[Phoenix]

To be totally honest with you. A few monthes ago, I might have gladly accepted it, but since the main page is already up and running, I will probably decline it. No offense but I don’t know you and thus don’t trust you enough to show you my code or anything along those lines. No offense to your person of course!

[grungykitten]

To be totally honest with you. A few monthes ago, I might have gladly accepted it, but since the main page is already up and running, I will probably decline it. No offense but I don’t know you and thus don’t trust you enough to show you my code or anything along those lines. No offense to your person of course!

A newbie web dev, working alone to build a CMS in a terrible application stack, refusing help from more experienced coders because he “doesn’t trust them” and “the main page is already up and running” after 4 months…

More power to you, and I appreciate the initiative you’ve taken and the progress you’ve made. The site does look nice, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in this project.

[Phoenix]

Alright, first of all: It was a mistake to respond to such an offer in public. It isn’t really a subject everyone is supposed to know and read about. I’m sorry for that.

Second of all, it was my desicion and I don’t have to explain myself, but in this case I will and hopefully it ends this discussion.

So, UnnDunn:
You are probably right. And it seems to me like you know what you are talking about. Maybe you have professional experience as well? I don’t know. If you don’t, allow me to use an analogy which might sound a bit far fetched but could be compared in a way.
Imagine you encounter a person that asks for your credit card and promises you to help you with your money and eventually make you more wealthy. Would you hand it over? Probably, if not most likely not. Why? Because you don’t know and trust him. And it’s pretty much the same for me here.
I have heard many stories about the old Brawna and how unstable it sometimes was due to hackers or ddos attacks. Or spam. So my initial goal was to make the new Brawna a more secure place. And while I genuinely doubt everyone on the internet has bad intentions, there might be 1% or even 0.1% that does. And this results in me assuming the worst to begin with.
P.E. Sherman might be a honest and trustworthy person, but I don’t know it or him. And after looking at his profile, which looks like it was almost exclusively made only to offer his help here, I have to assume the worst to KEEP the new Brawna a safe place. If he were something which is around for years on Amaz0ns with a lot of content, my responce might have been different. I am usually one to be open to other people and take their advices or at least consider them, but who knows if he actually wanted to help me or if he was just looking for a loophole in my code that enables him to hack, spam or attack it in any way? Or even have me insert a bit of code from him that has a backdoor included? It probably is because I am a newbie that I am so paranoid about this, because more experienced people could trick me into things that arent intended to help but harm me and the site in return.
This is basically the reason why I declined his offer. But please don’t be mistaken about what I’m doing. Maybe you know stackoverflow.com? I have asked various questions there and got help through it. So I’m not opposed to help, I just select my sources carefully.

That is my point, which I hope closes this dicussion and explains my thinking. I don’t mean to offend anyone here, I’m just trying to protect and be (extremely) careful. Thank you!

[grungykitten]

If you’re concerned about making your code as resilient as possible to attacks, then you’re going about it exactly the wrong way by keeping it secret. That’s called “security through obscurity” and it never ever works. There will be flaws, those flaws will be found and exploited, and you will have no idea how to fix things.

Instead, you should be getting as many experienced eyes on it as possible, getting feedback and advice. If I were you, I’d put the code on GitHub, let people fork it and submit pull requests. The ensuing discussion will quickly flush out any nefarious intent, and you will learn an absolute boatload in the process. Plus, the project will mature at a much faster pace than it would with you working on it alone, and when (not if) flaws are found, people will be able to help you fix them.

The biggest PHP/MySQL project in the world is WordPress. It’s used on millions of websites serving billions of pages monthly. And it’s open-source.

[Philip J Sherman]

Phoenix, as you write the site, I urge you not to take UnnDunn’s wisdom lightly. Me being in the IT industry, seeing the systems, and the zero days, I join with him in warning you that security through obscurity virtually always ends up the way he describes. In the early days that tactic was powerful; today in the 21st Century, professionals know it leaves your site and its users unintentionally exposed. Trust me when I say that security in the Information Age has become too complex for teams of one to fight against alone and win.

And that’s unfortunate because this is an important thing. Brawna is an important thing. The platform is a unique community that lets us all discover content that we can’t find just anywhere else. We hope you’ll understand that its not just important to you–it’s important to all of us. And those of us who can lend a hand want to plug into it just like we’ve always done.

You may not know, but I’ve been a part of, reading, rating, and actively writing and creating content for the original Brawna website for upwards of ten years under the same pen-name: P.E. Sherman. Some of my stories, such as “Theresa’s Muscles”, were even some of the highest rated on the site I’m proud to say. But since Brawna has gone dark we’ve all lost an open platform on which to find stories that we enjoy and to share stories that others would enjoy. Many original Brawna members feel the same way.

As someone who enjoys coding, I’m really glad that this idea and Brawna led you to an interest in the art. It’s important to know I’ve also been thinking seriously about reviving the Brawna platform. Finding you begged the question: why don’t we all contribute together and build on each others’ talents? One of the things that made Brawna so great was its spirit as an open site created by the contributions of many people. That same spirit should rightly extend to its source code.

[FfejL]

Hey Phoenix, any updates? It seems like the project has slowed down.

Anything any of us can do to help?

[Meredith Drake]

I for one don’t want this project to die off. Too many good memories on old Brawna. I’ll try and contribute some content in a week or two; the best way to help a small project like this is to put more stories on it. More stories lead to more views, which leads to better awareness, attracting more writers and completing the cycle.

[iceman75]

Hey, I wonder how often Phoenix actually looks at the Brawna forum, I applied to be an author and as many of you know, I have a ton of stories that I and many other people believe are Brawna worthy and would like to contribute them to the page.

[daroth]

So, is the new brawna dead too? There are THOUSANDS of pages of spam in it.

[AlexG]

Hey, I wonder how often Phoenix actually looks at the Brawna forum . . .

In answer, he hasn’t logged-in @ here in nearly a yr – about the same time as his last posting.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

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