to know about Mars would take up many many gigabytes of space. I've basically archived all the PDS stuff, and I can say it takes up over two hundred CDs. But, heh, maybe that wasn't his point...

Peter Pevensie · 2002-05-04 05:52:00

Hello, Everyone!

First, let me introduce myself: My name's Peter. I've been a "lurker" here for a while, and finally decided to jump in. I've followed the work of the Mars Society from a distance for quite a while, and I have a passion for Mars exploration and, eventually, colonization.

I did my undergraduate work in Engineering Physics and began my career in the (U.S.) military working in air and missile defense. As an undergrad I did an internship at Los Alamos National Labs, writing code for the gamma ray spectrometer that was aboard Mars Observer. I've also got a little grad work under my belt through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where I was at one time pursuing a degree in Aircraft/Spacecraft Safety Systems. I had an application in at the Astronaut Office at NASA when God intervened and pointed my life in another direction. Today I work as a Christian minister serving an international congregation in Portugal. I hope I can add yet another different perspective to some of the great discussions here.

So anyway...a comment. Would there be any interest in a "civ-culture" forum here, similar to the Mars Society civ-culture mailing list? In particular, I'm interested in all kinds of sociological and anthropological issues, from crew dynamics to leadership to societal development of Martian colonies. Anyone else have any thoughts or interests in these areas?

One other question: I've had trouble accessing the "profile" area of the control panel. Is it just me, or is it disabled?

Adrian · 2002-05-04 08:11:12

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your introduction, it was interesting reading. Also, thanks for the tip on the profile section - I didn't know that it wasn't working. It turns out that a file was missing, and since then I've replaced it and it's working fine. It's very possible that other previously broken things may be working.

I've started up a new thread to discuss the possibility of new forums.

Josh: 200 CDs worth of info is probably beyond the capability of any Mars Society server to handle Some kind of general information site would be good - as I've said before, the New Mars system has a few hundred mb of space and bandwidth to spare, so I'm always on the lookout for good projects.

GOM · 2002-05-04 11:20:11

I had an application in at the Astronaut Office at NASA when God intervened and pointed my life in another direction.

Welcome Peter!

God does that to us sometimes. You have a very interesting background. I'm looking forward to your input.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-06-05 02:21:10

"Forums" has certainly flourished lately!
If it hasn't reached critical mass yet, it can't be far off it. It's becoming harder and harder to keep up with all the posts.
I wonder if those pretty little gold stars Adrian invented have had anything to do with it .... ?!
Hmmm !!

Adrian · 2002-06-05 03:41:28

There's definitely been a real increase in posts lately; I think the gold stars have helped, maybe because people don't want to be called 'Junior Members'

Something interesting - it took nine months to get the first 1000 posts here. It'll only take six weeks to get the next 1000.

Josh Cryer · 2002-06-05 10:02:38

Hehehe. The post count thing has inticed me to post more even though I'm extremely busy. I really don't want to lag behind too much since I've been here for awhile, heh.

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