For many years, Garth Wilson and I have moderated this forum together. In this post I'm announcing that I'm giving Garth Wilson more autonomy to moderate the forum. I don't think this will be much of a change and most people probably think Garth already had this.

The main form of moderation that the forum needs is the removal of spambot user accounts and spam messages. Despite having reasonable measures such as a CAPTCHA, "prove you are human" questions, and even some custom code, the amount of spam we receive is unbelievable. This goes mostly unnoticed because for over a decade, Garth has checked the forum multiple times a day and immediately dealt with any spam issues. Garth's work on this has been heroic and I hope you'll leave a comment in this thread thanking him for it.

The other form of moderation that the forum sometimes needs involves issues with members. Although the forum generally gets along well, there are sometimes issues. These can be off-topic posts, posts that others report or object to, one-liners that insult or don't add any value, profanity, harassment, discrimination, and those sorts of things. Whenever we have such an issue, Garth and I email privately to discuss it, then we either talk with the poster(s) or, less often, delete the problematic content.

Lately, I am not using the forum daily, as I have been busy with work and also some (gasp) non-6502 hobby projects like my car. I still read often but Garth sometimes has to wait several days to hear back from me, and it's happened a couple of times that a situation has gotten worse because of this delay. Garth has therefore asked me if he may moderate these non-spam issues without me and I have agreed. Since we almost always come to quick agreement on issues anyway, it wasn't a horribly difficult decision.

You should expect no significant changes in moderation. If there is some issue and you receive a message from Garth, please respect his decision out of respect for the role and the enormous effort Garth has put in over the years on the forum. Please continue to have fun on the forum, stay on topic (electronics!), and be respectful and understanding to others.

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- Mike Naberezny (mike@naberezny.com) http://6502.org

Thanks Mike - and thanks Garth!

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Having been a moderator and administrator on another close-focussed forum, I appreciate Garth's problems and his and Mike's efforts in keeping this forum helpful and readable (and apologise for my own lapses into off-topicness from time to time).

Thanks guys.

Is this a fair place to ask how this forum is funded, and whether a small donation might be acceptable?

Neil

6502.org has been fortunate to have a few sponsors over the years. Very early on, the website was hosted for free on nyx.net, and when we outgrew that, we received free hosting on buzz.chisp.net. When we required even more resources, Ross Archer generously paid for hosting for several years. I eventually took over and have funded it for the last 15 years or so.

As has been mentioned, 6502.org is well over twenty years old now. A couple of years ago, as I was reflecting on this, I started putting the code for the non-forum parts of the website on GitHub. I’m not planning on going anywhere, but I thought it would be a good idea to try and make it a little more independent of me. Similarly, I mentioned a while back that I also have specific instructions for the forum, just in case. There are full daily backups and a couple of people who know they will be contacted.

In the same spirit of making the site a little more independent of me, it’s possible that the site may accept donations sometime in the future. I very much appreciate offers of donations, but the site is not accepting donations at the moment. If we do accept donations at some point, there will be an announcement and a link somewhere.

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- Mike Naberezny (mike@naberezny.com) http://6502.org

Yes, thank you Garth, for all the work you put into the forum, into your primer, and into individual emails. I am thankful for this spam-free and welcoming haven on the internet.

Chad

Thanks for the clarification, Mike. It's something that I've thought about for a while; this is a very good and useful resource.

Neil

Dropping by to thank Mike & Garth for running this place since I was, like, 9.

I've never ran any communities this large (not even close), but still I know how much effort it takes to make sure things go smooth, even with smaller forums.

Thanks for keeping 6502.org alive in the age of anti-social networks.

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/Andrew

deck65 - 6502 slab with screen and keyboard | ПК-88 - SBC based on KM1810VM88 (Ukrainian i8088 clone) | leo80 - simple Z80 SBC
nice65 - 6502 assembly linter | My parts, footprints & 3D models for KiCad/FreeCAD

Kudos to both Mike and Garth! This site has been an excellent resource and I've learned so much by reading about other people's projects as well as discussing my own work. I never really thought much about spam on this site, which is a testament to how well Mike and Garth have been managing things - especially when you look at virtually any other bulletin-board like site on the interwebs these days.
Thanks!

I for one welcome our new 6502 overlords. Lol

Congrats Garth!

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Cat; the other white meat.

Many many thanks to Mike and Garth for making this forum this great place for 6502 enthusiasts, and a valuable collection of information as it is now!

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Author of the GeckOS multitasking operating system, the usb65 stack, designer of the Micro-PET and many more 6502 content: http://6502.org/users/andre/