phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 1:23:18
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Paul Sohier (Paul), Sean (House, representing Lyndon Bertie Johnson), Tim (T50Webmaster, representing Sir Bertie Jr.), harmlessgoat22 (representing Barack O’Bertie), and Jordan (Hank the Cowdog, representing Albertie Einstein)

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The excitement in our President Bertie Election Contest is really heating up, now with four very strong, very active candidates, campaigning to be elected the next president of Bertie Mons. We invited the campaign managers of the candidates to join us on the show (since Berties can’t talk for themselves unless there’s a ventriloquist nearby) to participate in a presidential debate discussing each candidate’s plans for the future of Bertie Mons if they are elected.

Unfortunately, running an eight-way Skype call (with half of those participants happening via SkypeOut on the phone) caused technical difficulties, making Douglas impossible to be heard by anyone except David, so that wound up flubbing us up a bit. Nevertheless, we did have an interesting debate, with some, um, interesting conclusions. It will be up to SCOFF Media to detect any gaffes that the candidates made during this debate. Also, two of the candidates were forced to leave early towards the end; we will be posting their answers to the questions that they missed on the forum within the next day or so.

We also spent a little time discussing the phpBB MOD Team’s announcement about Junior Validators, a new group of potential MOD team members who will help out with validation and get trained for the future potential of becoming a full-fledged MOD validator. If you want to apply, make sure you’re familiar with the validation checklist, and fill out the application form.

We did not have a MOD/Style of the Week this week. However, please note that due to a number of countries changing their Daylight Savings Time during different times over the next few weeks, the time that phpBB Weekly is live in your local time zone may be changing. Beginning Saturday, November 8th, phpBB Weekly will begin airing at 17:00 UTC instead of 16:00 UTC, but that does mean that if you’re changing Daylight Savings Time this week instead of next week, our next episode will seem to be an hour earlier. Please double-check your local time so you know when our upcoming episodes will stream live.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts. Also, be sure to check out and vote in the 2008 Peoples Choice Podcast Awards!

The United States presidential election is now only four weeks away, and boy, am I excited! After a seemingly endless campaign season that began over 18 months ago, I’m looking forward to all of this craziness ending and a new president getting elected.

But here at phpBB Weekly, I couldn’t resist doing something to parody the whole election process, and I wanted to do something fun on the podcast. So, as a result of a bunch of noodling around ideas in my head, we’re announcing the beginning of the “President Bertie” Election Contest!

So what is this contest? Well, in a nutshell, this is an opportunity for you and your Bertie to run for the office of President of Bertie Mons. (Bertie Mons is the new name for the capitol of Mars, which phpBB recently took over.) During the next four weeks, you and your Bertie (only one Bertie per entrant, please) will have the chance to do such presidential-campaign things as submitting a nomination petition and getting signatories for it, participating in a live debate on phpBB Weekly, campaigning within the phpBB Weekly community to get people to vote for you, and (of course) voting for the next President Bertie!

At their core, all elections are essentially popularity contests, and this contest is no different. So, you’ll be highly encouraged to take pictures of your Bertie looking “presidential,” or at least downright interesting, whatever you construe that meaning to be. And of course, during the campaign process, you’ll be able to talk about how qualified your Bertie will be as the potential president of Bertie Mons. And finally, everyone will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite presidential candidate during a 36-hour election on November 3-5, and (if needed) another 36-hour runoff election on November 6-8. More details about the later stages of this contest will come up later on during the contest.

What’s the prize? Well, we don’t have one yet. (Other than fame and fortune, of course! Well, fame, anyway.) It would be great if someone could donate a prize that we can give to the newly elected President Bertie on his “Inauguration Day.” If you would like to donate a prize, please let us know!

How do I get started? If you want to nominate your Bertie to participate in this contest, you will need to submit a nomination petition, and get it signed by ten unique people who have not signed anyone else’s petition by the end of the day (UTC time) on Friday, October 17th. This process, and everything else having to do with this contest, will take place in a new President Bertie forum within the phpBB Weekly forum on StarTrekGuide. Note that there are a lot of laws/rules that pertain to elections in real life, and we’re going to be paralleling as many of them as we can in this contest, so please make sure that you read all of the rules for participating found in the President Bertie forum! As the contest progresses, the details of each step of the contest will be posted there.

But I don’t own a Bertie! Well, you won’t be able to “enter” or “win” this contest, but there will still be many opportunities for you to participate in this contest and influence the results during each of the three stages of this contest (Nominations, Campaigning, and Voting). And you won’t have as many rules to follow, either! Right now, you can head over to the President Bertie forum and sign one of the candidates’ nomination petitions, and there will be more coming later on, so stay tuned.

In just over four weeks, we’ll be ready to inaugurate a brand new President Bertie! So all you Bertie owners, what are you waiting for? Without further ado, let the Bertie Mons campaign season begin!