So, I’m fresh off an hour-long Muirathon with Deskthority’s new owner, Oliver. (Jsheradin did the work to set this up and got to say about 8 words the whole call!) The result is DT now has regular moderators again. Spampocalypse is here!

I also asked him the little question: so, how about them servers, eh? You are still keeping DT online, right? What’s the future of DT? Had a very entertaining conversation as a result, including his mention of Nexthority’s existence, and my proudly showing off that I’m also here: just in bloody case! He underestimated our fear that our community was doomed to going dark. He gets that point now. I told him to get more invested in the forum itself. Post and be a regular like us! He says he’ll try. So we shall see.

Oh we also talked about wiki image rights and forum posts rights as well. He’s oldschool DT liberal about it, but sees the need to officially spell them out, as I do too. I brought up cloning the DT Wiki outright and he’s cool with that. He doesn’t seem hostile to Nexthority, either. He’s just preoccupied with his actual business, leaving Deskthority as an afterthought. The extent we users took this as a serious existential threat to our community’s future quite startled him.

So, does Deskthority have a future? Hopefully. It’s looking up, today at least. Oliver says the server bills are negligible for him, and I insisted he reaches out to us if that ever changes. He’s pleased to have some mods who clearly know DT the community, inside and out. And, yes, he knows he should be more active and actually participate, instead of parachuting in with (not so) grand schemes. Count me fair reassured. The proof remains to be seen, but we’ve met well for sure.

Nexthority needs to thrive as well, if you ask me. The more servers, the better for us all. This scene is surely big enough for both forums. What we really need here is standout content that has Nexthority written all over it. Like Deskthority did, when it was in short trousers! Something special. Something obsessive. Can’t think what, but the equivalent of DT’s vintage focus, even in the workshop.