Bringing up the old site.

[bhrobinson]

I am all for new and moving on, and we all know the old site needed a refresh, as the php BB was dated from 2009 with major security issues, but to scrap all history, archive it with a strong choice of purging literally tens of thousands of good posts, applying a site with half working functionality, and not even working through bugs....I highly suggest either returning the old site until you get this working with archive, or allowing others that might have better experience with data migration to help you properly convert.??Let me know if I can help. Or if this is not an option, please let me know how to get a snapshot of the database sans the user personal data for a proper archive reference.??

 

[Grimreefer]

How do I get to my old PMs so I can get in touch with a guy for some frags I was looking to purchase??

 

[Jose]

Thank you for your feedback,We have been working minor bugs; mostly related to DNS?records not fully propagated which we should not continue to experience within the next 24 hours.We have also been working on issues reported throughout the day which 80% have been corrected; all reported by members and responded to members letting them know the fix was in place.What issues are we missing that you believe we are not working on?[To access the archive please click on the archive button located in the top menu under Forum.]If there is a forum you would like to have transferred specifically; let me know so I can add it to the transfer list.We will transfer those forums to the new website which members pin point.Look forward to your feedback.

 

[Grimreefer]

link not working for me.

 

[Jose]

That is a great question.We will grant access to PM's up until mid January to retrieve your contacts.The archive site itself for forums has a current deadline of March 1st; which we may extend until forums in the archive that are relevant to members are transferred over.?

 

[Jose]

DNS records are propagating; you should be able to access the archive with no issues within 24 hours.?

 

[Jose]

GrimreeferI see you are currently online?@ the archive site; let me know if you face further issues.

 

[Grimreefer]

pulled it right up that time. Thanks

 

[bhrobinson]

Jose,?First, you are using friendly url links that are not generating properly on the system. These are caausing the 404 not found issues. ?With the small amount of posts generated right now, it should hold up, but if any real traffic were to occur you are going to overtax your google instance.?Second, the ONLY reason I came to this site was from referrals to read old posts from people and learn. To cherry pick the old topics and dump previous information is just not in good design, nor a good customer ?(member) expectation.?Lastly, I will not flame the posts, but I did just read in another where you honestly posted "you can copy and paste your old messages." That is seriously in bad taste. You have users that had thousands of posts.?Look, I understand that Wordpress is easier to blog on and add website feature rich content, but the forums were the only active part of the site, and you just drove a nail into the head.?I personally suggest either a complete migration of all the old data, or implementing the phpbb as the forums section into the wordpress site.??This article might help:https://www.phpbbservices.com/2016/02/28/wordpress-and-phpbb/#.WGODKLYrLUI??And again, I can help if you need. I have built custom routines for data migration before.??

 

[Jose]

Appreciate your feedback; this decision was taken based on traffic history, not based on ability to bring over data; as I have mentioned if there is data that you would like to have in the new forum please point it?out; the main reason to do so is that it will receive more exposure as it will be referred from our social media outlets,?if not the archive is available via the main menu under forum.We estimated 60 days may be enough time to provide our members the opportunity to pic forums they would like to carry over; we may extend that period yet in the interim we will transfer what we have selected as topics that would be of interests to fellow reefers.The previous site is already in WordPress with phpBB and is not mobile and/or social media friendly thus reduced exposure of our topics. There are multiple issues that drove us away from phpbb including support from them.We can sit-down and discuss anytime if you need further details.The new structure and forum system capabilities are already bringing the results we expect and our members will appreciate.Clean urls are providing issues as our website continues to propagate trough the web; we have pinpointed the problem and shortly will be a non issue.Thank you for your feedback and kind offer.?

 

[bhrobinson]

I would be happy to discuss whenever you like.??The 404 is on the local server if you do a curl to the ip. There is a definitive issue with the friendly url.?Traffic reference is minor outlook on a decades old hobby. There is always twinkle of data that can appear.?I again strongly suggest ALL previous data is migrated, friendly url are disabled, and use of a forum app, not a plugin to try and alleviate the pains that are being seen.??Finally, I know you are wanting this to move forward fast, but sometimes stepping back is a better idea. Have you thought on rolling the old site back, and setting this as beta.dfwmas.org until ALL members can feed into it?This is not meant as a threat, but I can assure you if these patterns on not taking into consideration all paid members is not evaluated, I will not renew this upcoming year.??

 

[Jose]

Thank you for your feedback!

 

[Alex]

Imho the new DFWMAS site will be wordless to me if the old topics, conversations, knowledge and experience of members, including history pms etc, are not migrated to the new site.keep in mind that I've been a member here for 12 years.

 

[Billy]

Alex,We absolutely appreciate your support for the last 12 years and we can understand your frustration. ?We as BOD members?were faced with a decision. ?Our forum was running a very old version of software that was no longer supported. ?We were looking at a large number of potential security vulnerabilities. ?As you probably noticed, our forum's have gone down a couple of times in the last few months. ?We had to do something. ?Going to a newer version would help us address the stability and the security vulnerabilities. ?It also allowed us to integrate into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. ?We wanted to bring the content over, but it just wasn't possible. ?There wasn't away we could migrate it over. ?That's why we've asked ourselves, and our members to help us identify which topics and posts they want moved over. ?It's a manual process to copy and past the posts.I know its painful, but when the process is complete and as everyone gets familiar with the new site, we are confident that it will be better for the club.If there are any improvements we can make to the new site please let us know. ?In just a few short days, Our webmaster has addressed most if not all the concerns raised. ?He is doing a great job.Again, Thanks for being a part of this awesome club and if there is anything we can do let us know.

 

[Alex]

Hey Billy thanks for the quick reply. ?Regardless of weather the migration is manual or not, IT MUST BE COMPLETED. ?The club will lose so much if the history is not preserved...ALL TOPICS ARE IMPORTANTALL MEMBER HISTORY AND INFORMATION IS IMPORTANTALL PMs ARE IMPORTANT....and we should hire temporary help or volunteers to go thru the manual process of porting ALL TOPICS AND HISTORY into the new website...For God's sake, you guys didn't even arrange to bring in the member history or their avatars...!!!Think about that... "Everybody joined a week ago"? ?I have "3 posts"... Really???That's poor planning...

 

[DFW]

archive.dfwmas.org

 

[DFW]

?Very good insights, and wonderful offer for helping get this done right for all of us in the club! Thank you so much for this input, and your concern, and offer for help!!! I cannot offer any technical skills, but I agree totally with you!!!

 

[bhrobinson]

I have migrated large sites (144,000+ pages) and object is it build a routine to do it.??I have offered, and will continue to offer to help with this.??As pm is less than functional, feel free to email me at bhrobinson@me.com???

 

[Alex]

Thank you for offering to help.

 

[DFW]

?I pray that your gracious offer to help is accepted. You don't really know how important something is, I guess, until you see it slipping away. But sometimes we don't even see that something important is slipping away because we can deceive ourselves with unfounded hopes that everything will be ok in spite of reality. I am voting with you, and reality!