I saw where the site hosting is now in question.
I have access to hosting, however I don't wish to moderate or be involved in day to day operations of the site.
At the very least I can host the site to give more time until somebody else steps in to take it over.
I don't have a lot of experience with forums, but I can usually figure things out.
So.... if somebody decides to take it over let me know. I will give it a week or two for somebody to come forward and if nobody does I'll work with
@The Big Chihuahua to start getting things setup.
@theonlywanderer that is wonderful that you are willing to host!
I have experience with being an admin/moderator of forums. I actually have my own forum that is this same Simple Machines forum program, but an earlier version and not heavily modded with a picture gallery. I would be willing to be an admin to do things like clean out any spam and porn posts that might show up, delete spam accounts, and just in general look out for problems, move posts to the correct section if needed, etc. But, I do not know how to fix problems with programming.
:) yes, wonderful, you are both giving us hope :) Thank you
It sounds great that someone is willing to take over. I sometimes have bad periods with my illness that makes me unable to make any obligations to do something on daily basis but if some money is needed for hosting fees or something like that, I'm willing to contribute.
It maybe isnt needed that u do all the work. It would be great if you can host this forum and im sure there r a few ppl willing to take over moderator and admin tasks. Splitting work and responsibility should work.
@Nilla The hosting is already in place for other sites so no cost involved in that aspect at the moment. The only cost at this time would be in the domain name renewal every year, which shouldn't be much. I'm guessing $10 to $15/year, domains tend to fluctuate. Not really a big deal at this time either. Maybe down the road I'll setup a paypal account for people who want to contribute a buck here and there. If enough contributions come in, it may support the site being moved to it's own hosting and be self sufficient. A decent enough host is usually going to run a minimum of $6 or so a month.
@galensgranny I can't imagine any issues where major programming knowledge would be required to resolve since these forums are similar to content management systems where it's a packaged deal. I did run a forum many years back for our car club before Facebook took over as the easier format.
I would hope if any problems did come up that people would be understanding until it was resolved. After all, it's not a life or death forum, so a little down time shouldn't cause a problem.
One concern is the storage requirements. We don't host heavy sites so we don't have tons of hosting storage space. If this site takes 10gb to host, not sure how long I can keep it on our hosting. If it's over that, may not even be possible.
@The Big Chihuahua Can you give me some information on the size of this forum?
@theonlywanderer There shouldn't be any problems with programming. My forum has been fine for years. If this Simple Machines forum is kept, and all is working fine, probably nothing will ever need fixing, not with the base forum program. It's added mods that can have problems if the forum program itself gets updated, but a mod is no longer compatible, or if the mod program had an error, of if two mods are not compatible with each other but ok on their own. That is an easy fix- delete the mod, or don't add any.
There is a Simple Machines help forum by the people who made this forum program, so there is some place to get some advice. The link to their forum is at the very bottom of this forum's page, if you click on the words, "Simple Machines".
Storage size is a concern. With my forum (about cats), I did not have a gallery. So if people wanted to share images, they had to have their own place to store them to then add to a post, or just upload them from their computer. Oh, but then I added a mod to allow uploaded images, though a few cat pictures don't take much storage space. My forum was not the kind where people add pictures very often, unlike this forum.
I've been a moderator for forums before, and would be happy to assist if needed. I don't know anything about programming, but I can certainly assist
@galensgranny with booting out spammers and so forth.
Just let me know if you could use my help!
I also have some limited moderator experience from couple of years ago. It was a small community discussing WW2 tanks and battles. We had some trolls and spambots popping up from time to time. Not much to do really but to delete the posts and ip ban them. If it's something as simple as that I'm willing to help.
That's good news - I'm so glad there are volunteers who can lead this page - there is hope .I can also throw in a few dollars from my retirement, that's the only way I can help - unfortunately I don't know much but I think you accept me as a fan. I have a question, will our logins be the same - will we have to change? I am afraid that I will need help - I know some English!
@RedKetchup helped me when logging in - thank him with all my heart for being able to participate in this forum as well. Best regards to the entire Forum community
Quote from: taniu on December 03, 2020, 10:01:28 PM
.... I have a question, will our logins be the same - will we have to change? I am afraid that I will need help - I know some English! @RedKetchup helped me when logging in...
It shouldn't change, back in about 2012 my hosting company did something stupid which stuffed up my website and then despite the fact I had proof it was them they denied all knowledge of it, so I organized to re-host my website with Hostpapa I even changed my domain name and it didn't effect any of my users .... I think a few of them ended up having to reset their passwords but otherwise it was pretty pain-free for everyone.
I can put forward some dollars to help with costs too.
@theonlywanderer would you be able to upgrade hosting or find another service if the storage is too much for your current set up? Has there been any definitive updates about what is going to happen from
@The Big Chihuahua ?
Quote from: Jinxiewinxie on December 04, 2020, 05:08:17 AM
I can put forward some dollars to help with costs too. @theonlywanderer would you be able to upgrade hosting or find another service if the storage is too much for your current set up? Has there been any definitive updates about what is going to happen from @The Big Chihuahua ?
When someone who is able decides to take over the forum, I will keep this site up and running until the export/import, domain name transfer, and successful testing is complete.
Goblin Girl and Gatherer, being as the people on this forum behave nicely, it seems that we would just need a few eyes to be on the lookout for inappropriate/spam posts to then be able to banish them. We are on at different times so one of us would more than likely be around in case some spammer or troll shows up. That doesn't seem to happen on this forum so it wouldn't be anything time consuming. But, one never knows when a spam attack might happen. I am glad you two are willing to do this.
Years ago, I was on a forum when a mischief maker made several posts having large graphic porn images just to bother people. I wished I could have deleted them as soon as they showed up, but, I didn't have that ability.
Regarding spam on this forum, I recall reading about a bunch of spammers in Sept or so, but it was after it happened, so I never saw the spam. It turns out The Big Chihuahua adjusted some settings and spoke of a service used to control spammers. I would be interested to know what is being used.
@galensgranny I'm sure that once we get something official planned, The Big Chihuahua will give us all the information we need to take care of the things he protected the forum from.
@The Big Chihuahua Can you give me the total storage size of the forum and it's database?
@theonlywanderer , perhaps you should contact TBC with questions, maybe he rather not discuss on open forum. In the End of the World thread he says "Contact me at Worldofbanished@gmail.com if you are interested and let's work this out."
Thanks for doing this :)
I'm not asking any personal information, it's not a big deal to post that info in public so others can see and help them make a decision as well.
Just a thought, I hope you get the info you need. :)
@Jinxiewinxie It would probably be best to find a host right a way. I really don't know how much traffic this site gets so it's hard to say how much of a burden it would be on my hosting, which I really can't afford to have it interfered with. Plus it would be a one time transfer and setup of the site versus having to put it on mine and than do it again if somebody else finally comes along.
I'm already losing a bit of interest due to the annoyance of everything wanting my private information which I hate giving out when it comes to anything this public related online. To setup hosting you need billing info, of course. Wants your address, name, etc... etc... on and on. It only takes one upset person to make somebody's life miserable which is why I protect my online identity at all costs when it comes to public stuff like this. It's really not worth risking my business hosting either to any kind of spam bots or any other malicious attacks.
I was making rather quick decisions because
@The Big Chihuahua set a deadline, but he has now said he will keep it up until somebody takes it over. I assume this means the first of the year deadline is no longer an issue?
If
@The Big Chihuahua does decide he's had enough and wants it gone ASAP.... I am willing to work with
@The Big Chihuahua, at the very least, to get a copy of the forum and database to hold as a backup and also help somebody to get it up and running on another host who is willing to handle that aspect.
If something goes south and the board has to go down before getting transfered, I created a quickie free forum where members can go and discuss options for getting it back up and running. Hopefully multiple people can get copies of the forum and database for safekeeping if this scenario occurs.
https://worldofbanished.boards.net/
Quote from: theonlywanderer on December 04, 2020, 01:48:01 PM
...Can you give me the total storage size of the forum and it's database?
The last backup of my website was 1.7GB zipped up (2.1GB unzipped), I had a very small forum .... basically just for people to ask for help, etc, but a much bigger technical data section, smaller downloads exchange, but 18 thousand pictures in the galleries ... so probably in terms of size similiar to WOB.
My site was hosted by Hostpapa
https://www.hostpapa.co.nz/web-hosting-plan/
And I was on the Business Pro plan and was also paying for daily backups and had a commercial firewall to stop spammers, but it was one of those perfect storm things ... whole lot of things happened which by themselves wouldn't have caused me to decide to shutdown my website, the final straw was Hostpapa sending me a formal notice that I had to upgrade the site to its own server or downgrade my site, it seems I was getting too many visitors.
Anyway that's when I went and had a talk with the staff at Simtropolis, see this topic for details
http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=3886.0
I must admit I did seriously consider volunteering to take over running WOB, but the reasons that made me decide that it was time to step down from running my own website still apply and to be honest I have enjoyed not having to worry about trying to keep one step ahead of the spammers all the time.
Don't know if it helps but the attached picture was taken just before I locked site access and started with the help of the simtrop staff to transfer the contents of the site over to Simtropolis.
Im willing to take worldofbanished over.
I have a bit of experience since i am designer, admin and everything else related to my father's company web presence and was admin of the one or other forum for little private projects in the past.
Did a lil research and found a cheap webhoster for 4 € a month with unlimited traffic and 75gb space, which will be more than enough space
@The Big Chihuahua said.
If it really happens that I take this forum over I count on the community to support me by taking over moderator tasks.
That is great news! :)
A big hug to
@banishedsanni I hope this will work painlessly for you. I also hope those voices in recent days are ready to
help with administration. You are all fantastic! :)
So glad to hear that, Banishedanni! I am still willing to be a moderator.
Wonderful news, thanks
@banishedsanni and all who will moderate. I hope all goes well :)
THANKS YOU
Great to see there is hope for the site. I am of not much help but wish you all the best of luck and will keep an eye out in case of a move.
All the best.<3
Quote from: banishedsanni on December 06, 2020, 11:03:19 AM
Im willing to take worldofbanished over.
That's really great news, while I can't currently volunteer to help as I have already committed to uploading the SC3000 City Exchange currently only exists in the Wayback Archive as the site died and there are about 1000 files still in it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20191229025626/http://www.sc3000.com/cities/
over to here https://community.simtropolis.com/clubs/36-simcity-3000-resource-page/
Once I'm done, I would be happy to help, in New Zealand so could cover other moderator's nighttime .... not sure if you are going to set up a donation box, if you do would be happy to add something towards the site costs.
Something to consider used to be a longterm member of another site called SimPeg and when its owner decided to move on a group of us where able to keep the site going for a few years as the bills were all being paid out of a PayPal account so as long as we kept that topped up things were ok, unfortunately we weren't aware that didn't include a site backup plan in the event of disasters ... so when disaster did strike there wasn't anything that could be done to restore the site.
I'm willing to help with moderation! I'm in the Eastern time zone (GMT -5)
If you set up a PayPal account to cover expenses, I can drop a little bit of money in there from time to time. I'd rather spend more to get a backup service included than to risk losing everything, but of course that's a group decision.
I keep an eye here many hours of the day. I can send an e-mail to the moderator if things go south.
Keeping an account for a back-up plan is a good idea. I think many are willing to donate.
If I feel okay and have my health, I will keep the mods coming. I will do what I can to fulfill requests.
Quote from: Goblin Girl on December 07, 2020, 07:43:37 AM
I'm willing to help with moderation! I'm in the Eastern time zone (GMT -5)
If you set up a PayPal account to cover expenses, I can drop a little bit of money in there from time to time. I'd rather spend more to get a backup service included than to risk losing everything....
Yes having a PayPal account is a good idea and it means that not everything is on
@banishedsanni when it comes to paying for site costs, but backup service while its quite handy to have and my site certainly had one, but that's more because I tend to assume the worse is likely to happen and plan accordingly, doesn't need to be quite so formal as long as someone was regularly downloading a backup file of the site and I'm assuming most hosting companies have something in place to allow you to do this and a backup copy of the site was being stored somewhere and the WOB site administrators and moderators had that information ... that's probably all that would be needed.
Talked with The Big Chihuahua and we agreed that nothing will be happening before january, so there is time to enjoy the holidays.
Thanks to all that offer their help!
When the time comes, in january, i will ask for those willing to take over tasks again.
Till then all of you have a merry christmas and a happy new year!
The webhosting service I would pay already contains a backup service with automated backupping (right word?) of all content and always provides the last 3 backups made.
Quote from: banishedsanni on December 08, 2020, 02:32:13 AM
Talked with The Big Chihuahua and we agreed that nothing will be happening before january, so there is time to enjoy the holidays.
:) Wonderful news. :) I was concerned for Christmas story timing. Thank you so much
@banishedsanni for saving WOB from banishment. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to both you and
@The Big Chihuahua
Quote from: kid1293 on December 07, 2020, 08:27:47 AM
I keep an eye here many hours of the day. I can send an e-mail to the moderator if things go south.
Keeping an account for a back-up plan is a good idea. I think many are willing to donate.
If I feel okay and have my health, I will keep the mods coming. I will do what I can to fulfill requests.
Glad to hear that you will keep the mods coming as you can, Kid, and that you will keep an eye out on the forum to spot any problems. Actually, all the regulars should do a quick scan of new posts when come on to note if any need reporting.
yeahh, thank you.
I really like the idea of using PayPal to help with the finances. Unfortunately, financial is the only assistance I am able to assist with. I work at an Adult Day Care center that specializes in Dementia care. It is very rewarding to be able to do so. Sometimes the clients are younger than my 75 years, which is really heart wrenching. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease that not only affects the individual but also their loved ones, some day I hope we can reduce the damage is causes.
Count me in on the financial support.
Kristahfer
Quote from: banishedsanni on December 08, 2020, 02:32:13 AM
Talked with The Big Chihuahua and we agreed that nothing will be happening before january, so there is time to enjoy the holidays.
@banishedsanni Happy New Year. I am wondering if this forum hosting changeover will result in the forum being shut down for any length of time. If so, any idea for how long?
I cant tell yet. I will inform you if that will be the case : )
okay good, will wait patiently for info. Thanks :)
we didnt even start the taking over yet - its 3. january... just slided into the new year ;D
;D Just thought you might know something about what is involved. I have no knowledge at all about site hosting or servers or what changes might involve. Hoping all goes well when the time comes.
What is the status on this?
Status zero ... it was planned to happen in january but
@The Big Chihuahua asked for delay. Last time we spoke about it I told him to contact me when he should be ready to start.
OK, thanks for the update!