Ship of Fools: Contact us - is anyone out there?

Thread: Contact us - is anyone out there? Board: The Styx / Ship of Fools.

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http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=003426

Posted by Felafool (# 270) on :

In all the time I have been a crew member, I have contacted the site about 5 times using the 'Contact Us' option.

To date I have never had a reply.

Is anyone there?
Does anyone else have the same experience?
Why is the caption competition (and the rest of the home page) so out of date?
Is any help needed in maintaining the site?

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

Hello old-timer.

The "contact us" button is a direct line to the Editors. Except, by direct line I mean "an automated email link that goes to a overflowing shared account". Back when the ship was shiny and new, it was a way for the Captain to get feedback from Shipmates (or whomever) and then parse out relevant tasks to the Crew.

But times have changed - the Editors are less active with the Ship now, and the main things they forward to the Admins from the "contact us" line are problems with accounts. The discussion boards are still fairly healthy, though with much less changeover in membership, and some other features have languished. There's nothing to do about that for now.

If you have discussion board related issues you want to raise privately, please feel free to email "board dot admin at shipoffools dot com". Non-privately, there's always the Styx.

-RooK
Admin

Posted by Felafool (# 270) on :

Thanks, Rook, for your reply. As I suspected, the main life of the Ship is now the discussion boards.

I remain concerned that these are now marooned in an increasingly obsolete shell which is the shipoffools.com website. It is surely not beyond the wit of some shipmates (perhaps even myself) to give the shell a good cleaning, removing obsolete items such as:

- Contact Us !!!! (which you say is largely defunct)
- Caption Competition
- Search engine (some of my previous contact-us attempts have been about this - unless you know which thread to look in, it's a pretty useless facility)

and other barnacles, rust spots, holes etc

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Felafool, it pays to remember that this is not a democracy and that we are here at the sufferance of a fairly benign owner, who has other things to do with his life.

It might be nice if Simon and The Ancient Mariner were minded to donate the ship to shipmates, but they have no obligation to do so. As far as I understand they have rather a lot of other things on their plate to be getting on with.

Mostly we should all be thankful for the staff and the fact that the Captain is content to let us get on with it.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

Mostly we should all be thankful for the staff and the fact that the Captain is content to let us get on with it.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

Mostly we should all be thankful for the staff and the fact that the Captain is content to let us get on with it.

Stow that, ye lubber. I say we mutiny and take the Ship! Oh wait, that would mean responsibility. bugger
Never mind, as you were, then.

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

Compared with some other websites whose owners tinker with them all the time, the Ship works fairly well, and my presence here proves that any idiot can use it. The bits that don't work aren't very important, and if something really matters to you, there's usually someone who will either give advice or laugh at you. My car is the same: getting on and getting rusty, but the damn thing works and does what I need it to do. My body is like that, too.

Posted by Felafool (# 270) on :

Thanks for all your comments. Basically it boils down to SUMO.
I'm reminded of old wineskins. I've had my say and offered help. I'll get my coat.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Felafool:
Basically it boils down to SUMO.

No, what it boils down to is that the admins are not in charge of making decisions about any of the things you would like to have changed.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

This may be as good a place as any to ask (or ask who to ask) how I can contribute to the Ship funds without using Paypal.

"Support Us" and "UK Sterling" leads to mention of a 'Don't have a PayPal account?' link, that I can't find. Can I somehow simply use a Visa debit card? What am I missing?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

From this page click the "Donate" button. That should take you to a payment page where you can enter the amount you want to donate, select card type and enter the relevant numbers, address etc.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

Thank you. I managed to plough through it. It still seemed to involve Paypal. I hope my (small) donation doesn't mean I've been dragged into Paypal in some sense, although I haven't opened and won't open a Paypal account.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

At the bottom of the linked-to page you should see "Don't have a PayPal account? Use your credit card or bank account (where available)" and a Continue button. If you click the Continue button, you should be able to charge a donation to your credit card of choice without involving PayPal.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Thanks, agingjb, for the reminder. And thanks, Miss Amanda, for pointing out the link. I shall make a donation in a couple of days when this credit card cycle closes.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

I very rarely visit The Styx page but did so just now; that was an interesting topic.

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