Discussion Forum Update – EpicureanFriends.com

Over the last several years my major participation at Facebook has been focused in the Epicurean Philosophy Group.  Unfortunately at present my user account has been compromised and is now disabled.  I am actively pursuing its reinstatement, but it is unclear when and if I will be able to get it back.  In the meantime, all of my posts, files, photos, and Epicurean pages I have uploaded over the last several years are inaccessible.  Hopefully that situation will be resolved quickly, but the episode has reminded me how dangerous it is to rely on systems over which one has no control.

Partly out of concern that such a situation might occur, last year I began the setup of a new discussion forum for Epicurean ideas at www.EpicureanFriends.com.  My thinking in setting up that site was:

• To provide a place for discussion of Epicurean articles on Epicurean pages such as NewEpicurean.com (where comments are generally set to “off” to avoid spam),
• To provide a place for the sort of threaded discussion which lends itself to detail and the capability for finding and re-using material over time (each thread can be linked directly),
• To provide a website totally under the control of Epicureans and Epicurean sympathizers and therefore not subject to control by outsiders who might seek to edit or censor content for non-Epicurean reasons, and
• To provide protection against spam, while at the same time allowing users to employ user names of their own choice.  This will allow moderation based solely on the content of the ideas discussed, and will greatly reduce the possibility of bias based on age, race, ethnic background, or any other aspect of the personality involved.

I realize that use of dedicated forums has declined dramatically since the advent of Facebook, but the desirability of the goals listed above remains valid, and these goals are achievable only through dedicated software. Epicureanfriends.com has therefore been set up based on the widely-respected Woltlab dedicated forum software from Germany.  This forum software offers many advanced features, among the most important of which is that it is set up “out-of-the box” to be highly usable on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.

In light of all these developments I plan to shift the majority of my internet communications in the future to the EpicureanFriends.com forum.  I will of course continue to be reachable at my standard email of Cassius@NewEpicurean.com, and any of my friends who wish to contact me while I am unavailable on Facebook should use one of these two locations to reach me.

Under all the circumstances it seems like a good idea to move to EpicureanFriends.com and proceed with getting it off the ground for those who are interested.  To the extent I can, of course, I will continue to participate on Facebook, and I will do my best to continue to work with all the friends who have been so good to me in the past.

Epicureanfriends.com is still new, and there are no doubt kinks that will need working out.  I will appreciate all suggestions and reports of errors and other problems with signing up and using the forum.

Please feel free to let me know your comments at EpicureanFriends.com.  I look forward to many continued years of promoting Epicurean philosophy at this new location.

• Cassius Amicus

UPDATE 09/18/17:  The old forum, which contains significant material, is still available at http://newepicurean.com/forum1/