Scott's 500ecstasy.com site (partial)

[Jelmer]

There's a difference between accepting help to cover the bills and "going commercial". Despite my relatively short membership, I don't think the owner/founder of a forum should pay the bills from his own pocket. This leads (though I'm sure not in your case) to a high probability of dumping the forum because of lack of funds.

I'm all ears !! Tell me what we should be doing !!

My only suggestion would be to advertise. As 036 and me saw in Düsseldorf: there are plenty people with a E500E who don't know about the existence of this site. Maybe later you could also add language specific forums for offtopic chatting, like German, Dutch, Polish, etc. This would attract people who find it difficult to write in English.

 

[Jelmer]

Social networking sites are simply tools and you can choose to use them or not. If you don't want to use them that's perfectly fine. I mean really, do you avoid hammers because they can be used to dent your car?

Well, there was one funky piece of research a while back that proved that people who are active on twitter and facebook (or, social networks in general) are - on average - slightly less intelligent than people who don't use them

 

[gerryvz]

Good discussion!

high probability of dumping the forum because of lack of funds.

The costs of paying for the site are not THAT significant that out-of-pocket cash outlay is or would be an issue. The cost is probably under USD $300 per year, total. And if I did have to move on, I would certainly offer this site and its assets first to the admins, and then to others interested in owning and running it. Unlike Scott I would never just shut the site down. The site is paid for in advance (software licenses and hosting costs) and thus the site would continue to run and operate even if I took a dirt nap, at least for quite some time. Backup administrators and succession planning are a good thing.

In Scott's case, I do think he mainly pursued advertising & donations as a means to offset significantly higher costs, because he ran the site out of his apartment -- on dedicated hardware on his own home Internet line. And he ran the site on several computers over those years. I pay for a hoster and so all internet bandwidth and server costs are shared with others, and come out of my hosting fees. I also feel this is safer in case of natural disaster or other problem (i.e. a hardware issue with Scott's dedicated computer was what initiated and catalyzed the eventual demise of 500Ecstasy) as the hardware that a hoster has is commercial-grade and thus, significantly more robust than a home-built PC no matter how high-end and expensive its components are. I think Scott was interested in a little profit here and there, too

In the case of many folks who own E500Es who don't know about this site ... this is an interesting thing. Many of these owners, while very likely Internet connected (email, perhaps Facebook, etc.) are probably not "enthusiasts" who own the cars and are enthusiastic about them. More likely this group of owners are "investor owners" or folks who just love the car, but are not all that interested in sharing their experiences and impressions with others. They are also very likely not technically savvy like most of you are (and for which I am merely a wannabe....).

What I'm saying is that for the folks who are super-enthusiastic about the cars, and who love maintaining and tinkering with them -- these are the types of folks who are searching and trolling the Internet about the cars, and who found this site (or had it recommended by others).

I also know of many other owners who are aware of this site, but who don't go here regularly out of a general lack of interest, or they don't pursue the car hobby much online. There are a lot of reasons.

In terms of other languages..... English is probably the best language worldwide because it's generally the most universal for most countries (I'm not going to use Spanish on this site). There are E500E-specific forums in other languages (some owned and run by 500Eboard members) and that is great for folks in those countries, but for example if you are running a Czech-language E500E forum, you're not going to get much participation from Americans, Finns, Norwegians or Germans -- the bulk of whom don't speak much if any Czech (Ahoj!).

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gsxr]

Well, there was one funky piece of research a while back that proved that people who are active on twitter and facebook (or, social networks in general) are - on average - slightly less intelligent than people who don't use them

I feel smarter already. *snicker*

 

[gsxr]

Social networking sites are simply tools and you can choose to use them or not. If you don't want to use them that's perfectly fine. I mean really, do you avoid hammers because they can be used to dent your car?

In principle, I understand what you mean. But similar to cell phones, there is significant peer pressure to have one and use it, even if you have no interest. In general I find that annoying. Now that everyone (except me) has a cell phone surgically attached to their palm and Borg appliance in their ear canal, they expect to be able to contact you within seconds 24x7. Planning for anything has gone out the window... instead of "hey, why don't we meet up with John and Jane for dinner this weekend? Saturday, 5pm?" it's now texting at 4pm Saturday "eat w J+J 1 hour @ [restaurant]?". I'm just not into short notice for everything. I must be getting old. *sigh*

Facebook just extends this to additional areas of your life, and while I'm sure it's handy for some people/families, I'm not interested in updating an online diary with my life exposed for the world to see. Call me paranoid but we've got enough security issues these days without inviting it to come down upon us. I have to admit that I do have a Linked In account, however that's strictly in case I need it for possible employment opportunities when my employer finally hands me a pink slip. The nice thing about LinkedIn is that I don't feel obligated to constantly post updates on it. Twitter doesn't even deserve a comment (besides, Rik nailed it already). In the meantime...

 

[omegabenz]

you alluded to it gsxr, but "resistance is futile" ~ the collective

 

[gsxr]

NOOOOO! I will not be assimilated!!

 

[2phast]

In Scott's case, I do think he mainly pursued advertising & donations as a means to offset significantly higher costs, because he ran the site out of his apartment -- on dedicated hardware on his own home Internet line. And he ran the site on several computers over those years. I pay for a hoster and so all internet bandwidth and server costs are shared with others, and come out of my hosting fees. I also feel this is safer in case of natural disaster or other problem (i.e. a hardware issue with Scott's dedicated computer was what initiated and catalyzed the eventual demise of 500Ecstasy) as the hardware that a hoster has is commercial-grade and thus, significantly more robust than a home-built PC no matter how high-end and expensive its components are. I think Scott was interested in a little profit here and there, too

Exactly AND Scott worked in the IT field, he should of known better than to run a high availaibity site from his apartments for all the reasons you mentioned.

 

[Ron500E]

NOOOOO! I will not be assimilated!!

Too Late Dave, too late.

Let me explain how the Borg have taken over.

2004 - State of Illinois Senate Race.

Respected attorney Republican Jack Ryan is favored to win over some no experiance Democrat named Barack Obama. It is a "no contest."
Then....
Jack Ryan's ex wife, Borg - Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One (Jeri Ryan), leaks to the media that her husband wanted to take her to a sex club while in Paris (and who would blame him).
So....
Ryan drops out of race and some guy from Delaware, named Alan Keyes, fills in (Alien vs. Predator). Mr. Keyes proceedes to alienate just about everybody and their brother-in-law in Illinois with his common sense (there's a reason why we have TWO ex governors in jail even as I write this).
Thereby....
Assuring the Senate victory for Barack Obama.
Who went on to become....
President of the United States.

As a side note....
The day after his victory (November 5, 2008) the winning Illinois Lottry Number was 666.
Which is different from....
The new French Presidents', Socialist Francois Hollande, plane being struck by lightning the day after her victory.

Kind Regards,

Ron (One of One)
15 days, 15 hours, 15 minutes to Prometheus opening

 

[linjam]

The new French Presidents', Socialist Francois Hollande, plane being struck by lightning the day after her victory.

On a side note to this and as I was going to post anyway, I actually dated for 9 months or so, Sarkozy's half-sister when I was 20 years old. I'm now 48.

I just joined yesterday. I was a lifetime member of 500Ecstasy for years, but kind of fell away from the whole thing when it fell away from us, not to mention I have a penchant for doing certain extracurricular things in bursts and then letting them lie for a while, akin to my tendency towards skiing in the winter and not the rest of the year ;-)

It's funny seeing, Gerry, Dave, and so many others I remember from the other site. Thanks very much to all of you, particularly the aforementioned. Very interesting to know finally what happened with the old site.

About Scott, he was a interesting fellow in my short experience with him. He offered to send me for free an original fuel chip (plugs in the ECU box) to replace the Renntech chip I didn't want. He asked for my engine serial number, and I confess to letting it lag a bit and then forgetting about it (or finding time sucked up by other things). At one point years back, I had made for my car by the hands of a true craftsmen in this realm a stainless steel custom header/exhaust. I did it with the impression I could manipulate fuel and timing to compensate for the air change, only to learn after that the 500E is OBD 1 and merely allows for the manipulation of the fuel curve but not timing. It was a very expensive (and a novice's) mistake.

Nonetheless, Scott expressed an intent (in a private message) to purchase the exhaust after I advertised it on 500ecstacy. He said, given certain current commitments he had, he was not in a position to purchase the exhaust at that time but would guarantee his purchase of the exhaust system in 5 or 6 months if I would hold it for him (something I promised to do, but which came with little sacrifice in that no one else showed an interest at that time). 5 or 6 months later, and with no solicitation on my part, I received a communique from him that he would not be able to purchase it due to various circumstances in his life. Anyway, kind of sad to see him fade away from all this, but I suppose that's how things sometimes go.

I hope here merely to relate my small experience with Scott to contribute to the whole. I found him to be a very nice guy. I will, of course, be always especially grateful for his essential role in forming an ever evolving E500E web site, whether hosted by him, Gerry, or someone else down the line.

As for Gerry, from his posts on the old site to his posts I've read on this one, he seems awfully impressive. Thanks to him, and to Dave and Glen, and to all of you for making this what it is.

Jamie

 

[500AMM]

.........Sounds pretty fluffy I know, but forums are really about social connections between people and, regardless of the technology, its the "feel" that makes people stay.

I feel it's an overreaction to what Dean wrote in post 44. My understanding of his statement didn't lead me to think on Facebook or Twitter at all. However, this forum makes social connections some way over time, we are all different but I feel it's like a big family, just because we have one common object to focus on. I don't know anyone personally here and I won't expose my private matters too much, but I've got really nice contact on Email with several members (..which was the sole reason I got the 6.0 AMG/König back in 2007). Over time we learn to know people a little bit during the posting, some are touching their private matters and others don't even say hello, use any name, say thanks etc.. But it is room for everyone and it goes a lot on how I feel about being here.

Adding specific language forum IS NOT the way to go, it splits the information flow and form groups. One language, and that's English. But a good add could be a sticky "Words & Phrases" thread under the Off-topics with language issues, not a dictionary but special words and phrases. People could throw in questions without feeling ashamed, maybe it’s possible to make it anonymous? (..please don’t use Wiki on this). English is quite different from many language groups, and I often see errors common to my own fads across the language groups. Often it goes on how to form a sentence and of course the vocabulary. But training & practice is good thing, but Clue and Google goes hot on both reading and writing sometimes.

 

[linjam]

Hey Gerry, maybe we can get someone to help the site evolve by writing an iPhone app for it ;-)

 

[gerryvz]

It actually has mobile accessibility through the free Tapatalk and ForumRunner iPhone/iPad apps......available through the iTunes Store.

 

[400Eric]

Too Late Dave, too late.

Let me explain how the Borg have taken over.

2004 - State of Illinois Senate Race.

Respected attorney Republican Jack Ryan is favored to win over some no experiance Democrat named Barack Obama. It is a "no contest."
Then....
Jack Ryan's ex wife, Borg - Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One (Jeri Ryan), leaks to the media that her husband wanted to take her to a sex club while in Paris (and who would blame him).
So....
Ryan drops out of race and some guy from Delaware, named Alan Keyes, fills in (Alien vs. Predator). Mr. Keyes proceedes to alienate just about everybody and their brother-in-law in Illinois with his common sense (there's a reason why we have TWO ex governors in jail even as I write this).
Thereby....
Assuring the Senate victory for Barack Obama.
Who went on to become....
President of the United States.

As a side note....
The day after his victory (November 5, 2008) the winning Illinois Lottry Number was 666.
Which is different from....
The new French Presidents', Socialist Francois Hollande, plane being struck by lightning the day after her victory.

Kind Regards,

Ron (One of One)
15 days, 15 hours, 15 minutes to Prometheus opening

This tale makes Obama sound like the Anti-Christ, not a member of the Borg collective.

Speaking as a man who was a republican longer than most of you have been alive (47 years!), I'm STILL gonna vote for him anyways because I'm so G.D. fed up with the republicans!
Regards, One Of The 99 Percent

 

[gerryvz]

Just paging through this thread, for nostalgia sake. It looks like 500Ecstasy went down "for good" in November of 2010. Hard to believe that was just four years ago. After first coming on-line in August, 2003, 500Ex first started having problems in early to mid 2008, so it limped along (on and off line) for a good two years.

This site first came on-line as the 500Eboard on November 30, 2008, using the free/open source "phpBB" forum software. In early July 2009, it went down due to the hoster losing all information and not providing the promised data backup. It came up a day or two later with a new domain "500Espot.com."

In August 2011, we did a migration to our current hosting company, called 1&1. We also switched BACK to the original "500Eboard" domain for the site, and migrated all data from the free phpBB forum software to the vBulletin 4.0 forum software. The site just celebrated its sixth birthday on December 1st (one week ago).

With the exception of a couple of days of downtime in 2009 due to the hoster's problems (which forced us to start over from scratch); and 4-5 days of downtime in 2013 due to problems with 1&1's servers, I'm very proud that this site has been "up" continually for the past six-plus years.

Overall, that's 99.64% "uptime" service since this site's inception. Not a bad track record.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

On Wednesday, I had about a 40-minute conversation with Scott Shell on the phone. Was a time to catch up with him, after not being in contact for a number of years, and seeing how he is doing. He was very interested in the forum and how things have evolved. He is living in Oakland, CA now, in a home he bought there. I encouraged him to sign up for the forum and reconnect with folks.

I also learned from him that he has the original 500Ecstasy server in his garage, and that the 500Ex forum database and files are striped across a RAID drive array in that server. I talked to him about perhaps doing a "database dump" of that forum's database into a single file, and then I can easily import it into this forum. He seemed amenable to that, though he said he will have to dig the server out of the garage, fire it up, and see if things are still working.

Sadly, Scott also mentioned that his pet bird, a foundling starling he named "Peep," died last year at 14 years old. Some of you 500Ex guys might remember "Peep." He wishes everyone well, particularly the 500Ex OGs here - the @gsxr, @Glen, @Jimbo and @captruff came to his mind immediately. 500Ecstasy went down in the 2008-2010 time frame.

 

[linjam]

Quite interesting, Gerry. Thanks for that.

 

[Jimbo]

Scott Shell is legendary !!

There is/was so much good stuff on his site. What a great benefit it would be if all that was brought back on here.

His enthusiasm and expertise in creating the first .036 forum back in the day laid the foundation for where we are today. I hope you and him G can work it out.

I gotta ask...what does he drive now ?

 

[gerryvz]

Scott Shell is legendary !!

I gotta ask...what does he drive now ?

Stay tuned:

 

[maw1124]

500Ecstasy went down in the 2008-2010 time frame.

I actually remember this. Funny story... I insist on joining a chat room (or 2) for every car. When I first started seriously thinking to buy a 500E, 500Ecstasy was THE board. Then I put the search down. Originally I wanted a W124 and a 4 seater Cabrio, and got stuck thinking of a C36 transplant into a W124 Cabrio — trying to back door into the euro AMG E36 Cabrio (silly). That was maybe 2009, probably shortly after I got the S55 and bitten by the AMG bug. After the M3 filled the 4 seater drop top spot (way better than a transplant), I turned back to the E5E instead of the W124 Cabrio, which I always thought wasn’t athletic enough for my tastes. By this time it was 2011.

But 500Ecstasy was gone! Like, I almost gave up on the car, but I found this site. I wasn’t confident enough in cars to buy a rare 20-year old one off Benz that most people didn’t even know existed. I saw owners being taken to the cleaners left and right for not knowing what I learned on 500Ecstasy (wire harnesses, caps and rotors, the basics). I couldn’t figure out the relation between the two but I quickly joined here to learn (and download) as much as I could “before it disappeared too.” Within the year I found my car.

maw

 

[Jlaa]

On Wednesday, I had about a 40-minute conversation with Scott Shell on the phone. Was a time to catch up with him, after not being in contact for a number of years, and seeing how he is doing. He was very interested in the forum and how things have evolved. He is living in Oakland, CA now, in a home he bought there. I encouraged him to sign up for the forum and reconnect with folks.

I also learned from him that he has the original 500Ecstasy server in his garage, and that the 500Ex forum database and files are striped across a RAID drive array in that server. I talked to him about perhaps doing a "database dump" of that forum's database into a single file, and then I can easily import it into this forum. He seemed amenable to that, though he said he will have to dig the server out of the garage, fire it up, and see if things are still working.

How coincidental, I was just speaking with Benny, the person that bought Scott's car (and later sold it), the other day.
Anyways, if, @RUN.EXE, you find that old MIA server and you don't want to / don't have the time to fuss with it, I'm happy to fetch it from you (I'm just across the bay) and fuss with it to export any data to @gerryvz's back-end.

 

[szvook]

So how would the posts from 500Ecstasy be handled here? Will they just be added as past posts, or will there be a sub-group for 500Ecstasy?

 

[gerryvz]

So how would the posts from 500Ecstasy be handled here? Will they just be added as past posts, or will there be a sub-group for 500Ecstasy?

There are a lot of ways it could be done. I would probably do a full import as a separate sub-section of the forum, and then go through each thread or section and move it into the most appropriate sub-forum here.

Combining an entire sub-section of 500Ex (for example the ICE section there) into the ICE section here is literally just a few clicks of a mouse. Same with individual threads. Much of the structure of this site was based upon and is an evolution of the original structure that @RUN.EXE laid out with 500Ecstasy. That was by design so that people would feel at home here after the transition.

XenForo has extensive import support for vBulletin, which is exactly what was used when we migrated from VB to this forum software. As you know, the migration went quite well.

Given the potential for an incomplete or corrupted database, I would probably do a few test imports of the 500Ex database into a non-production “snapshot” of this forum, located on a non-production server, as practice runs. Same that I did many many times in prep for the migration to XenForo. This would help develop import processes and minimize errors and problems.

The main thing would be to get a full, clear, non-corrupted database dump file. This forum’s database is about 1.6GB last I checked, compressed to around 600MB in the daily backup. I would estimate that the 500Ex database would be perhaps somewhere in the 400-600MB, compressed down to around 200-300 MB. The format isn’t super important, but hopefully Scott used MySQL (what this forum uses) or something compatible.

There are only TWO things that are needed for an import — 1) a copy of the main database; and 2) a folder with the attachments. If the avatar icons were available that would be helpful, but not required. A forum the size of 500ex would only require 15-30 minutes to import. Then a few hours of tuning and tweaking and all would be done. No downtime of this forum would be required.

The good thing is that an import would preserve all of the date stamps for each post and (if available) all of the attachments. It would likely need to be a manual process to map each of the users to the appropriate users here. Most folks used their same usernames there as here, so it would not be a huge task.

@RUN.EXE — the fellow in SF I mentioned to you on our call with the red 500E and the 911 is none other than the @Jlaa who posted above. He has extreme technical chops and could be very valuable in assisting with such an import. I mentioned we should have dinner with him next month when I’m in SFO for part of that week. Hopefully we can make it happen.

It’s hard to believe it was almost 19 years ago (August 2003) when 500Ecstasy was born. It was literally also that same month that I bought my E500. It’s also hard to believe how many of the 500Ecstasy OGs from those days are still here with us now.

It’s been quite a remarkable journey.

 

[szvook]

It would cool to see past images/photos from 500Ecstasy, we added quite a lot there. Any chance those attachments could be centralized in one place?

 

[gerryvz]

Well, if that forum were to be imported here, the original attachments would be included with their original posts, so they would have also the original context for the photos.

If I was just only to get the photos, for some reason, I could yes put them in the Gallery section of this site (see the "Media" tab in the bar at the top of the screen). This module is for those people who want to display photo albums.

However in my opinion a lot of photos are useless without the context by which they were originally posted.

 

[500AMM]

Wow - that was really good news!
It's nice to hear that Scott is fine and already joined here as well.

IIRC I joined 500ecstasy late October 2006 just after I got my first 036 which was the "500TE" listed in my signature. With the existence of 500ecstasy the 036 hobby quickly evolved to comprise a great part of my free time besides family & home.