We be moving hosts Soon™

[pyrella]

How much effort do you want us to put in to the move - vote above!

Today's issues were the straw that broke the camels back. Plus we've been needing some serious board maintenance anyways.

Without going in to over much detail - our current boards are bastardizations of bastardizations - we went through many versions of 2.x before going to beta of 3.x before upgrading to various releases of 3.x.

We've had database corruptions and all kinds of other malarky going on. I personally would like to just get a fresh board started with relevant forums created as needed (current forums with activity in say the past month would be recreated, but a lot of the archive boards and what not left out). I know we are no longer the larger community we used to be, but have no problem continuing to cater to who is still around. Anyhow - let us know what you think/want, and we'll go from there.

I'm looking to start moving on this this weekend - godaddy seems to have a decent multi domain hosting (which is important to me as we host 30+ domains for various guilds/functions/communities). If you have any other suggestions I'm all ears. Godaddy appeals as for 15$/mo we get unlimited storage/bandwidth/domains. I'm not sure of any other hosts who are offering similar services for similar prices.

[Siji]

Don't feel right voting because (A) I won't be doing the work and (B) I really don't care about losing old posts, but one could say that losing that information would be a great loss for a spot that's been in constant decline already.

An example to me is a Quake 2 board that I used to follow that just up and disappeared finally. Was very sad. I used to go through posts dating back to 95' or so just to relive old times.

I'm surprised that there's not some kind of post transferring plugin or utility for phpBB.

[pyrella]

There is - it just has....issues when importing (when we moved we lost a chunk of posts...some really good ones too =/) a 3.x to 3.x export/import may actually be super smooth - I figured I'd set aside several hours this weekend and figure out how feasible shit is.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Starting from scratch would suck. Our shared history is the only thing that sorta keeps this board rolling, and if we remove the documentation of that, I think we'd disintegrate. Shrug. I'd vote A, but would be alright with B.

[Winnow]

It would completely blow to lose old posts. That's the main thing this board has. Losing the original Vault posts sucked. It was extremely cool that Adex saved the 911 post.

Losing stuff like the comics forum history, etc isn't that big a deal but losing General Forums, Video Games, Current Events and a few of the others would hurt the board. This board is based on history. Searching and referencing old posts is a key part of it.

I'd visit less frequently if it was started from scratch so some might look at that as a positive. It's a incestuous board as it is with almost zero growth in users. It's rare that anyone likes wipes, character wipes, etc. Hell, I still miss VVs. Those were fun.

There are boards out there with 10X times the posts VV has so tread count shouldn't be an issue. Streamline some of the smaller forums perhaps but don't lose the heart of the forums and start from scratch.

VV has been on some of the worst performing/most expensive hosts ever during it's history so a host move would be a positive.

As always, I'll host if for free on Dreamhost if it has nowhere to go.

[pyrella]

Agreed on most parts - semantics on value....but currently we are not taking advantage of what we have available by far - but I also haven't asked anyone to take that burden but myself ;P

And I would definitely prefer the keeping everything around - the (possible) problem is in the backend with doing the import - I figure worst case it can be moved over and locked down - and accessed in a way similar to the test Disney ForumLink© so you could still cruise through them - phpbb3 allows a lot of customization as far as layout, and integration with other pages/sites.

The biggest problem is that none of the admins really has the time to keep shit up to date/add new features/clean up old crap. I'd like to get a brand spanking new fresh install going - and if I can smoothly import all of our current posts and such, it would be great. I plan on testing this tomorrow and through the weekend. Also Winnow, Fash, I'm looking at you guys for ideas on host - dreamhost seems good for a single site, but I'd like to have a place that allows multi domain hosting, mostly so I'm not having to learn multiple systems for administrating multiple sites.

Anyways, first thing I will try and do is import what we have post wise safely - maybe we'll even be able to get a theme besides the default that works with the new version, that everyone will hate ;P

[Leonaerd]

Salvage as much as possible. Make it a seamless transition while preserving post count and all posts. Bring back VVs. Bring back title modifications.

The only way to screw this one up is by deleting all old posts and / or changing the url.

[Funkmasterr]

Pretty much with everyone else on this. Try and import everything, and if you can't just do it flat out, at least having old posts to reference in some kind of archive would be ok too. Losing all posts would be a major blow to everyone, I think.

Let us know if we can chip in some cash for stuff.

[Spang]

I chose option A.

[Xatrei]

Recognizing past problems with importing data, my preference is "A" if it can be done without absurd amounts of effort on your part. If "A" turns out to be impossible or extremely impractical, "B" is acceptable even if it's not ideal. I think "C" would be a fatal wound to this community.

[Chidoro]

I chose b because, like Siji, I am not doing the work but it would stink to lose the old posts. So whethere they are interactive or viewable because they were archived would not matter to me.

[cadalano]

we must preserve our rich history

[Fash]

Also Winnow, Fash, I'm looking at you guys for ideas on host - dreamhost seems good for a single site, but I'd like to have a place that allows multi domain hosting, mostly so I'm not having to learn multiple systems for administrating multiple sites.

I wish I could help but I haven't kept up with this stuff. I co-locate 2 servers at The Planet, but each costs me $80/month, and I'm trying to scale back and get rid of one of them. I like having total control of the equipment, but I'm not into it as I used to be. Recently I had to reboot one of them and it took me a few hours to get everything running again... I never used any of the panels, just did everything manual. I was on top of my game at some point, but must be getting old.

[Winnow]

Also Winnow, Fash, I'm looking at you guys for ideas on host - dreamhost seems good for a single site, but I'd like to have a place that allows multi domain hosting, mostly so I'm not having to learn multiple systems for administrating multiple sites.

Dreamhost handles multiple domains...unlimited domains as far as I know. I had two domains at one time. I have a bunch of sub domains.

[Animalor]

Any of the choices would be cool by me as long as we could mograte over the user accounts and associated stats.

If it's going to be an uber painful process to move shit over requiring dozens of hours, then I vote to leave it behind.

[pyrella]

I picked up a dreamhost account, after I found a coupon to waive the 50 dollar set up (wtf?). I'm in the process of getting basic stuff set up, and moving a couple of my vanity (email only) domains over to see how smooth it is. I'll probably move on to one of the smaller guild sites with a message board to see how much of a bitch it is - saving all my learning/mistakes for this one last.

Also - absolute worst case is this will be moved over in situ - and with the links as forums feature...they'll just be General Discussion Old, etc

[pyrella]

if you can read this, you're on the new host.

[Winnow]

Sweet : ) looks like all the posts made it this time : ) Nice work Py : )

So far the site feels snappy too.

[valryte]

yeah, looks good and fast!

[Aslanna]

I can read this!

[Leonaerd]

Well donezo

[Ransure]

Now give us back our VV's!!!

[Fairweather Pure]

It loaded so fast, I thought to myself "The sever move must have taken place".

Very nice. Thank you!

[Spang]

I think the 8 people who voted for 'start from scratch' should be banned.

Also, thanks.

[pyrella]

I know several of you are doing hosting with Dreamhost - for the price I understand I'm getting what I pay for...but do you have issues with extreme slow down, and if you do a 'w' or an 'uptime' you get just insane usage numbers?

Code: Select all

 15:15:07 up  1:01, 12 users,  load average: 14.59, 12.40, 22.35

Is an example of right now when it's not bad....but it's not snappy like it is say...post 5pm PST

Yesterday those numbers were xxx.yy xxx.yy xxx.yy and it was 30-45 seconds between clicks before pages would show up.

Anyways - just seeing if you other DH users have seen same issues, and if so, were you able to get it resolved? Support ticket I submitted yesterday morning still hasn't been seen/answered, and the problem just keeps continuing. They've rebooted the box twice in the past 2 days, and it's good the first 30-45 mins after that, and then total shit.

I really don't feel like moving again ;P

[*~*stragi*~*]

if godaddy gives you shit i can walk across the street and choke a bitch

[Sargeras]

I haven't had any problems, but then I haven't had a mutli-domain hosting until recently.

Hoofshots is now on my box, so I guess we'll wait and see what happens.

[pyrella]

Hello,



Your web hosting account is hosted on one of our problematic machines. It's a known issue that our administration team has diligently worked towards resolving. They have decided that the best course of action will be to offload the machine. Meaning, move a fair share of users to other machines. This should reduce the strain on the machine. The ETA on completion is about week. Ofcouse this is worse-case scenario. I can assure you we will do our to complete the process in a timely fashion. We are fairly confident that the user offload would improve the overall stability of the machine. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your continued patience. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to email me directly

[Boogahz]

They've always been quick to resolve any issue I have had, but I am not using anywhere near what Winnow might have with them. They'll also admit when they've screwed up which is a plus in my book.

[Leonaerd]

Isn't their job to have the machines not be problematic? dumb

[Zaelath]

Isn't their job to have the machines not be problematic? dumb

There's a number of reasons machines can be "problematic" without it being the tech's fault.

#1 (and my suspicion here) is that they've managed to get a number of users on the box that do heavy IO, so they're going to try and spread those users across more tin with a more "average" user profile.