www.theflatearthsociety.org doesn't work

I rather suspect that the higher ups just don't see the Forums as an efficient means of spreading FET and therefore don't care about them. And they have a point. 100% of the people who come here do so to ridicule us, and most of the people arguing FET here are trolls. The success rate for conversion can't be anywhere near .1%. If I were Daniel, I'd be far more focused on spreading FET through other methods, for example the interviews he does occasionally.

While I agree with you, I feel that the forum serves a far greater purpose: community.  Let's say Daniel converts 1 person out of every 100 million.  Those people are likely so isolated that they have no other FEers to talk to or interact with.  The forum is the best way for them to join a community of like minded individuals.  No conversion holds without being surrounded by like minded individuals. 

I dont think the FES exists to convert anyone. I dont think it ever has either. The society is more of a tradition. The hipsters of science so to speak.

This is where the members gather. It is no excuse to neglect the hub of the FES.
Been said a ton of times but he should hand it over to somebody who actually cares for it.

WTF, you are on here because Daniel lets you on. You don't know how much Daniel cares for TFES. Start your own website if he is not running to your liking.

Quote from: squevil on September 16, 2013, 07:46:10 PM

This is where the members gather. It is no excuse to neglect the hub of the FES.
Been said a ton of times but he should hand it over to somebody who actually cares for it.

WTF, you are on here because Daniel lets you on. You don't know how much Daniel cares for TFES. Start your own website if he is not running to your liking.

You're right, we don't know.

And Daniel doesn't seem to express it either.

I rather suspect that the higher ups just don't see the Forums as an efficient means of spreading FET and therefore don't care about them. And they have a point. 100% of the people who come here do so to ridicule us, and most of the people arguing FET here are trolls. The success rate for conversion can't be anywhere near .1%. If I were Daniel, I'd be far more focused on spreading FET through other methods, for example the interviews he does occasionally.

That's perfectly fine, but there are people here who do care about the forum and are competent sysadmins. If the current admins have stopped caring to maintain it, they should have no reason not to pass the baton.

Quote from: squevil on September 16, 2013, 07:46:10 PM

This is where the members gather. It is no excuse to neglect the hub of the FES.
Been said a ton of times but he should hand it over to somebody who actually cares for it.

WTF, you are on here because Daniel lets you on. You don't know how much Daniel cares for TFES. Start your own website if he is not running to your liking.

Firstly in all the time I have been here he has never been an active member, yet he says he has been absent for months. Then after I got my membership it took ages for him to get back to me and that was because an upstanding member of the FES sorted him for me (you know who you are  ).
Most importantly I have my own website and it is run the way any caring owner would run it and im am active and log on several times a day and greet my members and join in with chats. New people join and have a clue who I am.
He may care for his idea of the FES but he doesnt care much for this website.

The admins and owners here are incompetent. I don't understand how it can possibly take this long to switch servers. They are having us on I'm telling you.

Moving to a new server doesn't take this long.  The main site's CMS is already up and running there.  Moving the forums is what's causing problems.  We've got a huge forums database and there have been major problems getting that moved over without losing tons of messages in the process.  As soon as that part is resolved, we're good to go.

Care to specify what problems you're running into? There are people around here who actually know how computers work - they might be able to help.

Moving to a new server doesn't take this long.  The main site's CMS is already up and running there.  Moving the forums is what's causing problems.  We've got a huge forums database and there have been major problems getting that moved over without losing tons of messages in the process.  As soon as that part is resolved, we're good to go.

I don't suppose your "huge" database has exceeded 3 TB in size? I've migrated a MySQL database that big with just a few days preparation and 10 minutes of downtime.

Now that my qualifications are established, you can proceed to ignore this post instead of telling me what's going wrong so I can possibly offer advice.

Perhaps the just the large number of files. Perhaps they were zipped and willmore and Daniel are working out how to unzip it. just kidding.
Thanks for the reply anyway.

I don't suppose your "huge" database has exceeded 3 TB in size? I've migrated a MySQL database that big with just a few days preparation and 10 minutes of downtime.

Simply copying a 3 TB of data even over a 10 Gbps Ethernet link would take more than 40 minutes.Since this server migration, I assume, would consist of moving data between two servers located at two different data centres so it would be a lot longer than that.

In order to reach that short downtime, I guess you must have done something like:

• online full backup (no downtime)
• copy the full backup to and restore it at the new server (no downtime)
• shut down the service to maintain the database integrity
• perform incremental backup which will only contain changes since the last full backup
• copy the incremental backup to and restore it at the new server
• bring up the service at the new server

The size of the incremental backup depends on how active write operations on the database is.

Simply copying a 3 TB of data even over a 10 Gbps Ethernet link would take more than 40 minutes.Since this server migration, I assume, would consist of moving data between two servers located at two different data centres so it would be a lot longer than that.

Ignore the downtime I stated for the purposes of the FES move. I am fully aware that different environments have different requirements which will affect the final cutover.

Focus instead on "a few days preparation", which is the time taken to copy the bulk of the data. Even if FES had a 3 TB database (I can tell you right now, it isn't anything close to that), and even allowing an order of magnitude longer since the people working on this migration don't do it for a living and are working in their spare time, there is no good reason for a migration to take any longer than two months.

Yet here we are, four months later:

We'll be moving servers soon!

The issue isn't complicated but for security reasons it shouldn't be discussed. As soon as I can get through one issue, the rest should be fairly quick (the time it takes to wget the forum software, unzip it and configure) but I am awaiting action from the host.

Life has been crazy lately, and I truly apologize for the excess time spent on this relatively simple task. I know you will look over it.

The issue isn't complicated but for security reasons it shouldn't be discussed. As soon as I can get through one issue, the rest should be fairly quick (the time it takes to wget the forum software, unzip it and configure) but I am awaiting action from the host.

Life has been crazy lately, and I truly apologize for the excess time spent on this relatively simple task. I know you will look over it.

Wget the forum software? Since when does pup code require an install more complex than "upload"?  Or are you referring to php support?

And if you're really worried about security, just PM Parsifal the details of the problem without giving away specific information that allows for the server to be identified.

I appreciate the intent to help and the thought behind it, and also appreciate the need to have the front end of this site up as soon as possible and the just frustration many of you might have for this delay - but it is unnecessary. 

I am confident once we contact the host, the work should only take something like an hour or two, including transfer times etc. In short, we know the problem and its solution, and are now resolving it as fast as is possible.

Wget the forum software? Since when does pup code require an install more complex than "upload"?  Or are you referring to php support?

Lorddave, please stop talking.

And if you're really worried about security, just PM Parsifal the details of the problem without giving away specific information that allows for the server to be identified.

I don't think you quite get it. I am the security risk.


Thanks for the updates, John. I can only hope that the rest of the migration works out for the best (quite literally, since I have seen no information regarding specific improvements on the new server).

Quote from: Lorddave on September 18, 2013, 02:37:40 PM

Wget the forum software? Since when does pup code require an install more complex than "upload"?  Or are you referring to php support?

Lorddave, please stop talking.

.... Should have looked up wget first.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 18, 2013, 02:37:40 PM

And if you're really worried about security, just PM Parsifal the details of the problem without giving away specific information that allows for the server to be identified.

I don't think you quite get it. I am the security risk.

No I get that, I just don't get what you could do without knowing the server address.  Or how you'd find the server address before it goes live.

No I get that, I just don't get what you could do without knowing the server address.  Or how you'd find the server address before it goes live.

You obviously don't understand how hacking works. I wouldn't need the server address to steal all the datas and take over FES.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 18, 2013, 05:23:15 PM

No I get that, I just don't get what you could do without knowing the server address.  Or how you'd find the server address before it goes live.

You obviously don't understand how hacking works. I wouldn't need the server address to steal all the datas and take over FES.

I know a little such as social, key loggers, and brute force.  But not how to steal data from a location when you don't know it's address.  I'd be happy to learn, however.

Quote from: Parsifal on September 18, 2013, 07:02:54 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on September 18, 2013, 05:23:15 PM

No I get that, I just don't get what you could do without knowing the server address.  Or how you'd find the server address before it goes live.

You obviously don't understand how hacking works. I wouldn't need the server address to steal all the datas and take over FES.

I know a little such as social, key loggers, and brute force.  But not how to steal data from a location when you don't know it's address.  I'd be happy to learn, however.

That would probably be against the rules to discuss on these fora.

Quote from: Lorddave on September 19, 2013, 03:14:40 AM

Quote from: Parsifal on September 18, 2013, 07:02:54 PM

Quote from: Lorddave on September 18, 2013, 05:23:15 PM

No I get that, I just don't get what you could do without knowing the server address.  Or how you'd find the server address before it goes live.

You obviously don't understand how hacking works. I wouldn't need the server address to steal all the datas and take over FES.

I know a little such as social, key loggers, and brute force.  But not how to steal data from a location when you don't know it's address.  I'd be happy to learn, however.

That would probably be against the rules to discuss on these fora.

I never specified a location to discuss.

I was just letting you know. 

Quote from: Parsifal on September 18, 2013, 07:02:54 PM

You obviously don't understand how hacking works. I wouldn't need the server address to steal all the datas and take over FES.

I know a little such as social, key loggers, and brute force.  But not how to steal data from a location when you don't know it's address.  I'd be happy to learn, however.

It's very simple. You just have to be disliked by Daniel, and then you are suddenly a threat to FES and also national security.

Just to clarify, I don't think the server is at particular heightened risk by attack of anyone here. I'm just acting on best practice as we are a target and have had issues in the past. I'll update later today hopefully.

I'll be working on this until I go to dinner with my guests at around 5-5:30 est. I hope its done by then.

This was a lie.

Should be on it today, ignoring something crazy happening.

And this was a lie.

Today/Tonight, 100%
Life has been life lately. Sorry!

And this was a lie.

I'll update later today hopefully.

This too was a lie.

3 weeks have passed since the last porkie about bothering his a*se to fix the site.

We need new admins. The current ones are never here and don't want to do anything anyway.

Can we de-admin Davis, Wilmore and Jack and get new admins? Those three don't do any admin work, don't participate in the site and are clearly not interested. It is imperative that the site be passed on. The dog-in-a-manger attitude of the old guard is appalling.

We need new admins. The current ones are never here and don't want to do anything anyway.

Can we de-admin Davis, Wilmore and Jack and get new admins? Those three don't do any admin work, don't participate in the site and are clearly not interested. It is imperative that the site be passed on. The dog-in-a-manger attitude of the old guard is appalling.

Admins, at least insofar as SMF's concept of an admin goes, are not what FES needs. Rather, we need competent sysadmins who can fix the underlying problems with the web server, the name servers and whatever else might be fucking things up.

I would like to, once again, propose that members of the forum should be allowed to get involved in fixing these issues.

Quote from: Ævan on October 13, 2013, 07:40:31 AM

We need new admins. The current ones are never here and don't want to do anything anyway.

Can we de-admin Davis, Wilmore and Jack and get new admins? Those three don't do any admin work, don't participate in the site and are clearly not interested. It is imperative that the site be passed on. The dog-in-a-manger attitude of the old guard is appalling.

Admins, at least insofar as SMF's concept of an admin goes, are not what FES needs. Rather, we need competent sysadmins who can fix the underlying problems with the web server, the name servers and whatever else might be fucking things up.

Daniel doesn't have the money to hire someone he doesn't know and therefore, trusts.

Daniel doesn't have the money to hire someone

How do you know how much money Daniel has? Daniel was born to very wealthy parents who bank rolled his university education. They then paid for him to have a year out with Tarquin and Peers building shelters in Sri Lanka. They had a blast and snorted vast amounts of coke. Daniel's father then used his extensive business contacts to ensure Daniel was hooked up with an easy and well paid job despite being woefully under-qualified and he has been receiving extra subsides for ski trips and new BMWs ever since.
Daniel has money for fine suits, tasteless art and expensive rent boys from Tottenham Court Road. Now how about you stop just making things up about him? 

I am sue someone like Th*rk would be an admin pro bono.