Site History


April 28, 2006:
I have commenced work on the site-wide overhaul of HTML, in order to bring it up to current (XHTML/CSS) webdesign standards.


April 27, 2006:
Finally, for the first time in over a year, I've gotten around to updating the site. The updates are currently limited to the List Statistics section minus the Monthly Report.


April 24, 2006:
One thing lacking on this site is a logo. I don't have the talents to design one myself, so today I launched the Brin-L Logo Design Contest. Participation is free and open to everyone, if there are multiple entries the winner will be determined by on-list election. The prize: proper credits and Eternal Fame & Glory.


March 22, 2005:
I've added the Member Birthdays Page to the site.


March 12, 2005:
Last year this site got so few hits that NedStat deleted my counters, so I've deleted the relevant from the various pages.


March 10, 2005:
I have moved this website to the server of Klaus Stock, one of our members. More bandwidth, more webspace, and no more ads.


February 22, 2005:
I don't know (yet) what the actual cause of the problem was, but it looks like it's been fixed! :-)


February 21, 2005:
Freeler has actually managed to recreate the problem on a test PC! That's good news, because it means the problem isn't caused by hardware or software at my end of the line. The current suspicion is that Freeler's webmaster has blocked the site after a hack attempt. To be continued.


February 15, 2005:
In cooperation with ArborDomains (the Registrar), the cause of the problem has been located. I use URL Forwarding for the brin-l.com domain, but apparently my ISP's proxy server isn't handling the request properly. I've reported this to Freeler (the ISP), now I'll just have to wait and see if they properly reconfigure their proxy server.


February 13, 2005:
This is weird. Yesterday's problem continues today, but I'm the only one experiencing the problem! The Registrar reported that he can't replicate the problem. One of our members tried the URL as well and reported that everything was working fine. But when I try it, it doesn't work and I can't figure out why. I have three machines running (a desktop PC, a laptop and a PDA), the problem occurs on all three of them (and with four different browsers), so I can't blame it on neither my hardware nor the software running on it. Disabling the firewall didn't help either.

If anyone has any useful suggestions, I'd love to hear them! E-mail me (for the time being) at jeroenvanbaardwijk@hotmail.com.



February 12, 2005:
For some reason or another, the URL www.brin-l.com suddenly results in a "The page you are looking for cannot be found" error. The URL www.geocities.com/brin_l however works fine, so this is now a problem for the Registrar.


January 10, 2005:
I have temporarily disabled the possibility to subscribe through the Subscribe Page on this website. It would take you to the Topica website and let you create an account, but after that you would not be able to actually find Brin-L — making it impossible to subscribe. I have of course complained about this to Topica; I am waiting for the reply. Subscribing by e-mail is still possible.


January 10, 2005:
Updated the HTML code for subscribing to Brin-L from this website, after someone reported that he couldn't subscribe that way.


January 2, 2005:
The new year was a good moment to update the List Statistics again — due to the lack of list traffic, the previous update dated from two months ago.


April 11, 2004:
I finally got around to updating the List Statistics — the previous update dated from exactly five months ago…


November 9, 2003:
Revised the layout of the Member Profiles Page.


November 7, 2003:
Added a comment to the Administrative FAQ about changing subscription settings.


July 27, 2003:
Updated the Administrative FAQ. To protect Brin-L against spammers, new subscribers will from now on have their first few posts moderated.

Also updated the Awards Page in the David Brin section, to include the awards for which Kiln People has been nominated.



July 11, 2003:
Yesterday I moved Brin-L from Coollist (which has proven to be way too unreliable) to Topica. I've updated the Main Page, the Administrative FAQ, the Etiquette Guidelines and the Subscribe Page to reflect this move.


June 20, 2003:
Two minor changes to the Etiquette Guidelines: added a Guideline about bottom-posting, and updated the definition of "spam".


June 17, 2003:
Added a link to Brin-L's on-line archive at Mail-archive.com.


June 1, 2003:
The Statistics Section has been expanded with the Monthly Report.


May 29, 2003:
I've added the Member Profiles Page, pieced together from personal information members have shared on-list. Also updated the Administrative FAQ to include information about how to submit information for the Member Profiles Page.


May 25, 2003:
Added the Statistics Section, which for now includes the Alpha-Mail Statistics and a Member List.


May 22, 2003:
Uploaded the content of the website for the New & Improved Brin-L mailing list and began sending out the invitations; the hosting solution will be used for an other (new) domain name and mailing list. Contrary to what some people might think, I'm not doing this out of revenge or anything like that, I'm only doing this because it's the only way I can continue to make use of the domain name in a useful way (all my other options are worse).

As for the hitcounter issue, I'm going to stick to the Nedstat counter for this site, and use the Addfreestats counter for the new domain.



May 18, 2003:
Finished work on the initial version of the website for the New & Improved Brin-L, and got the new mailing list set up. However, just as I was about to upload the site content and send out the invitations to join the New & Improved Brin-L, I accidentally stumbled upon this very extensive yet very affordable hosting solution. I'm waiting for that company to answer some questions I had, but if those answers are to my satisfaction, brin-l.com will soon move away from Yahoo!GeoCities and be hosted elsewhere. The New & Improved Brin-L mailing list itself will also be hosted there, the list I already created will serve as a backup.

For now I've uploaded a limited version of the website, which contains only the Front Page, the Main Page, and the Site History Page. Also uploaded the David Brin Section again, after David Brin informed me that a PDF file of one of his articles was no longer available here and asked if he should remove the link to it from his website. We can't have that, now can we?

I also signed up for a new hitcounter (Addfreestats) to replace the current hitcounter (Nedstat). The new hitcounter is supposed to provide a lot more information than the Nedstat counter; time will tell how this will work out. I haven't installed it yet; I'm still using Nedstat on this site, the new counter will be included on the upcoming website for the New & Improved Brin-L.



March 21, 2003:
Minor fix: corrected an URL in the Administrative FAQ which still pointed to the Cornell server.


December 31, 2002:
Added the Fun & Games section, and included in that a page for the Five Galaxies Region of the on-line game "Jennifer Government: NationStates".


December 19, 2002:
Updated the Mud Page to reflect the MUD's move to yet another location.


October 8, 2002:
I have added two Traeki-related pages: the Traeki Ring Names Page and Marvin Long's Traeki Poem.


September 29, 2002:
Split the "Bibliography" Page in the David Brin Section. The various awards are now listed on a separate "Awards" Page.


September 28, 2002:
Added the David Brin Section, which includes a biography, a bibliography, essays and articles by David Brin, and His scheduled appearances (aka Brin Sightings).


September 18, 2002:
Brin-L has moved from Cornell.edu to mccmedia.com (a company owned by listmember Nick Arnett). The Main Page and the Administrative FAQ have been updated accordingly. Also added a line (suggested by David Brin) to the Etiquette Guidelines.


August 29, 2002:
Changed the Brin-L MUD Page to reflect the change in IP address.


August 15, 2002:
Added the Statistics Section and the Download Section.


August 14, 2002:
Added the Brin-L MUD Page. This file has been changed because the chat room itself was moved.


August 7, 2002:
Some pages of Brin-L.com are back on-line now. For now I have only uploaded the Welcome Page, the Main Page, the Administrative FAQ, the Etiquette Guidelines, and the Site History Page.


July 21, 2002:
I have removed all contents of the site, leaving only a message that the site is down for maintenance. The (restyled) site will come back up page by page over the next few months.


May 5, 2002:
Upon a request by John Horn, the Rankings Page has been expanded and now includes for each poster the date of his/her most recent post.


April 7, 2002:
Brin-L.com has joined the David Brin Webring.


February 28, 2002:
Added another graph to the Histogram Page, a histogram that shows the total number of posts per month in the same period.


February 27, 2002:
Upon a request by Joshua Bell, I have added a page with histograms of the posts per month of the current top-20 posters. The period covered is January 1999 through January 2002.


December 5, 2001:
Brin-L now has an official home on the Internet: I have registered www.brin-l.com! This URL will autoforward you to this site. (As it is URL-forwarding, you will still have to use the old address if you want to go directly to a specific page other than the Main Page).


March 25, 1999:
After careful deliberations, the Organising Committee has decided to discontinue its efforts to organise the Brin-L 5th Anniversary Party. As there is no point in having webspace devoted to a page about a party that will not be held, I have removed the Brin-L Party Planning Page and the page for the Mars Colony Flag Contest.


March 6, 2000:
GeoCities has shortened the URL to this site to http://www.geocities.com/jeroenvb.geo. The other two URLs will remain valid, though.


March 2, 2000:
New, short URL to this site: http://go.to/brin-l.


January 20, 2000:
Added the Brin-L Party Planning Page and a page for the Mars Colony Flag Contest.


September 22, 1999:
The Week in Review Archive has been expanded. You can now choose between HTML and plain text format, and you can download two zipfiles containing the entire Week in Review Archive (in plain text).


September 21, 1999:
After a request from Steve Sloan, David Brin's essays and articles on this site are now in black text on a white background instead of white on a dark blue background.


September 20, 1999:
I have added a David Brin Section to the site. It currently features DB's biography, a bibliography, an overview of His scheduled appearences, and several (but not all) essays and articles published by DB on the Internet and on Brin-L.


July 1, 1999:
Website is back on-line, now that Yahoo!GeoCities has backed down.


June 30, 1999:
All content of this site removed in protest of the new Terms of Service after the merger of Yahoo and GeoCities. According to the ToS, all new files on this site would become property of Yahoo!GeoCities…


June 16, 1999:
Another section added: the Brin-L Weblog.


May 26, 1999:
Added the Week in Review Archive (in HTML format).


March 18, 1999:
Removed my own version of the MUD Page and replaced it with Steve Sloan's (much more extensive) MUD Help Page.


April 5, 1999:
Way back in November 1998, Marvin Long posted a poem to the list — something about traeki and doughnuts. To rescue this er… masterpiece of poetry… from oblivion, I have added it to the site. It is a little weird, but definitely worth reading. Enjoy!


March 29, 1999:
Duke Briscoe complained that the scroll at the bottom of the Main Page was distracting and prevented him from seeing the URL of the link underneath his mouse cursor. Because of this, I have removed the scroll.


March 25, 1999:
I have added a Number of Subscribers page to the Statistics Section, as well as a simple navigation bar on each page and a little scroll at the bottom of the Main Page.


March 16, 1999:
Added pages for the Administrative FAQ, the Etiquette Guidelines, the Brin-L MUD (our chatroom) and the Links Page (containing links to the homepages of several members). Also added a link to the Brin-L FAQ.


February 3, 1999:
The first version of this website is now on-line. For now it only contains a Main Page and the Alpha-Mail Statistics. There is also an European mirror site at http://www.tripod.lycos.nl/~jvb/index.html.