@faraday said in Forum wonk:
Redis is probably the reason that you need so much RAM. Using it as a cache layer to speed things up makes sense, but using it as a primary data source for a forum of this size seems non-ideal.
Yeah, I agree. We've been saddled with it though unless MSB is willing to start over.
@arkandel said in Forum wonk:
Yeah, I agree. We've been saddled with it though unless MSB is willing to start over.
This is one of the issues too.
If it makes sense to abandon this place and move to another, then we can open up a new place and close this place to posting, keep it up for a year, and then let it die.
I'm looking for options. And pricing. I don't mind this being a public debate either.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@ganymede said in Forum wonk:
I'm looking for options. And pricing. I don't mind this being a public debate either.
No opinion on the technical side of things, but -- MSB is the people. If we have to start threads over (or whatever), I do not think there will be any suffering for not having eleventy billion pages of the peeve thread. Archive can stay up for however long if people want to go back and look at it, but my guess would be that it would RARELY be accessed because as engaged as a lot of people here are, the value isn't really in the years and years of posts.
There's very little in the way of historical data that would make sense to be concerned regarding losing, because none of it really serves any purpose (beyond nostalgia).
When was the last time you (general you, the reader here) looked at a thread that hasn't had posts in more than two months? I would hazard a guess to say that it is a very rare occurrence.
@sunny said in Forum wonk:
When was the last time you (general you, the reader here) looked at a thread that hasn't had posts in more than two months? I would hazard a guess to say that it is a very rare occurrence.
I've done it numerous times but mostly because I get into internet arguments that need Receipts.
What will I do without RECEITS
So long as the Hog Pit isn't quietly misplaced in the move, I don't care which option you lot choose.
He/Him
@tinuviel said in Forum wonk:
So long as the Hog Pit isn't quietly misplaced in the move, I don't care which option you lot choose.
That's kind of the thing about the Hog Pit. People keep talking about it like it's gonna go away.
It's never gonna go away.
Even if you make it explicitly against the rules, it's never going to go away. Its creation was the result of the way we, the board members, chose to interact. It's how we express ourselves based on decades of interpersonal relationships.
It didn't create the dynamic. That dynamic created it. And you can't just exercise it right out.
Shit, you can't even get people to stay on topic for the thread titles.
Like this.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
I do also think that a Pateron is a REALLY GOOD idea -- if nothing else, letting us help w/ hosting costs would be good. No reason y'all have to be paying for it AND dealing with the headaches of moderation, too.
The only risk factor here is that eventually something will finally give. Today it took me 45 minutes to bring the forum up after the upgrade, and that was after the oom-killer led into a kernel panic and my attempt to turn virtual memory on for Redis (which should have worked, and might have even been efficient, since most threads don't need to be stored in memory).
Well, one of these days it won't come back up and the choice will be made for us.
The thing is I'm not a MU* player any more. Realistically I don't have stakes here. But I honestly like (some of) you folks and it'd really suck if there was no central place where people could come together, maintain identities outside of a single character or game and talk - sometimes rant - about their hobby without fear or reprisal.
I think this hobby deserves having such a mostly safe place. I just won't drive that effort any more.
How hard would it be to keep the URL and the name, and just start with a fresh instance of a newer, more robust forum software?
(Yes, I know someone probably already asked that, but my brain is mush and I likely missed it. :P)
So, to re-cap.
We have a few options here. We could upgrade the RAM available for Redis, which needs a lot of it. That would cost less than a full data 'port.
But we could also just make a new place, shut this place off for posting, and hold it up for a year before letting it fade into the sunset.
I concur with Sunny: this community is its members, not the location. But I also promised Arkandel that I would safeguard this place, the keys for which he was handed by someone else, all the way back to Emmahsue.
But I do like the idea, honestly, of just starting a new place.
Regardless, Arkandel has served his time. Mietze and I need someone on the tech side to assist. Your role would simply be to keep up with the needs on the server side. Cost isn't an issue at this point, but it is a concern. I will continue to moderate if anyone wants me to, but I am tempted to step into the role of 'dis ho that funds this shit' and stepping out of 'dictator because someone has to be'.
I'm not sure, but I have this weird idea that someone who pays for the place ought not have that kind of control.
So, let's be honest with ourselves. Does anyone care if we start up again on something more modern? I don't because I believe as Sunny does, but I am all for options and stuff. If we start a new place, what base should be use? Who should host? And should we come up with a new name altogether?
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
What does Big Purple (rpg.net) or Something Awful run as forum software? Those bulletin boards are massive and have decades of content on them.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
Big Purple uses xenforo and SA uses vBulletin.
@ganymede said in Forum wonk:
Does anyone care if we start up again on something more modern?
My initial reaction to possibly losing the board history was a little distraught, but the more I thought about it today the more I concur that it really doesn't matter all that much.
The purpose of the board is a safe venting space, not some sort of weird drama archive, right?
And if an upgrade means less of a headache for y'all, all the better.
^_______^
(@_____@)
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I know nothing about the technical side of things - but if the board did go to a new place would we still be safe from some of the most egregious people who have been banned here?
@ganymede said in Forum wonk:
That would cost less than a full data 'port.
In the short-term, yes. In the long-term, no.
You're looking at an extra $200-ish per year, conservatively. And as the database continues to grow, the memory needs will grow (because Redis is an in-memory database). So really you're just kicking the can down the curb and not really solving the problem.
I'm fine starting fresh. I do reference old topics sometimes but it's something I can certainly live without.
I'm also fine chipping in for a gofundme to help pay for the one-time migration cost to a sane database. It may not be actually nodebb that's the problem, but the way this particular one is set up.
@silverfox said in Forum wonk:
I know nothing about the technical side of things - but if the board did go to a new place would we still be safe from some of the most egregious people who have been banned here?
No, we would still probably have to keep an eye out for those assholes.
@wizz said in Forum wonk:
The purpose of the board is a safe venting space, not some sort of weird drama archive, right?
There've been a number of times people have expressed regret over the loss of the previous board incarnations and the information that was on them. Also I'm a bit of a hoarder/archiver when it comes to these things, so personally I'm not huge on the 'switch over and then let it die after a while' version of things.
Switching DB servers or migrating to another platform that has a way to preserve existing content (in either case) would be my ideal for things.
...also if it did search better that'd be nice.
The loss of history would mean/does mean that when people like VASpider pop up in other hobbies, I can't say to the victims 'go here and you'll see that you're not alone, that this is a pattern and that you aren't going insane'. If we lost all the history, I wouldn't even be able to drop by and refresh my memory on the patterns that we've observed over the last 20 years.
We don't often need the receipts. But when we do, it's nice if they still exist. Although, a better search function would help massively.
(No, the VASpider example was not a random example pulled out of thin air.)
@misterboring said in Forum wonk:
How hard would it be to keep the URL and the name, and just start with a fresh instance of a newer, more robust forum software?
The easiest thing in the world.
@faraday said in Forum wonk:
Redis is probably the reason that you need so much RAM. Using it as a cache layer to speed things up makes sense, but using it as a primary data source for a forum of this size seems non-ideal.
Yeah, I agree. We've been saddled with it though unless MSB is willing to start over.
