Forum wonk

Roz

ETA: This has sat in the back of my mind for the past month and it's eaten at me. I want to apologize for the loss of the forum causing some anxiety for others. I will take accountability on that end.

That is absolutely not something you are responsible or accountable for.

Testament

@roz said in Forum wonk:

@testament said in Forum wonk:

ETA: This has sat in the back of my mind for the past month and it's eaten at me. I want to apologize for the loss of the forum causing some anxiety for others. I will take accountability on that end.

That is absolutely not something you are responsible or accountable for.

No, but I agreed to help the staff here two months ago with this issue and I've so far failed to deliver on it. So yes, apart of it does fall on the fact that things happened in my life that were out of my control. It does not stop the fact that I want to at least finish what I agreed to.

Tributary

$500 sounds super reasonable for a database migration. I'd offer to do it, as migrating databases is part of my day job, but I'm not familiar with the forum board code enough to think I could do it in a timely fashion.

I vote we get in touch with the migration team, see if this price still stands, and then collect donations.

Arkandel

@tributary It's not my call and I'm fine with whatever is decided, but please do keep this in mind; redis is the very likely but not 100% root cause.

In other words that $500 might become a tip to the nodebb team for providing the free forum MSB has been running all these years.

faraday

@arkandel said in Forum wonk:

redis is the very likely but not 100% root cause.

The current redis configuration is almost certainly a problem, even if it's not the only problem. I think fixing it is a pre-requisite for doing anything else if you're going to stay on nodebb.

From what I saw on the discourse forums, it's easily $500 worth of work to try to migrate the existing database to discourse, if you could even manage it. (There were lots of reports of issues when I looked into it months ago because the forum data paradigms just don't line up completely. Also it's not formally supported.) Maybe you could get someone to do it pro bono, but the order of magnitude of effort is comparable.

Tinuviel

I will give money to the Stop This Shit Being Broken fund.

Derp

@faraday

I thought the migration was to move from Redis to MongoDB or whatever and stay on NodeBB?

I mean, I could be wrong.

faraday

@derp said in Forum wonk:

I thought the migration was to move from Redis to MongoDB or whatever and stay on NodeBB?

Yes, I was just contrasting it with the effort ("cost") of a potential discourse migration.

Staying on nodebb costs time and/or money to fix the database configuration and anything else that might be wrong.

Migrating to discourse costs time and/or money to move the data over.

The only low-effort, low-cost option is to start fresh, and I don't think anybody really wants that.

Cheesegrater

There are converters in both directions between NodeBB and Discourse. One could convert to Discourse and then back to a fresh NodeBB set up on mongo.

Tinuviel

@faraday said in Forum wonk:

The only low-effort, low-cost option is to start fresh, and I don't think anybody really wants that.

Only if there's a read-only archive so we can hold grudges accurately.

Ominous

@tinuviel

I will allow this only if the archive is named The Book of Grudges.

alt text

Tinuviel

@ominous said in Forum wonk:

@tinuviel

I will allow this only if the archive is named The Book of Grudges.

That's Facebook.

Ganymede

@tinuviel

Petty Ass Bullshit Leveled at Unnamed MUSHes.

Ganymede

I am reviving this thread because we need some assistance.

I have decided that it is best for us to try to find a new host and forum platform to use. I love what we have but, from all accounts, it is a little out-dated. I would like to put together a small committee of members to seek out and make recommendations regarding the following:

A site to host; and
A platform to use.

Important details include cost, ease-to-use, and how quickly we can set the place up. Our staff will consider the recommendation seriously and I will (likely) personally bear the set-up cost.

We know how much this community means to some people, so any interested should PM me as soon as possible. Once we have a committee of three, we'll set them loose on the internet.

silverfox

@ganymede

I dunno if I speak for anyone else, but this place has come to mean a lot to me, and I would really like to contribute to the cost. We got you.

Derp

@ganymede said in Forum wonk:

I will (likely) personally bear the set-up cost.

@silverfox said in Forum wonk:

I dunno if I speak for anyone else, but this place has come to mean a lot to me, and I would really like to contribute to the cost. We got you.

I would like to second Silverfox's thing. For all that we snipe at each other on this forum sometimes, this place is a good thing full of good people. I would also contribute to any costs to keep such an endeavor going, and I know that a bunch of others have made similar noises.

Ganymede

Thank you to everyone offering financial support. We definitely appreciate it.

That said, what we really need are a handful of folks willing to scout the options and report back. Again, PM me if you're interested.

Arkandel

I noticed and brought the forum back up just now.

Its performance is degrading over time. I'm available to discuss solutions, but at some point the option to restore functionality on this instance will no longer be available.

Rucket

@arkandel I know there's stuff people want to keep but man at some point I can't help but feel like it might be easier to archive certain important posts/threads in some fashion and then start a fresh forum. I know a lot will be lost but it sounds like any sort of migration is going to be either costly or damn near impossible and i fear we may hit a point where, as you mentioned, restoring functionality won't be available and we'll lose everything anyway.

Ganymede

@rucket

I have a task force together now. We are looking to open a new place first, then worry about porting stuff over. If I have to do it manually, so be it.

But we need a new place.

I'm sorry for the delay. RL continues to get busier and busier.