Well, as you can see, the new version of DBR is up. It's taken a lot of hard work over the last few weeks, and we'd like to thank Mike Ingalls, Jon Larsen, and Matt Avitable for all their help. They've been terrific.There are some obvious changes, of course, and we have a lot to learn about the new system. But we're excited about learning, and about what it offers.
We've already gotten a fair amount of feedback, and as always when we've made changes, some people are okay with it, some excited by it, and some hate it. We'll continue to refine it and to (we hope) improve it.
Most of the comments have come about the board and the move from a tightly regulated setup to a more open posting system. Most of those comments said they didn't want to see DBR's boards turn into another Internet snakepit. Needless to say, neither do we.
Most of you who have been around a while understand what we've tried to create here - a place where people can relax and be themselves without flames and attacks and the sort of nonsense you see everywhere else.
We've had some success resisting that, but we've also seen our share of fights and rudeness, and that's with the benefits of a whitelist.
We're reasonably sure to get a certain level of nonsense in this environment, but then again, we were getting it before, too. People who abuse the system will not be around long, and neither will their posts.
We'd like to ask you guys to really help us keep an eye on things, and most importantly, if someone gets out of hand, please don't respond. Just let us know. We'll deal with it as quickly as possible. Responding to someone on a tirade is going to make it worse, and you'll probably get yourself banned too.
The simplest way we can put is: play nice. That's all it takes, really. And for those who can't, or won't, there are a lot of other fine places to hang out.
Finally, we've gotten a lot of very supportive e-mail the last several days. Thanks to all of you. We really appreciate how generous everyone has been, and all the offers of help. We may need to take you up on them.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the new DBR, and please keep the e-mail coming. It's really, really important.