Tyralak

I'm sure many of you have noticed the dropping of 'club' in the board name. It's now just ASVS. There are several reasons for this. First, truth be told, I always hated it. It sounded dopey, but since asvs.com and .org were taken and asvs.net was $2000, I had to add something to the name. As time went by I found I disliked it for other reasons. Partly because it gave the impression that this was a tribute to ASVS or a spinoff. Nothing could be further from the truth. This IS ASVS. It has merely changed locations. Usenet is dying, so ASVS moved. I am looking into trying to acquire ASVS.com from it's owner who is not doing anything with it. If nothing else I will purchase ASVS.us which is available. I will keep the clubasvs domains until they expire, however since they are already in people's bookmarks and search engines.

If you have been having lag problems or trouble with the site responding, please post here. We're trying to track down exactly what's causing our server issues.

This is a repost of an article I wrote a while back. I still stand by it. After looking back at years of denials, excuses and FUD from Warsies about why a canon episode, TDiC (DS9 "The Die is Cast") should be ignored, I can't find a scrap of logic in the claims. Let's look at a few myths, and then the facts. Warsie myth # 1: "The visuals didn't show the kind of damage reported by the sensors." The facts: The visuals show little of anything. They show a planet with gigantic ripples covering it's surface. Are we to expect close ups of the planet's surface to confirm what the sensors said and the limited visuals suggest? The show DID have a budget, after all. Warsie myth # 2: "The Founders were broadcasting false sensor readings, and this shows the sensors data to be unreliable." The facts: The false sensor data was ONLY in reference to life signs. Not to damage of the planet's surface. The false readings were to trick the Romulans and Cardassians into believing that the Founders were still on the planet. Once the Romulans discovered the ruse, there was no indication that the damage readings were also erroneous. We also have the inconvenient fact that the Romulans and Cardassians expected that kind of damage. That's the goal they were aiming for. When the damage reports came back, nobody was surprised. If this type of damage was outside the realm of possibility, the Romluans would have been tipped off immediately. If the Founders were broadcasting false damage readings, they would have been foolish to send out readings that were so far out of the realm of possibility. An example. A fighter aircraft fired a single missile at a target, say a small building, and the enemy had a way of sending back false damage pictures to surveillance satellites. The false imagery showed half the city destroyed by that missile. Does anyone really think the side that fired the missile would pat themselves on the back and say "Good job! That missile took out half the city!" when the missile only had the capability of destroying a small building? That wouldn't pass the test of logic, and neither does this Warsie myth. Warsie myth # 3: "This doesn't fit with the rest of the combined canon as we see it." The facts: Not only does this go against the rules of the debate, but it goes against several things that are indeed part of established canon. The rules of the debate say that with the exception of one-time devices that were destroyed and no longer exist,(Genesis, etc) you cannot try to exclude inconvenient evidence by trying to claim it doesn't fit with the rest of the series. Aside from that, it does fit with a part of the series that has been part of the canon since TOS: General Order 24. The destruction of the entire surface of a planet. A last resort. Conclusion: As inconvenient to Warsies as TDiC is, it is still canon, and give the fact it's on screen, is actually a higher canon than the Warsie Bible, the ICS. The numbers in the ICS are given gospel status, even though there is still some dispute. Power levels for TNG ships should absolutely be reckoned, at least in part, by TDiC.

Anonymous posting has been enabled for the Speakeasy forum only. If you would like to chime in anonymously for whatever reason, you can now do so. Maybe you don't want to register yet because you're unsure about being associated with such a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Or perhaps you're already a member and are too damn lazy to register a sock puppet. Whatever the reason, it's now available. Keep in mind, however that anonymous posting is still subject to the normal TOS of the site. The staff can still see your IP, so don't think anonymous posting exempts you from the rules. ********END SUBSPACE TRANSMISSION********

I will be adding a new forum called "The Mental Gymnasium". It's a forum where we bend over backward to reconcile inconsistencies and plot holes in various sci-fi universes within canon. In doing this, I would like to avoid "board sprawl", (too many forums, too few posters) so I am asking for a vote on the following matter. Should I consolidate the Versus debates subforums into a single section, instead of having a separate Star Trek vs Star Wars section and Other Versus Debates section? I feel that this would increase the variety of topics by not requiring them to be pigeonholed into one section or the other. I will be adding the Mental Gymnasium tonight, I will give this poll a week before I make a decision on the consolidation.

Ghost Rider, a regular member on SDN has gone missing. He disappeared after New Years when he traveled to New York City. He checked out of his hotel and left his cell phone and other belongings in the room. His family and friends are very worried, if you have any information at all, please post in this thread at SDN. If you are not a member of SDN, please post in this thread at ASVS and your information will be passed on. You may also contact Detective Bernagozzi of the NYPD 17th precinct at 212-826-3206. This is his picture, and a link to the missing person's handout.

After what I thought was a large amount of support for changing board software, I made the announcement earlier this week that we would be changing to Vbulletin 4 from IPB this Sunday. After a long discussion this morning in the shoutbox with several of the most active members, I was very surprised to find that most wanted to stay with the current software. This surprised me because the signals I had gotten led me to believe that the membership wanted Vb over IPB. As you might guess, changing board software is NOT a trivial undertaking. It is time consuming and isn't cheap. Both of which I am gladly willing to invest if it enhances your experience here and increases traffic. So, I am putting out a poll to decide if we should change or not. I would like as many as possible to vote, however if you vote I expect an explanation as to why you voted whichever way you did. When making your selection, consider only what YOU want in a board. It is irrelevant what you think myself or Paul want. For this reason, Paul and I will be abstaining from voting. Please give me your honest and candid opinions.

I have created a new user group to identify and give visibility to those members of ASVS who either own or are administrators of another board, related content or not. This will allow those members to publicize and give attention to their boards. This group of course, is voluntary. If any board owner wishes to remain anonymous, they may stay in the normal member group.

I originally held off on creating a front page for the site, because I didn't really have anything to put on it that couldn't be put in the forums. This, however, has changed. I spoke with Brian Young yesterday, and as many of you know he's decommissioning his Babtech on the Net site. He agreed to have it hosted in archival form at ASVS. I'm currently working with Brian on what parts of the site will remain and which parts will be left out. The site will NOT be updated, it is meant as part of the historical archive. The idea I'm working on for the front page will have a link to the forums on one side, and a picture of the Guardian of Forever on the other. When you roll your mouse over the Guardian, it will animate and you will hear a clip from the show: "Behold. A gateway to your own past, if you wish." When you click it, it will take you to another page that will contain links to both hosted sites in the archive, and live sites on other servers with historical significance (Like the FUQ). Babtech on the Net will be the first site hosted on our servers in archival form. More to come as the project progresses. Discuss amongst yourselves.

As you all know, we've been considering a software change to Vbulliten. We have a test site up http://tb1.asvs.org We have gotten a lot of good response to the software, so we've decided to go ahead. It will likely be put off for another month however, due to personal finances. In the meantime, many of you expressed concerns about site loading times, clutter, etc. I will do my best to streamline the site in the interim. Starting with removing all the crap on the sidebars that nobody seems to use. Mr. Oragahn posted some of his concerns in this thread. If anyone has any other suggestions, please post them here.

As you probably noticed, we made some changes in the layout of the forums. We did this to make the board less cluttered and the categories more relevant. All RPGs including Nationstates will go under ASVS Culture - Games - RolePlaying Games. The contents of the Creativity section, (Fanfics, Writers Workshop, etc) are now also under ASVS Culture.

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Sir Nitram. (Martin Kemmish). He died this morning at 11:52 am due to complications from a fall. He will be missed.

I have reorganized the way the Fan Fiction section works. The how-to thread in the Fan Fiction forum has been updated as well. Since most of you probably won't check the thread to see the changes, I'm reposting it here: This is the place to get your work out there for everyone to see. The sub forums are organized by author. If you wish to submit a story, use the following format in the title: Title Author Type Status. Status is to indicate if it's a complete story, or a chapter in an ongoing story. ( C ) will mean complete (I) will mean incomplete. if it contains any sort of adult themes, please include NSFW in the title. Example: Robbie and the Beanstalk - Tyralak - Humor - ( C ) - NSFW After you submit your story, I will create a sub forum for you in the Story Vault. You will have control of the content in that sub-forum. Nobody other than you (And mods/admins of course) will have the ability to post and make changes. This way you have complete control of your work and the ability to alter and/or remove stories as you see fit.

I have an ambitious goal for ASVS. I'd like us to be registered on BigBoards eventually. The minimum post count to be listed is 500,000. As of this post, we have 8,791. Any suggestions on how we can increase membership and post counts would be appreciated. Obviously the Spamcapital thread in the Speakeasy is helpful, but it's a drop in the bucket.

I will not be renewing the domains clubasvs.net and clubasvs.com. They will no longer point to this site in roughly 2 months. If you're using old bookmarks, please change them to http://www.asvs.us This will be the final step in removing the unfortunate choice of name from when this site first opened. An explanation as to why can be found here: Minor Name Alteration

Anyone interested? Looks like MissManners going to sell. Do you want to own Troll Kingdom?

I have created a new option for your personal profiles which will show up right below your avatar. It's labeled "Party". You can publicly tout which side you generally debate for. (Trekkie, Warsie, Fiver, Halotie, Wholigan, etc.) I considered a drop down menu of choices, but I'm sure someone would bitch that their particular niche wasn't represented, so it's just an open text box.

Any features that you would like to see on this site, please post them here. With our upcoming move to Invision Power Board software in the coming weeks, we will have the ability to offer quite a few new features.

I'm considering merging both the Star Trek only and Star Wars only forums into the Nexus. We really have too many distinct forums for our membership numbers to support. The VS section can stay as-is, but the Nexus will contain discussions of all sci-fi series, movies and books. My thinking is this will increase cross pollination of threads and allow for a more free flowing discussion, rather than having to worry about what forum is the most appropriate to post in. At least until our membership increases enough to support separate forums. The options in the poll are 1. Yes. Merge the Star Trek Only and Star Wars Only into the Nexus. 2. No. Leave the forums as-is 3. I have a better idea. Please explain why you voted the way you did. Especially if you voted for #3.

I apologize for the recent site issues and extended downtime. There have been some persistent server issues that we have now resolved. Mostly due to storage space, and other projects we have occupying the same server. We are going to be upgrading capacity, and there shouldn't be any more issues going forward.

As you all know, sock puppets are allowed and encouraged at ASVS. However, one thing is not. Impersonating ASVSers. Parody accounts are great, but don't create accounts under the name of ASVSers who have not joined the web version yet. For example, earlier today someone though it would be funny to create a Timothy Jones account. It got deleted, because I know for a fact the person who created it wasn't Jones. The same goes for Wong, Strowbridge, Dice, Dalton, Shep, The Duchess or any other ASVSer who hasn't yet joined. Don't impersonate them.

As some of you know, I'll be getting married this month on the 29th. For those unable to come, I will be streaming the ceremony to a private web site immediately afterward. I wanted to do live streaming, but due to technical issues, that wasn't going to be feasible. The ceremony will be at 3:30 PM Pacific time. The video will be available to view at 4:30 PM Pacific time.If you happen to be in the Northern California area and want to come, PM me your email address and I'll send you an E-Vite. If you would like to view it online, also send me a PM and I'll send you an E-Vite including the site address and login/password.

Looks like we're finally going to be getting a Section 31 series. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-star-trek-michelle-yeoh-20190114-story.html

I agree. This could be a golden age. That is if the haters don't ruin it for everyone.

F