Announcement question

[Dr Unne]

Any chance we'll lose the whole MB in this database prune or whatever you're doing? If so I need to backup my PMs. If not I don't want to bother wasting that much time and effort.

[Agent Proto]

I think it's very possible that might occur, but I have no idea. If you feel the need to backup your PMs, I would probably recommend doing so in case we do lose the whole MB in the database prune.

[Leeza]

I backed up <i>some</i> of my PM's...just to be on the safe side.

[Daryl]

Better be safe than sorry.

[Flying Mullet]

Is this part of a hosting move or just a pruning?

[Yamaneko]

Yeah, I'm kind of confused on that part.

[Shlup]

We're changing hosts because this one just has too many ads that we have no control over; too many instances of talking ads, porn ads, and ads that put spyware on your computer. We're backing up the database, but it all could be lost anyway. I'm not sure how much they plan on moving to the new server versus starting with a clean slate though.

[crono_logical]

We're not pruning PMs or users etc., so it's not that sort of clean slate database prune, but feel free to back up anything important to yourself anyway, you should be doing that anyway, I'd have thought :p *is not backing up any own PMs* I have full recent database backups anyway if something does mess up, although there's no reason why that should happen normally.


EDIT: I like how we all say different things :p Since I'll be the one actually moving the database (partially due to having the fastest connection), I'm making sure everything moves before threads get pruned :p

[Shlup]

We said different things? I thought I just said what you said, but its all a bunch of jargon to me anyway.

[Mr. Graves]

Any set time on the pruning, database switch, and whatnot?

[eestlinc]

if we lose everything then so what? just move on.

[Erdrick Holmes]

Will we have to re-register?

[Loony BoB]

Any chance we'll lose the whole MB in this database prune or whatever you're doing?
There's always a chance, but we don't plan on it.

Is this part of a hosting move or just a pruning?
This is part of both a hosting move and a pruning. We'll backup the forums from this host/server, upload them onto the new host/server and then do the prune.

Any set time on the pruning, database switch, and whatnot?
Not yet.

Will we have to re-register?
Currently, the plan is to not prune the memberlist. So if we keep going to the plan we're currently going to, no, you will not have to re-register.

[Flying Mullet]

Originally posted by Joel
Will we have to re-register?
Yes, and no one will have custom titles. Mwah-ha-ha-ha! :tongue:

[crono_logical]

Pssh, I don't have a custom title anyway :p

[Erdrick Holmes]

How long with the whole prune/move take from begining to end?

[crono_logical]

EDIT: Actually, BoB pointed something out to me I didn't consider, so hopefuly it'll be minimal :p

[Dr Unne]

I would also like to know how long we have.

[Loony BoB]

We still don't know. I'd say two weeks at the most, two days at the least... but I'm sure Cid will give a fair amount of notification. Don't forget that we'll be doing a final backup of the forums (including PM's etc) before we transfer... But personally, I feel as though everything should be over within a week. I'm not sure, though, as I don't know how long certain discussions are going to last so it's really hard to predict.

[Dr Unne]

So long as I don't come to the MB one day and see a sunndenly sparkly new empty MB with no posts or members, I'll be happy.

[Loony BoB]

If all else fails, we'll IP ban you until we have a few posts made. ;)

[Cid]

Originally posted by Dr Unne
So long as I don't come to the MB one day and see a sunndenly sparkly new empty MB with no posts or members, I'll be happy.


Of all people, I thought you'd love that outcome :) Seriously.

Um, it won't take long. We're gonna run everything on the ip address they give us, including the forums, to see how it goes and then we'll move the dns over.

[Cid]

Probably not even 2 days, I think.

[Dr Unne]

Key word being "suddenly". Honestly I was thinking about promoting a wipe of the whole MB, it'd be fun. But not unless I saw it coming. I just wanted to get my PMs backed up.

And holy crap did I spell suddenly wrong.

[Cid]

I wanted to wipe the whole thing... but the ff forums are a good source for people looking for information not on the site.

Also, I couldn't bring myself to delete Eyes on Each Other. Maybe all the other forums besides those.

[Erdrick Holmes]

Well if EoFF dies then I'm holding BoB hostage till you rebuild it :p

[Loony BoB]

That would kind of add to the difficulties given that I've been a pretty key part in all of this. xD

[Citizen Bleys]

What about money? Do you still need member contributions, and in what amount? Putting up a meter somewhere would be a good idea--Saying you need x amount of dollars per member won't do much, since you'll actually need more per contributor, given that not all members will be willing and/or able to contribute.

[Loony BoB]

No. :)

[Citizen Bleys]

You rock, then.

[Loony BoB]

I hope so. With all the time we spent working for/on this, I'm glad we came up with a result.

[Flying Mullet]

So who sold their sex/soul to get the move?

[Peegee]

"EoFF" hasn't suffered any insane crashes since it started in um....1999(?), right? It'd be a shame to lose all the nice pages and pages of posts (spam).

I'm not sure, but from my experience 'renewed' boards tend not to last very long. Either veterans make it very anti-newbie, or people don't post as much. But what do I know right?

[Yamaneko]

Yeah, I really see no point in the move, but that's probably because I run Firebird, have blocked ad servers in my host file and have a good connection. GameSquad has been good to us though. :(

[Agent Proto]

Well not everyone has the luxuary of running Firebird.

[Dr Unne]

Why not? It's free.

[Citizen Bleys]

here we go

[Yamaneko]

Forgot the link. (http://texturizer.net/firebird/download.html)

[eestlinc]

it's not like eoff is the only site that dumps huge numbers of horrible popups on unsuspecting IE users, but if you want to move somewhere and you know it won't screw up too badly, that's fine.

[Cid]

There is a difference between providing free hosting and paying the bills with popups and providing free hosting and getting rich on popups. If anyone deserves to get rich, it's me. And it'll be on text/banner ads.

[Dr Unne]

Hey Sean, remember that time we ran ad banners and made a couple thousand dollars, and then the ad company turned into a charity overnight and gave it all away to starving children or something? Wasn't that funny?

[Citizen Bleys]

Is GoMMeR even still alive?

[Loony BoB]

Please note a few things, everyone. Over 80% (I think over 90%) of the broswers of EoFF use IE, and only 35% of the page downloads are from the forums, and we're here to suit the masses, not to ask the masses to change what they use to suit us. As for advertising, I'm sure Cid will be going about that without heading off to random unreccomended companies.

As for the 'renewed' board thing - we aren't 'renewing' the board. We're just doing a prune. Otherwise, EoFF shouldn't be down for that long at all.

We've done a crapload of research and discussion on all of this, and we have lots of backups as well, so it shouldn't be much trouble at all.

[Dr Unne]

You're the ones whose time and effort and money have made the site possible; you're providing a huge amount of information to the world, for free. They should cater to you, not you to them. It'd be different if they were paying YOU. But if you choose to change to suit them instead, it's your right of course.

[Loony BoB]

Although we've not yet tested the speed of the new host, obviously, let's just say that every single thing is either the same or better. :) We're only gaining by doing this move. I'd say the only thing we're losing at all is emails, which is sad, but unfortunately these things happen. =[

[Burtsplurt]

Just to say good luck with it all. Erm, good luck. :)

[crono_logical]

Sean should put an ad for Mozilla/Firebird on the main site at the bottom or something :D

[Loony BoB]

Originally posted by Guu
Sean should put an ad for Mozilla/Firebird on the main site at the bottom or something :D
No point once we move. >=D

[Cid]

Originally posted by Dr Unne
Hey Sean, remember that time we ran ad banners and made a couple thousand dollars, and then the ad company turned into a charity overnight and gave it all away to starving children or something? Wasn't that funny?


Smartass.

Plus, I don't think google is a fly by night company.

[Erdrick Holmes]

Originally posted by Dr Unne
Hey Sean, remember that time we ran ad banners and made a couple thousand dollars, and then the ad company turned into a charity overnight and gave it all away to starving children or something? Wasn't that funny?

You mean all of that came from you? Wow you guys provided me with food a year ago.