Upgrade and Downtime Coming

[Matt Woodburn]

Members,

I will be upgrading the software we use from Oct. 11-15, 2006 and that will cause us to be offline periodically. Please bear with us while we make this happen.

[trippcor]

To add to what Matt said. This upgrade should help to stablize the site once it is complete. Many of the recent problems have been because we are using an old (2004) software version.

[MO-Pard]

Matt and Tripp-

Can you comment on the status of the recovery of the 2006 database, as many were dicussing this at Perryville this past weekend. I know you asked us to be patient until october before inquiring.....

I know personally I had a lot of reference/source material bookmarked, which of course wasn't around in 2004, and I'm certain I'm not the only one. Do we need to delete these and wait for the same topics to be rediscussed/brought up/regurgitated again?

Thanks for your time, help and direction!

[Matt Woodburn]

Jay and All,

All posts and member registrations made between Sept. '04 - Aug. '06 have been permanently lost. What we have here running now is it. I paid three data recovery companies to try their best. The files we had did not have the info we needed, so this is it.

[MO-Pard]

Jay and All,

All posts and member registrations made between Sept. '04 - Aug. '06 have been permanently lost. What we have here running now is it. I paid three data recovery companies to try their best. The files we had did not have the info we needed, so this is it.


Thank you for the update Matt. Sorry to hear that and thank you for trying.


Best Regards

[Charles Heath]

Matt,

Thanks for all the headaches you (and the folks behind the jeancloth curtain) endure here on the AC Forum. Been there, done that -- back when the AC Forum was a far simpler place.

Consider a suggestion from one of the fellows who helped Paul Calloway put this place on the map, and that is one of forum content over appearance. A good number of the old timers have noticed the AC Forum has had less useful content recently, and far more gimmicks and nice-to-have stuff. As the AC Forum staff recovers from this latest electronic blow, this could be an opportune time to cut back on some of the features, and make this place easier to maintain.

We, as a hobby, lost a heck of a lot of good data in forum changes & crashes. The most recent was number five, and the content lost was as bad or worse than the awful "GJ" crash a few years ago. This is never easy to say, but I'm going to say it anyway, one can only reflect on the time spent with such frills as monthly photograph contests had been invested in ensuring the database was properly archived that we wouldn't be in the hip-deep mess we are today. That isn't to blame anyone. Far from it. Electro-mechanical failures happen often enough on their own as it is without the hand of any man in the process.

To reiterate, if you can simplify matters, then this may be an excellent time to do so.

[hoppes9]

I agree with Mr. Heath. Being a sysadmin of an unrelated forum, I counsel the moderators there to keep the whole thing as simple as possible. Most of the users are there to read the forum and exchange ideas, there are plenty of places for other kinds of entertainment. The few that really want bells and whistles send me the occasional complaint, but the forum owner backs me up pretty solidly as our down time in the last year has been nearly zero - ISP network issues not withstanding.

John Teller

[trippcor]

While we admins are not responsible for the information contained herein. That is up to our users under the wathcful eye of the mods, what functions do you feel are un-needed or detract from the forum?

[Michael Semann]

As an Administrator of a Vbulletin board myself (Saxontheweb.net), I can say from experience that Authentic-Campaigner.com doesn't have an excessive amount of fat to trim regarding functions, user permissions, extraneous drop down menus etc., nor are there many Directories and forums/sub forums compared to my own board for example. And we have over three times the membership and much higher daily traffic as well.

However, two that could be deleted are the Instant Message and Chat features. Both are underutilized, and not really necessary. The Personal Message feature negates the need for IM. Removing the AC Specific Email accounts for rank and file membership (and staff as well, for that matter) might help as well. The "contact member via email" on-line link in the user profile's drop down contact menu is perfectly satisfactory.

[Mike Ventura]

I note that the reversion to the 2004 version has brought back the
"reputation" feature.

We learned that this is not really needed or necessary and it should again disappear.

Maybe it's time to add / shift some mods. I note that some have been notably absent from the forum for some time.

[dusty27]

Mike,

The reputation system is deactivated, which you will see if you click on the link.