People could save some posts if they use Google cache and Bing cache, to view and copy offline webpages. But those could vanish at any moment, so they need to copy them immediately.

[www.googleguide.com]


There is also content up on the internet archive.



[web.archive.org]
[forum.culteducation.com] has been crawled 906 times going all the way back to May 23, 2004.

Quote

But what I'll miss most is the part where Tsukimoto's dog got Honorary Life Membership of Oxford University's Bodleian Library (in the UK). Just like Senseless.

What?? How did I miss THAT bit of news???

Anyone who joined the message board or recently received pre-approved status will have to join again and/or be pre-approved again for automatic posting without moderation.

There is a possibility the posts, message archives and status approvals over the past two years will be restored, but from what the IT people say it is unlikely.

The system administrator at the current ISP hosting this site failed to check the backup system in place regarding this message board. The backup system was not working and this board was not backed up properly. That failure caused the problem, which occurred during the transition from culteducation.com to culteducation.com

This was a very serious mistake and the current Web development team that is now working on a new design structure for The Cult Education Institute is doing everything possible to somehow retrieve and restore the lost data.But given the profound nature of the backup failure this seems unlikely. The net result will likely be the loss of two years of posts, membership approvals and messages at this message board.

Anyone that became a member within the last two years will have to reapply and join again in order to post here.

Anyone give pre-approved status without moderation in the past two years will have to be pre-approved again.

Very sorry.

Quote

The system administrator at the current ISP hosting this site failed to check the backup system in place regarding this message board. The backup system was not working and this board was not backed up properly. That failure caused the problem, which occurred during the transition from culteducation.com to culteducation.com

That's all well and good, of course, but...two whole years??? The site wasn't backed up for TWO ENTIRE YEARS????

It am what it am; obviously somebody screwed up. It sucks rocks, if everything can be retrieved (The Anticult has some good ideas) that's great . . . let's cross our fingers! If it can't, that's too bad, but it's not the end of the world - no use crying over spilled content.

People can retrieve most of the posts from the internet search engine caches and also the Internet Archive, but the posts from the caches can be overwritten at any second, so they would need to be saved right now.

[forum.culteducation.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2013 06:37AM by The Anticult.

Whatever material anyone can post from such sources will be greatly appreciated.

Quote
meh
. I never did get to the part where Tsukimoto's dog received that award; I had no idea that Oxford had canine obedience courses ;-) !
.

I wish Oxford had dog obedience classes, maybe I'd finally break my little furry friend of jumping on the sofa. For a Friend of the Bodleian Library, she certainly doesn't behave well, though she is friendly.

Where this bit about the dog comes from, is that SGI had a list of Ikeda's honorary degrees and accomplishments. One of them was "Friend of the Bodleian Library." A British woman who was reading this thread, referred us to the Bodleian Library's website. Apparently, anyone can become a Friend of the Bodleian Library. All you have to do is print out the application form, fill it out, and return it to the Bodleian Library with the fee. It's gone up -- 12 British pounds per year if you are a Student Friend, 32 pounds per year if you just want to be a Friend of the Bodleian Library, and 50 pounds per year if you want to be an Honourable Friend of the Bodleian Library. That's all. Fill out the application, send it in with the money...and you too, or whomever you fill the application out for, can be a Friend of the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.

Membership, Bodleian Library:

[www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk]

With friendship come certain privileges -- newsletter twice a year, ten percent discount at the library shop and the Bodleian Cafe, free admission to certain lectures and activities of the Bodleian's, things like that.

My city's art museum, like many museums, has the same deal...fill out a form and give a donation and you become a friend of the museum, and can go to certain events for free, and get a discount at the museum's gift shop.

It's not an honor, award, or accomplishment! Anyone can become a friend, if someone will fill out an application for them and pay the fee. Yet SGI presents this like it's some grand achievement. Ikeda has always sought to associate himself with prestigious organizations, any way he can. Remember his "lecture at Harvard?" His "World Poet Laureate Award?" Not to mention his 300+ "honorary degrees."

The World Poet Laureate bit was also lost with our last 300+ pages. It's an interesting story. There was a great deal of hoopla, a few years back, about how Ikeda had been chosen World Poet Laureate by the United Poets Laureate International, parent organization of the World Congress of Poets. He was also so honored by the World Poetry Society Intercontinental, which is now out of business.

---------------------begin quotes---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[www.soka.ac.jp]

Including these dialogues, Ikeda has published over 100 works, ranging from philosophy to biographical essays to children's literature. A renowned poet, he has been named poet laureate by the World Academy of Arts and Culture (1981) and World People's Poet by the World Poetry Society Intercontinental (2007), which, in 1995, conferred its World Poet Laureate Award upon Ikeda.

[www.sgi.org]

On April 30, SGI-Korea representatives gathered at their Korea-Japan Friendship Training Center in Jeju Island, South Korea, commemorating May 3, Soka Gakkai Day. On the occasion, a stone monument of world poet laureates, inscribed with a quote from SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's poem presented to SGI-Korea members, was unveiled. Bronze busts of Indian poet and educator Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941); Italian poet laureate Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374); and British poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), were also unveiled. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Mr. Ikeda receiving the title of Poet Laureate (1981, by World Congress of Poets) as well as the 11th anniversary of World Poet Laureate Award (1995, by World Poetry Society).

--------------------end quotes-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ikeda in the company of Tagore, Patrarca, and Wordsworth? Really? I started doing searches for these organizations, and discovered that there is a whole bad poetry industry. Here's how it works: Hopeful writers see ads for poetry contests, so they send poems in. They get letters saying that their poem has won, and will be published in an anthology, which they can buy. Many of them do. When I was young, I too got taken in by this scam. I realized I'd been had when I received my anthology! There were a few good poems, but most were terrible! Clearly, getting published had NOTHING to do with quality. The book was packed with bad poetry -- it was a very thick book, with small print, and the "contest" rules were that poems had to be short. Even if a fraction of the writers bought the anthology -- the company would still make a lot of money.

This company sent me letters for quite some time, urging me to send in more poems, which I didn't. They also held events, where the "winners" could come, read their poems to other suckers, and pretend, for a weekend, that they were successful poets. Once I'd read the anthology, I realized what a scam it was. But you can see where people could get sucked into this and lose their savings to this fantasy.

United Poets Laureate International seems to be this sort of organization. Anyone can join, if they fill out an application and pay dues....and then the organization gives its members awards, and they tell eachother that they're great poets. The World Poetry Society has gone out of business altogether. A Canadian writer, Andreas Schroeder, has a great story about that:

------------------beginning of quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Interview With Andreas Schroeder

[ramp.torontopubliclibrary.ca]

There was a literary organization that called itself THE WORLD POETRY SOCIETY
INTERCONTINENTAL. They took advantage of young hopeful writers by offering to
publish their work - but for a considerable fee. They made big claims about how
publication in their anthologies would promote a young writer's career, when in fact
nobody in the writing industry took their publications at all seriously because they'd
publish anyone, as long as the person paid the fees.

So I decided to alert young writers to this fact by scamming the scamster. I wrote to
the Society and offered to assemble a German Poetry anthology for them (I was born
in Germany and speak/write German fluently).

They agreed. I then got together with several dozen of my Canadian writer friends
and we all made up "German poetry" - the worst, most idiotic stuff you can possibly
imagine. It was so awful, we almost didn't send it to the society because we thought
nobody would be so dumb as to believe this stuff. But they bought it - hook, line and
sinker. They even published extra copies of the collection, and sent it to the German
departments of many North American universities.


Well, you can just imagine the response. The German departments howled with
laughter, and a lot of reporters called me up and wrote hilarious exposes of how this
collection had come about. The World Poetry Society Intercontinental stood exposed
as the charlatan organization it was. It even closed down its New York office for a
while. But unfortunately the joke ended up being on me after all, because a few
years later they quietly started up again and continued to fleece young writers.
However, they did go out of business eventually, so I hope my scam contributed to
that.
--------------end of quote--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And THIS organization honored Ikeda? Some honor! I wonder how much money you have to donate to be chosen as World Poet Laureate.