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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 2, 2013 9:20:29 GMT -5
Can you believe the DM's Craft forum has been going for just over a year? We've certainly built up a nice little community here. When the forum was first created by hasbinbad, he put the call out for Moderators and I answered and as time went by hasbinbad left the forum leaving myself as the only moderator. As more and more members come pouring in (yay!) and finding myself not having enough time like I used to It would be logical to create a few more moderators to help out. Unfortunately I wasn't given the full ability of an Admin so I can't create moderators which means if I left then there would only be DM Scotty left and he is far too busy crafting to moderate a forum. I've tried to contact Hasbinbad numerous times but to no avail. After a long talk with Scotty, and the makers of Proboards on which the forum is built we have come to the decision that creating a new forum giving me full admin rights (to create moderators among other things) would be the best course of action to take. Unfortunately, it won't be possible to transfer posts from one forum to another so all posts would be lost and the forum would have to start again from scratch. Also the url of the forum would have to change from ' dmscraft.freeforums.net' Hopefully Hasbinbad will contact me with full admin rights so I can create moderators, if not then the forum move will have to take place possibly somewhere around Christmas. This needs to be done sooner than later and the decision hasn't been taken lightly as everything our members have post would be lost. Hopefully you can understand and we look forward to you all creating a thriving community from the ashes of the fallen forum *que dramatic music.... and fade*.
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dmbrad
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Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Nov 2, 2013 11:10:51 GMT -5
Ouch. Hopefully you can get in touch with him.
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AJ
Room Planner
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Post by AJ on Nov 2, 2013 11:19:16 GMT -5
Meanwhile, the more industrious forum regulars can go back through the boards and find their favourite threads and posts, copy them down, and when the move happens, we can create an 'Archive' board, with the best of the old board on it.. just save stuff you like, and repost it on the new board later. Hmmm.. copying text and illustrations from one source to another.. its almost medieval
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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 2, 2013 11:20:57 GMT -5
That's why I've mentioned it early on AJ, to give members time to copy any pictures & threads they want keeping.
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dmbrad
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Posts: 204
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Post by dmbrad on Nov 2, 2013 12:22:02 GMT -5
Hopefully if we have to move, the new forum will have a chat room.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 2, 2013 12:24:38 GMT -5
I hope everything works out, but God forbid SHTF your right madladdesigns the age of technology gave us the ipad/tablet name here. To elaborate on the idea you could delegate picture taking responsibility to every member with a device that can save pictures of the various threads & re-post them as pictures or re-copy them on the new site & almost everyone has a "smart" device attached at the hip anyways so this should go quickly. It's just forwarding & uploading the pics or links to pics &/or re-typing the threads that would be a hassle, but to have our forum archived for posterity would be worth it. I'll start saving pics & I know the whole damn Cardboard Army will stand up & help.
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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 2, 2013 12:30:48 GMT -5
That's what the shoutbox is for.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 2, 2013 12:32:39 GMT -5
Didn't mean to go overboard ;D
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 2, 2013 12:51:24 GMT -5
The shout box is now aware keep us updated madladdesigns ;D
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 2, 2013 13:28:48 GMT -5
Hey DMScotty &/or madladdesigns don't you think an email address for the craft would be useful in archiving the forum it'll allow you to receive all of our saved data & keep it on the back burner until the both of you can delegate how to restore the forum to it's former glory if & when the move goes through.
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Post by monkeywithtacos on Nov 2, 2013 13:40:16 GMT -5
Think he was talking about DMBrad's post ASNL!!! LOL but your idea is fabulous!
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tauster
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Posts: 184
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Post by tauster on Nov 2, 2013 14:02:43 GMT -5
I guess this has been tried before, but I'll ask it anyway. Just ignore it if it's a stupid question... I had been in a similar situation several times as an admin of a message board of my closes friends & family which had to move already 4 times now. With the early moves, we have completely lost the old content, but in our last move, I was able to contact the host of the old board and get a backup file which the new host was able to install. As far as I'm aware, many message board hosters nowadays offer the possibility to make a backup of the complete message board database. I'm not sure if freeforums.net is offers that... But if they would, you could take the backup file and transfer it in one piece to a new adress. This might not be free (varies from host to host...), but I'm sure if we all donate a little bit, we'll get the money soon enough.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 2, 2013 16:14:53 GMT -5
Thanks monkeywithtacos for the correction, & tauster that would be a really lucky break. I've over 300+ picture of/from/about the forum ever since I appointed myself an unofficial archivist this morning so if tauster's idea works or anything else changes I know you'll let us all know madladdesigns. Much appreciated
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Post by bloodchoke on Nov 2, 2013 18:27:21 GMT -5
Man, I really hope we don't have to move. I hate moving, and just did it IRL. Anyway, I'll start archiving when I get a chance, happy to help out in any way I can.
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Post by dm1scotty on Nov 3, 2013 9:47:51 GMT -5
Thanks all
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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 3, 2013 10:28:44 GMT -5
tauster: The first thing I did when thinking about moving forums was contact Proboard support and ask if it was possible to move posts from one forum to another under any means possible but they say it isn't. I'd rather not lose posts but there's no way to move them / back them up, sorry.
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tauster
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Post by tauster on Nov 3, 2013 10:48:55 GMT -5
tauster: The first thing I did when thinking about moving forums was contact Proboard support and ask if it was possible to move posts from one forum to another under any means possible but they say it isn't. I'd rather not lose posts but there's no way to move them / back them up, sorry. That's what I had feared... So we'll probably have to save stuff manually. Fortunately we are a large community here so workload can be shared among us all. I propose that we'll have a thread where we organise who saved which thread, and when. I also propose that from a certain day on (shortly before the move), all activity should be limited to saving stuff. Any threads that have been saved should get a very visible posting (for example large, bold, red fonts) that says something like "This thread has been saved on [timestamp] by [username]." Any posting that is added after such a post will be lost when we move.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 3, 2013 14:40:04 GMT -5
I've been working backwards bottom up saving screenshots of the threads on the site & I'm up to community video galleries. Now it's the general crafting, dragon's den, & community pictures gallery that'll need the most attention. Also I've been posting updates of my efforts to help the forum in the shout box. It's an email address to send all of these pics to that I'm looking forwards to. ;D maybe a video short, but sweet video by DMScotty himself on YouTube could help get everyone on the forum on the same page.
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Post by bloodchoke on Nov 3, 2013 22:35:54 GMT -5
Alright, I'm going to start on the community picture gallery board, on the oldest page where threads no longer get frequent updates. For now, I think I'll just post here what threads I've backed up so I don't bump them adding the time stamp.
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Post by bloodchoke on Nov 3, 2013 22:47:07 GMT -5
Man, just realized what a huge tedious job this is.... AGSL, are you just getting screen shots of comments or the pictures as well? Some don't fit neatly into the screen I've noticed, and I think some of the folks who uploaded into older files don't post anymore.
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Post by bloodchoke on Nov 3, 2013 23:31:57 GMT -5
Anthonyroma1969 Gallery is backed up. I saved the images onto my computer, then copied and pasted each post and the image location for each picture.
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tauster
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Posts: 184
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Post by tauster on Nov 4, 2013 4:23:51 GMT -5
I think before we really dig into manually saving each and every posting, we should spent some time & energy on looking for alternative solutions. - Maybe there is softwere out there that can extract the sourcecode of message boards and create something like an image/backup? - Some hosting suppliers might be able to do just that - crawl through an existing board, extract all relevant information and insert it in their own databank. That's just two ideas from a non-IT literate like me - I'm sure there are a number of possibilities out there. And I'm also sure that a dedicated websearch will come up with some interesting (i.e. timesaving) solutions. After all, there are millions of private message boards online, and lots of them have faced exactly the same problem before. There must be other solutions than the manual one. This is what the hoster of the current board, propards.com, has in it's terms and conditions: Of course this doesn't help us in any way as we will probably move away from this hoster, but I think other competitors will have similar politics. The larger and faster growing a comunity, the more leverage we have on our side to get their help for moving our data. Maybe we should just ring a few bells (i.e. write a few emails) and ask what's possible. Another thought, and I know of course that the final word on this is Scottie's: Should we continue to use free hosting services which have service limitations (no complete message board backup, for instance) or should we aim for a commercial offer that involves some cost? I as a user would be happy to be charged a small amount of money to ensure this community continues to thrive, but I guess not all users would want to pay. So I see several possibilities: 1) The board owner(-s?) bear(s) all the cost. This is not what I personally what would want, as it leaves the guys who brought a lot of joy into my life with an additional burden. 2) All users have to pay a small amount to come up with the yearly maintenance costs of the community. Surely the most sol idary way of sharing the burden, but it will limit the communitie's growth. After all there are surely other free crafting boards out there. I know tat not every user is active and posts regularly, but if we scare off 90% of all initial users, we'll see much less newbies registering here in the future. 3) Paying a small annual user fee is voluntary. Paying users get some extra privileges, whatever that might be. Access to private mesages, including polls and other features in your postings, etc... 4) Registering stays complete free, but the message board owner installs a paypal donation button, plus something that shows how many percent of the annual costs are already covered by the donations. Both 3) and 4) have the risk that not enough users will chose to pay, but I think this risk is very small. After all hosting fees are not that high, and even if 5% of our current 734 members share the costs, this will be a very small sum per head. I searched for "moving message board database to new host" (although I only had time for going over the first few results). I am not sure what software/technology this board uses, but we maybe this here helps: www.phpbb.com/kb/article/transferring-your-board-to-a-new-host-or-domain/Fortunately, we don't have an external deadline - if finding a solution (whatever it will be in the end, even if it's manual sqaving each post) takes longer than xmas/turn of the year, so what. Let's do this thing well and not quickly is what I would say.
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thedmg
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Post by thedmg on Nov 4, 2013 6:59:01 GMT -5
How much bandwidth do we need?
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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 4, 2013 7:58:06 GMT -5
That's interesting because when I asked they said it was not possible. Hmm.. I think I'll "ask" again.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 4, 2013 12:33:52 GMT -5
Hope you have luck with tauster's idea madladdesigns ... I'll keep chipping away manually saving threads just in case. Keep us updated. ;D
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Post by madladdesigns on Nov 4, 2013 13:13:08 GMT -5
Well, I got this reply. "That page entails moving from another forum service to ProBoards, not transferring data between ProBoards forums."
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Post by skunkape on Nov 4, 2013 14:44:28 GMT -5
tauster: The first thing I did when thinking about moving forums was contact Proboard support and ask if it was possible to move posts from one forum to another under any means possible but they say it isn't. I'd rather not lose posts but there's no way to move them / back them up, sorry. That's not completely true, it's more that they don't want to pull a copy of the forum database and replicate it to a new database for a new forum! I support the databases on my own website, and while it's not impossible, it is a tedious job!
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tauster
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Post by tauster on Nov 4, 2013 15:11:33 GMT -5
tauster: The first thing I did when thinking about moving forums was contact Proboard support and ask if it was possible to move posts from one forum to another under any means possible but they say it isn't. I'd rather not lose posts but there's no way to move them / back them up, sorry. That's not completely true, it's more that they don't want to pull a copy of the forum database and replicate it to a new database for a new forum! I support the databases on my own website, and while it's not impossible, it is a tedious job! ...so if it's a tedious job, how about raising some money in the community? If they don't do it for free, let's throw some money their way. I'm sure we don't need that much, and even if we count only the active users here, if everybody donates a small amount, I'm sure we get more than enough to get those guys to make a database copy. When we have the database copy, we (or Scottie) can still decide whether to have the new board hosted again here or go to another provider. I know this is certainly not the best way, but perhaps the fastest and the one with the less work for all involved.
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Post by skunkape on Nov 4, 2013 15:24:32 GMT -5
That's a very good suggestion tauster, and I'd be okay with donating some money to help out.
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Post by agsupernaturalfe on Nov 4, 2013 17:49:53 GMT -5
Kick starter anyone? Hehe ... we'll I'm going back to taking screenshots just in case .... ;p
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