It’s been quiet here on OPIEBlog these past few months. I have found that while infants can stay still nearly indefinitely, toddlers lack the skill completely. I can’t entirely blame my son’s growing up for the silence. Mostly, I haven’t had much inspiration to write about non-geeky website stuff.

Today is no different. As the Geek-in-chief of OPIEWeb, I reserve the right to bore you with such pedantic details as the following:

Several months ago I mentioned that OPIEWeb runs off of an unfinished bit of software. An experiment if you will. That experiment is coming to a close. The software is nearly complete and the latest release has some changes which will impact the OPIE-verse.

First, OPIEWebbers now have the choice of using OpenID, or you may now register directly with OPIEWeb in the traditional username/password fashion.

OPIEWeb has rules regarding who has the power to do what. Those rules are governed by our reputation system. You can find the list of abilities and their required rep level on the FAQ. For the next several months, however, those rules have been relaxed. This means that most users will be able to enjoy the powers normally reserved for seasoned OPIEWebbers (rep over 300).

When asking a question on OPIEWeb, you may now subscribe to that question via Email. You will receive nightly updates if anyone answers, comments on or edits your question.

The final change I will mention is a biggie. I now have a tool which will make a copy of all of the questions, answers and comments and who made ‘em on OPIEWeb. This allows me to unlock the OPIEWeb data and make it available to you, the OPIEWebbers, on a routine basis. This will prevent the knowledge accumulated here from getting locked-in or lost if we fall apart/disappear/fade away.
So go forth. Ask and answer I/O questions safe in the knowledge that they will be voted upon and freely available no matter what OPIE’s fate.