85 replies to this topic

[Bact PhD]

Moving this over in blocks of quotes. From the "Democrats Have to Fight..." thread.

Traveler, on 19 January 2020 - 11:09 AM, said:

Anyone else having problems loading the investigations thread? I get an sql error. And site loads really slow.

D. C. Sessions, on 19 January 2020 - 12:11 PM, said:

No problem here.

AnBr, on 19 January 2020 - 05:49 PM, said:

Loads OK for me here. I doubt that there is any problems with the database. I have noticed really slow loading from time to time, though.

HockeyDon, on 20 January 2020 - 06:04 AM, said:

Same for me.

Traveler, on 21 January 2020 - 06:30 PM, said:

Just got the same SQL when clicking "next unread topic" from certain threads. Last time it was.. (he goes back) Iran. This is what I got.


Looks like my machine?

AnBr, on 21 January 2020 - 09:15 PM, said:

Nope, the server. This should be moved over to the Forum Information and Feedback forum and Charles should be contacted.

Bact PhD, on 22 January 2020 - 09:43 AM, said:

Ok, so it wasn’t just me/my machine/my internet service.

Edited by Bact PhD, 16 December 2020 - 05:37 PM.

[Bact PhD]

 Traveler, on 22 January 2020 - 07:26 AM, said:

I am in the field all day so can someone take that on? This may be the impetus for a new interface. Which we should kick in for

 indy, on 22 January 2020 - 09:29 AM, said:

I've looked at perhaps moving the forum to a new server since Charles has explicitly said he wasn't interested in continuing. Setting up a new forum would be relatively easy, and I was looking at discourse (https://discourse.org/). For a very small community like this one, hardware resources are extremely cheap and the work of setting it up is minimal. The biggest issue would be the loss of all the current stuff. There may be a way to import the current data but it's probably more work than I would be willing to do.

Thoughts?

 AnBr, on 22 January 2020 - 01:59 PM, said:

If this is not going to continue under Charles I would much prefer that it remains a proper forum. One that can import all of current database. Also since disk space is so terribly cheap these days I would love it it would host posted images so they are not lost when the remote server deletes them. It would keep the context of existing posts intact.

 golden_valley, on 22 January 2020 - 03:01 PM, said:

Agree with AnBr and am willing to kick in some cash to keep it going.

 D. C. Sessions, on 22 January 2020 - 03:35 PM, said:

Given the (very) low traffic load, and given that I'm already hosting a few domains -- would y'all prefer to keep the domain or move to one of my parked ones? I would honestly love to get some traffic going at twilightofempire.org but for now haven't the bandwidth to port or administer it. Siteground, in case it matters. I'll pay for the hosting anyway.

 LFC, on 22 January 2020 - 04:08 PM, said:

Me too but only page 85 of the thread. Now that it's up to page 86 I can jump right in but still can't get to page 85. Page 84 is not problem either.

And I'd kick in for a rehost.

[Bact PhD]

 Bact PhD, on 22 January 2020 - 07:15 PM, said:

I concur on all counts, and ditto.


When I was on earlier in the day I was on my phone; now that I'm on the laptop (and it's later) I can report the same finding as LFC: Page 84 OK, Page 86 OK, Page 85 fugheddaboutit!

 D. C. Sessions, on 22 January 2020 - 07:59 PM, said:

FWIW 85 is SQL dead here too. We're well past happenstance and coincidence so, yeah.

As for what I wrote earlier:


I realized it was ambiguous. I mean my personal wetware bandwidth, if any of you have ever dealt with the late, great Dr. John David Jackson you will perhaps understand.

Siteground has plenty of bandwidth and I'm not using a fraction of what I'm paying for, so new URL or old I'm in for the hosting.

 indy, on 23 January 2020 - 07:16 AM, said:

I can flip on and set up a VPS in a matter of minutes. I can install Discourse in another matter of minutes because it uses a software configuration and management tool called Docker, one of the reasons I'm attracted to it. The cost is really insignificant for this ($4 a month or so using the provider in Germany I typically use so nobody would need to kick in anything). This gives me a raw linux machine with root privileges and enough compute and i/o power to handle the traffic and software for the site.

Trying to use somebody else's shared hosting system becomes a lot more problematic and time-consuming for me if I were the one doing it, especially if they don't allow root privileges (most don't).

We can use any domain name, so DC could point either his main domain (twilightofempire.org) or a subdomain (e.g., trs.twilightofempire.org) at an IP address I provide. Typically this is pretty easy.

We would need at least one other person--preferably two--to handle any day-to-day administrative tasks because I tend to get distracted with other things for a period of time, especially lately. Preferably it would be people with enough experience in this sort of thing to learn the interface quickly. DC, LFC, AnBr seem obvious candidates but volunteers would be welcome of course.

Yea or nay?

[Bact PhD]

 indy, on 23 January 2020 - 07:27 AM, said:

P.S. If somebody already has a VPS or wants to create one closer to the US (Digital Ocean, RamNode, OVH, Amazon, for example are all obvious candidates), that might be a little better. Cost would vary from probably $10/mo up to $50/mo or maybe more for Amazon). It's very easy to sign up to these services and just create a VPS in the cloud. I don't use them because they charge more (in some cases MUCH more) for lesser virtual machines and more for bandwidth usage. With somebody like Amazon, you have some pretty fair assurances they won't just disappear at some point in the future. It's a trade-off, like all things.

 D. C. Sessions, on 23 January 2020 - 07:53 AM, said:

twilightofempire.org is just parked at the moment, it can point anywhere on trivial notice.

Hosting at Siteground is pretty solid (used to be Hurricane Electric -- they go back pretty close to the beginning), but whatever. I totally agree on the admin rights side, although the last time I cared ISTR I had a pretty full suite (the system volumes were RO)

Should we take this thread elsewhere?

 LFC, on 23 January 2020 - 09:55 AM, said:

I can't since I have a huge number of sites blocked from my work computer all day long. Virtually anything that allows me to upload data (personal email, Google Drive, Dropbox, all social media, etc.) is verboten. That makes me available for just a few hours a night and with my wife's condition being rather up and down, meaning I'm cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, and driving her for errands she wasn't up for during the day, I'm afraid I can't commit.

[Bact PhD]

 Traveler, on 23 January 2020 - 06:42 PM, said:

Folkss I really appreciate the discussion. Whatever you do, I am all for it. Is there a way Charles can transfer the threads so we don't lose the past? (not that I ever spend that much in old posts, except to find something rattling around in ever more defunct long term memory...).

 LFC, on 23 January 2020 - 07:54 PM, said:

One option might be if Charles is willing to leave the current site up as archive only (no posting anymore) and then to create an easy access link from the new site. That allows for reference back to old information. To be fair the old info will be rarely referenced after a year or two.

 AnBr, on 23 January 2020 - 09:05 PM, said:

Easy if its database was imported into a new IP Board forum. Charles would only need to upload it for whoever sets up the new forum.

 Practical Girl, on 24 January 2020 - 02:53 PM, said:

This is true. The need for great big blobs of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink is a culprit. This board seems to see as anathema new threads to capture contemporary info that may be hot today, but gone tomorrow. Seems a bit of a problem, currently.

 AnBr, on 24 January 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

Not really. I know of several much older, much larger, and far more active boards than this. They are fast and responsive. The real culprit is with the database server and/or the database itself.

 Traveler, on 24 January 2020 - 07:21 PM, said:

Andy, at first I thought you were responding to PG's comment on the thread proliferation implications of our transitory interest. A worthy topic indeed. But it certainly had little to do with server speed per se.

Right now, all I care about is keeping the boat afloat.

 AnBr, on 24 January 2020 - 08:36 PM, said:

Agreed, but note that the size of the database is not an issue. A simple IP Board installation on a new server and importing this database fixes it.

[Bact PhD]

 Traveler, on 24 January 2020 - 01:05 PM, said:

Folks, we have two parallel threads on this here in political. Anyone want to set up a new one over in the Media while we deliberate?

End of material from "Democrats Have to Fight..." thread.

Edited by Bact PhD, 25 January 2020 - 02:02 PM.

[Bact PhD]

From the "Republican Party Has... Lost Its Mind" thread in Political. I don't know how to merge the content.

 Traveler, on 22 January 2020 - 07:23 AM, said:

Got that SQL error again, this time from my phone.

 golden_valley, on 22 January 2020 - 11:12 AM, said:

Interesting. I don't ever get that message. Every once in a while it is slow to load. I've had no problem in the last few days.

 AnBr, on 22 January 2020 - 02:01 PM, said:

Ditto. I am mostly using Pale Moon to access the board.

[Bact PhD]

 Traveler, on 23 January 2020 - 06:45 PM, said:

Well, it aint just me. See Indy's offer to host in the Dems fighting thread. Might be time to move the board. I am too busy to bug Charles directly on this, so I presume others here have his email address to do so. If not, PM me and I will send it.

 AnBr, on 23 January 2020 - 08:27 PM, said:

Well, we would need him to save and hand over the database of this forum. There are tools out there to convert and then import to other forums, but setting up another IP Board to simply import that database would be the simplest and most straight forward way. Again I would stress that a new forum should allow hosting images on its own server. Most hosting plans anymore have absurdly large or even unlimited storage space, so hosting them instead of just linking to them on another server should not be an issue.

As to the domain name, keeping talkradiosucks would allow absentee members to easily find their way back if the choose to do so, otherwise a long lasting redirect would need to be setup. One argument for changing the domain name is that some open WiFis using DNS servers with web filtering block this site because of the "sucks" in the name.

 Traveler, on 24 January 2020 - 12:54 PM, said:

I sure like the effort you all are putting into this. I think this should be its own thread. Whoever wants to set that up, great. Just let us know on the political discussion category so we can keep up. I haven't had time to keep up with the community and media stuff, soI am hopelessly behind there. Unread will be pages long...

End of cross-posted material.

[Bact PhD]

Agree with the idea that it's time to transition. I'd be happy to kick in some $ if needed.

I don't consider myself enough of a "techie" to be any sort of a "manager"; however, if the knowledge isn't terribly difficult to come by I could see myself helping out.

[Practical Girl]

I'd never argue hard against transition. A few regulars say they have the technical knowledge to make it better. Frankly, though, have been talking about it for quite sometime to no changes.

Because of my professional focus, I question whether it's worth it. Our active, posting members is a very small number- and it has shrunk since the original conversations about this. What is the real goal here? Is there a way to accomplish it without a very big change? And what, really, is the driver?

Truly, good luck to the folks who want to assume the mantle. I just don't know that it's worth it, unless somebody is going to try to make a business run at it. And that takes time and energy- lasting, and a lot of each.

[D. C. Sessions]

Thank you, Bact, for pulling this all together.

As for naming, DNS aliasing is not a big deal and only has to be done once.

[Bact PhD]

You're welcome.

However, DC -- that last is in a completely foreign language to me...

[Bact PhD]

A modest proposal:

The tech-heads who speak the language[1] even if they don't necessarily have the time for active management[2], need to put their heads together, either on this thread or via chat, if group chat is available here, and come up with a concrete plan to present to Charles for migrating, including a request for him to upload the current material to whatever new destination is selected. Moreover, assuming it is preferable to continue our merry band in this form, I'd say to put it together in the next few weeks. I suspect site problems are going to become more problematic as time goes on, in my "non-techie" opinion.

My $0.02: Although this has been something of a niche group, encompassing a fairly small (30-ish?) group of "regulars" at the peak, dwindling to a miniscule dozen-ish currently, the level of the discussion is a considerably higher caliber than in a lot of places. It's just about the only forum where I can post a "dissertation" and have reasonable confidence that if someone takes the trouble to reply, they have actually read more than the first two sentences! I'd hate to see it go "Poof!" for want of some care and feeding.


[1] DC, Indy, AnBr, LFC, am I missing anyone?
[2] LFC has made his lack of time availability known, above.

[D. C. Sessions]

My time right now is limited but not trivial. I got drafted to TA two upper-division lab sections and just converged with my soon-to-be research advisor on a topic. Plus Jackson (if anyone understands the reference.)

So I'm not too busy ... yet. That will change soon.

[D. C. Sessions]

FWIW, SiteGround is now 100% operating out of Google (virtual) iron. Cheaper, less downtime. Nothing new as such, but some might care.

[Traveler]

Since Charles is back online, I want him to catch up.

[cmk]

Hey all.. We really need to get someone to volunteer to take on the project of setting up a new forum.

You're great people and I've been glad to host this community.. but my interest in discussing this stuff is not going to return, and this software is on its last legs. It makes sense to look at transitioning after the elections.

[LFC]

Gang: I asked some folks at work about easy, low maintenance, publicly hosted (and preferably free) alternatives. One suggestion that seemed to be agreed upon was the creation of a sub-reddit. Now I don't use reddit so have no ideas about how it truly works so I figured I'd drop it here and see what those more knowledgeable might think.

[AnBr]

I much prefer real forums overall of the social networking outlets. It does not have quite as many features as IP Board, but phpBB is free and I have found it to be mostly trouble free. As for hosting there are a number that have packages for $.99 to $2.99 per month. There are also some free hosts, but I have no experience with them.

[golden_valley]

I have zero knowledge on any of this. Am happy to help financially.-