To the forum admins

[OldnGrey]

Sorry, nowhere to post quesions about the forum itself.

Two small questions:
1. Are you going to be providing avatars? Didn't see any in the list in my profile.

2. Are the old posts going to be transferred from the old polserver forums?

Thanks.
OldnGrey

[Yukiko]

I am not a board admin on these forums but I have run my own for some time and I think I can safely say that since the old accounts could not be retrieved so is the same for the old posts. All posts are linked to the accounts. They are gone most likely.

The problem has to do with the way the database on the old forums was intertwined with PHP Nuke, the old web site system that was being used to serve up the webpages for polserver.com.

Alas, my site may suffer the same fate if I ever switch from PHP Nuke.

[OldnGrey]

Ouch, a huge amount of searchable information is contained in those old forum posts. Many many questions of mine were answered by searches. I fear we may have lost years of valuable data.

[Yukiko]

Yes. That is unfortunate.

I agree.

That's why I think for the very important questions it would be nice if there were a "Keeper of the Chronicles" that could collect those posts as they are answered and just add them to one HTML page and just keep appending that making it available to search.

I know it would be a random hodge podge of info but how is that any different really than the forums themselves?

[melanius]

The old forum where hacked, and alot of data has been corrupted.

Though we have backed up the old site, we do not intend to bring anything from it for the time being.

As a mechanism to store info on various topics, is our wiki site, where you can register and change/add content. We make daily backups of it, so there's no problem of data loss.

Another alternative would be to add a custom FAQ/Tutorial section on the new site, but we'll have to see.

As a side note, one good way of doing things, would be for volunteers to gather round, and we can arrange a certain weekend to revive the old forums with private access, and scavenge them for valuable data, that should be moved to the wiki.

[Beowulf]

It is indeed possible.
http://www.phpbb.com/kb/article.php?article_id=109
There is a step by step. I couldnt find the users table in the download probably as a security measure on your part... which is the most intensive amount of editing as indicative in the above link, moreso if there are a lot of users. I have however had a lot of success in the other sections. Hope this helps you in recovering.

[Yukiko]

Yes Nigel. That is about the only way to do it short of hosting the old site as a link and just locking the forums that reside within the old Nuke system.

I am not an SQL guru but my son is and he looked at the possibility of linking my old forums into my Nuke site when I decided to go with Nuke and we ran into the same issue you did.

If someone could write a database framework that could just organize your file based on topics and make it searchable that would be nice but don't count on it. I/We never tried it but my son never suggested it so I am not sure if it is reasonably feasable.

[Marilla]

I've downloaded the SQL script and pared out all the non-essential tables and their data from it, and doing some final checking before I run it on a DB server I have here.

I am out of town this weekend, but if no one else can get anything up, I will put up a simple searchable interface on a site next week; We finally hit a need here that requires a task I'm good at!


Some caveats: At the start, this would be nothing but a very basic interface for text searching the contents of the topics, and then displaying the text of those topics, along with basic information about when the posts were made, who posted in them, and in what forum; It would not bear any resemblance to the BB system currently in use here. The functionality available on it will start VERY modest, and I will improve upon it as I have time, if it is still needed. Finally, it will be developed in ASP.NET served by an MSSQL Server, and not PHP/MySQL.

If it is still needed when I get back next week, and I start work on it, I won't mind whatever you all here would like to do from there; If you would like to continue to work on a MySQL/PHP solution, mine can simply serve temporarily. It can be used to draw information from to be archived on this site until it is no longer needed, or finally, it could be permanent.

If I end up doing it, I will commit to be certain it remains hosted and available unless and until the administration here ever simply wish me to remove what access I make, for whatever reason. For the record, I have been hosting/administering UO-related message boards, news/fan sites and a UO Emulator shard all since 1998, and I do not make this offer lightly; it just seems like an appropriate way for me to 'give back' to the POL community that has provided us with an excellent emulator.



Anywho; so there it is! Like I said; If you get something basic up this weekend, Nigel, I won't worry with it. Otherwise, I'll play around with it next week. I've seen the format of the tables and it's a no-brainer for me to build a completely custom site allowing searching and browsing. I'm no super web site designer or anything, but I dream in SQL and C#

[Marilla]

I know what ya mean, Nigel, and we appreciate the extra help you do offer, as it is! You may recall me visiting on IRC related to a user login issue with the old forums. I ended up not having time to stick around to get it worked out, and of course now that point is moot!

I'm more than happy to do my little part in providing quick-and-dirty 'immediate' access to the info, as my little contribution back to things, especially since I DO play/run one of these silly games


When I get back home and into the swing of things, I'll see you and folks around. Thanks again!

[MuadDib]

Nigel, sup sup bro!

Let me get my pc to the temp apartment, and I'll hand you a .sql solution and instructions (I already know the fix to add it here, and make it searchable).

Sorry for disappearing, but work moved me to Indianapolis away from family. Having to get bills straight for 2 homes, etc. So internet was last on list (doing this atm from nephew's pc).

[Marilla]

Alrighty... guess I won't bother wasting time on this, then

[melanius]

Thanks for the offer marilla. Though keep it anyhow, in case Scott doesn't have time to work on it.

[Marilla]