Bringing up the old site.

[Grant]

I'll also throw in an offer to help. ?I do a lot of scripting and data manipulation as part of my job (mostly Perl and RegEx stuff). ?Is there a way to export the data on the old system? ?If so, ?I'd think it could be converted to something that the new system could read.There was so much information in the old posts that I really feel it's a shame to lose it all.?

 

[bhrobinson]

Awesome Grant.??Jose,?If you are willing, I propose we try to meet and see what we can do as a group.??

 

[Jose]

I appreciate both of your help offerings; we are already working on an importer, the archive is fully functional and available to everyone, and all issues reported in the current forums system have been addressed; we are also working on indexing the archive to the new forum structure so the archive content will pull upon search on the new forum structure.We understand the value of our content and it has never been our goal to trash it, we may have not communicated that we ourselves were cherry picking content and all we asked was for everyone to help?on the picking process.Out of the thousands of topics in our archive?only 60% are hobby related; from that 60% most don't even have images, and most of those topics relate to issues where the images are important, would you like to be involved in the process of cleaning the archive and making sure all post have images that can be related to the post for it to actually be of help? that is something that will truly benefit the club, if so i can grant both of you access to forums in the archive and moderator control so you can help fix all that content??Thank you for your offering, let me know if you could help us clean up our broken content so we can bring useful information to the new forum structure; all content that has valuable information will be brought over to?the new forum structure as it interacts with more than the forum; all content that is not complete or relevant will remain in the archive for all of us to visit.

 

[bhrobinson]

I would not recommend modifying the historical data to "try" and make it fit the mold.?Forums and newsgroups are there for historical accuracy and reference, not to try and bring "relevant" to a person or persons whim.??Images at last count are only working 50% of the time on the new site as is.?I recommend a pure data dump of the past information into the new system, and if then you want to archive, produce a subfolder of archives.?before the historical data is damaged beyond usefulness, can you assure us all that there is an offline copy of the db that we can reconstruct if and when this attempt fails??If you are wishing to mass migrate, I am all in. If you are still looking at cherry picking, I really would like to know the options of getting the database.?

 

[Jose]

We don't work on production environments; the archive will remain untouched and we do have a backup of the archive which we have been working with on our development environments.Our archive is not at risk of being lost, we were lucky to have a backup from the very day the hosting provider was hacked thus we were the lucky few that didn't lost everything, otherwise there will be no archive today.Pure data dump wouldn't work; you may be looking at the website as just the forum as the old?website was not visited and/or relevant, our current website has tons of new features that are already providing results, our visits have skyrocketed more than 600% with this new structure and once we have relevant data even our archive will become relevant to new users.The phpbb was what you consider our old website; our forum is now just a piece of our website and we will build it to be the tool we all need it to be.If you wish to join us and look at what we are doing let's get together; I'm always happy to share with fellow members our plans, I haven't found most replies when we ask for suggestions maybe people are busy.?We need people to help us , join the BOD and help us make this community better.We have the archive, we have a website that works, we have a new forum that is friendly, let me know what else we can provide other than the data migration which we are already working on and yes come over and help us we can use all the help we can get.Thank you!

 

[bhrobinson]

There is an increase in traffic, but most all of it is complaints or concerns.??I am very familiar the phpbb and the old Wordpress.??I did did not volunteer to help as when the new bod was issued, there were politics I chose to stay out of. ?I know you are doing the best you can, but I suggest we all work together to decide what the whole of the community wants.?

 

[Jose]

I'm talking about new traffic and new subscriptions; I'm not talking about existing members traffic.We have meetings every month that is a great venue to learn what we are doing; most times there is 20 of us 800, your help is welcome you don't have to deal with the whole BOD if you don't want to, you can just visit me and we go over your concerns and how you would like/can help.We can also do a conference call or Skype session whatever works.Thank you.

 

[jccaclimber]

My summary of the thread thus far:1) There are some politics going on in DFWMAS (this is part of why I don't come to all events too).2)?The new forum wasn't properly tested, but at least it's getting better. ?It started as a cluster, but could get back to what we all know and love.3) Two members happen to have some extensive data migration experience that we may not have been aware of. ?They are offering to help Jose et al. with migration. ?TBD where this will go. ?Possibly Skype meeting pending.3b) The current process to move threads is manual. ?This explains the resistance to saving everything. ?Several others of us are hoping that this results in 100% data migration, or at a minimum permanent?retention of the archive.4) Few?members (maybe 20, or 2.5%) actually attend regular meetings. ?As a result it is difficult to gather the views?(and share the workload) of the active forum users/membership (25%?). ?Perhaps a regular polling of the membership on major issues, or discussion threads may help this in the future?

 

[bhrobinson]

That is a pretty good summary.?I have supplied my skype via PM, but if others have concerns or questions, I am on skype as bhrobinson2

 

[jccaclimber]

Along the lines of #1, Billy and another member of the BOD came up and said hello once or twice during the frag swap. ?This was really nice, and made me want to come back. ?My past experiences with meetings is that most of the people I end up talking to are there for the first or second time, but have a hard time talking with a lot of the regulars at the meetings. ?I don't think anyone is actively trying to exclude people, but at the same time I did feel like an outsider even on the fourth event that I went to.

 

[Jose]

I make a point to shake every single member that attends our events personally, I believe Billy do the same.?We may have met; I hope you continue to come to our meetings and events.

 

[Jose]

Our meetings are long; but I find them informative and fun, and we have done great events on this administration members that have attended have had a blast.I hope you continue to visit us; we will make you feel welcome, I know the feeling as I'm new and I don't know anyone but I find it enriching to meet so much new people.

 

[Jose]

Look forward to our session this Wednesday!Thank you for your Skype information; let me know if you got my PM, I got yours.

 

[jccaclimber]

I make a point to shake every single member that attends our events personally, I believe Billy do the same.?We may have met; I hope you continue to come to our meetings and events.? ?"]You must be the mysterious "other member". ?I'm really bad with names, but I'll make a point to put a face with yours (again) at the next event. ?I'm not sure why I remember Billy (I'm bad with names), might be the avatar. ?Along these lines, is there a tentative date for a winter social next month? ?I would like to attend (the Christmas party 2 years ago is actually why I joined), so I would like to know which day to block off on my calendar.

 

[Jose]

We?are having an amazing event the date is the 19 I believe, we have been working at this great venue but haven't locked all the details yet but our communications chair will let us know shortly where and how.?

 

[Jose]

I make a point to shake every single member that attends our events personally, I believe Billy do the same.?We may have met; I hope you continue to come to our meetings and events.? ?"]You must be the mysterious "other member". ?I'm really bad with names, but I'll make a point to put a face with yours (again) at the next event. ?I'm not sure why I remember Billy (I'm bad with names), might be the avatar. ?Along these lines, is there a tentative date for a winter social next month? ?I would like to attend (the Christmas party 2 years ago is actually why I joined), so I would like to know which day to block off on my calendar.? ?"]Under the?About link in about DFWMAS you can find all our pretty faces

 

[jccaclimber]

Under the?About link in about DFWMAS you can find all our pretty faces ? ?"]That's a good idea. ?Just looked and I recognize at least half of those faces.I snipped out the nested quotes, they were getting out of hand. ?Possible long term solution for this?

 

[Pixel Eater]

I don't think I've ever been a member at a forum that simply tossed out its entire history before. Interesting move guys. Not in a good way, but more like a non-technical way.

 

[bhrobinson]

I am anticipating this is a learning curve for us all and we are able to get everything back and in place.?