Hallo all,

there has been some confusion recently about the role of the admin team and I can only apologise if we've failed to explain our actions. I had set up this forum without any rules and when the three moderators joined to help me out, again we didn't think to set up a page with do's and don'ts.

As many of you already know, I don't want the IdbD forum to be just another Bowie fan forum. We're trying to build a knowledge base for David Bowie record, CD and music collectors. We do allow other Bowie related discussions of course, but only when it's of general interest to David Bowie collectors. With this in mind, the admin team will moderate the forum to ensure we stay on track. That's not to say we always make the right decisions, but we do try to strike a balance between what you want and the underlying objectives of the forum.

To avoid confusion in the future, I've now posted a set of rules in the "News" forum. Please read them, adhere to them and respect the role of the moderators. If you are unhappy with a moderator's decision, please contact a member of the admin team. We will listen to your concerns.

Thank you for continued support, it really is appreciated.

Ruud.

I have merged the Bootlegs and Live Recordings topics, as they overlapped a lot.

If you too have problems visiting the site at times, please open up a topic under Comments. I have noticed myself that the site becomes much slower (sometimes unbearably slow) after midnight local time. Probably around that time everybody automatically starts backing up their site. If you file a problem (which you may have to do later because the site is so slow!), please note the time. I have already filed a complaint with my ISP, but the more complaints the better the chance something will be done about it!

Thanks everybody for the kind words regarding Iza. I have removed my announcement and the congratulations from this thread but surely kept them in memory! I have opened up a Facebook account and already connected with a few members of this forum. If you too have an account, please get in touch!

Then over to the real business:

My ISP has undertaken some 'minor adjustments' as they described them that should improve overall speed of the site in the nightly hours (local Dutch time). Let's see if these help, if not please "file a complaint" in the Comments section.

Furthermore, phpBB will need to be upgraded some time soon as we're experiencing continuous applications of spammers. Apparently v3.0.8 includes countermeasures. I will first try the upgrade on a local installation and will notify when the forum will be taken offline for the upgrade.

The forum software has been updated to phpBB 3.0.8. Hopefully that will stop the endless stream of false registrations.

Please post if anything has gone wrong, missing, etc.

Although none of you have noticed (hopefully), Alan has worked very hard to test and install a modification to the phpBB software that discourages spammers to register with this forum. At a certain point we were receiving 40+ spam registrations per day and this has been reduced to only a handful. Those that dare to register are promptly reported to a blacklist, hopefully unable to register on other fora later.

A big thank you to Alan for investing a lot of his time and saving us from penis enlargements and cheap mortgages.

Well done Alan !!!!!

Just a short post to let everyone know I'll be an ordinary member for the foreseeable future, no more admin duties and responsibilities. I think I've been doing the job for more than 2 years now and although I've enjoyed my time at the helm, it's also a good time to step down and devote a little more energy to other things. Ruud, Maarten and Matt will still be here to maintain and moderate the forum of course, so nothing will change.

Thank you for your past support and please keep those contributions coming in. We've only scratched the surface of Bowie's discography and there's so much more to discuss and learn.

Thank you Alan and all the best to you I say, youve been great

I'd say that Alan has not been great, he was the best. Alan has been the driving force behind the forum the last few years. He drafted the guidelines that are the main reason that things run smoothly here. Alan also created many enhancements to the forum software, compiled the listed on which the vinyl discography is based, took care of the lion's share of registrations, gently reminded people of the guidelines when things went off topic, helped the IdbD find a better host and of course contributed to the forum with his excellent knowledge of Bowie CD's and collectibles in general.

Alan, many thanks for all those things. I hope you will stick around on the forum and if you ever decide you can't stand the cold turkey, you'll be back in the admin seat before you have the chance to say so.

Alan, thank you so much for the excellent admin job you have done. You are the best!

Lars

Hey Alan thanks for everything, you've been a gem (and a mainman)

Colin

Yes, thanks a lot Alan. I'm still lurking around

Thanks for everything Alan, sad to see you go as a moderator. The forum wouldn't be what it is now without all your effort.

Matt Dornan (shooky) has decided to take a sabbatical as a moderator and become a regular member of the forum. Matt has been member of the moderator team from the first hour. I would like to thank him very much for all the work he has done for the forum, in particular the vinyl discography. The discography has been the pet of both Alan and Matt. Maarten and I will have a hard time keeping up the great standards set by both, but I promise we'll do our utmost best! Matt, thanks again!