Given the problems with z1 (the forum's server), Cabinet has recently been creating a new forum.

It doesn't have to go ahead, but it was felt that the necessary leg work should be done so that the changeover could be as swift as possible.

The new forum can be found here. It isn't accepting registrations at the present time as some threads need to be copied over first so that groups such as Cabinet, Immigration, Foreign Affairs and Defence still have access to the most recent discussions.

Should the region decide a new forum is in order this forum can either be turn 'off' (no access) or turned into a read only archive where certain items would be available for historical purposes.

There are a few questions that need answering firstly:

Keep post counts - yes or no?
What to do with this forum - archive or turn off?

The construction of the new forum is much more secure with regards to masking and viewing. The forum also has a dedicated mail account for COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection) registration forms to be sent to for approval by the on site Administration team. All that remains to be done is create a dedicated Photo Bucket account to host the images.

Both the Email address and password are available in a secure Administrator only forum as will the image hosting site for buttons and markers.

As a point of note, all the Administrator accounts (including the Root Administrator account) will be deleted when the forum goes online (meaning the only Administrators will be user-created. There will be no default Administrator account.

So to the region: Is a new forum a good idea?

A new forum is a great idea. It's time to put our problems behind us and move forward. I've seen forum problems used as an easy excuse for virtually everything around here. I understand many are justified, but I'd rather see us respond to the problems than simply complain about them. This seems to be a giant step in that direction.

I like the idea of transferring post counts, but I'm shallow. :P

I support archiving this forum. Many things have been lost, but not everything and I enjoy the occasional trip down memory lane.

On a less important note, I'd support a skin change for the new forum. I think a new place should have a new look.

A new place, a new look, a new beginning.
I like that idea!

Well put, Bs! :yes:



Shay:

Me, too!

:yay:

I would like to see the post counts kept, and think it would be a great idea to archive the old forum as a historical record.
I personally would like to keep the look of this current board, but I'm just a sentimental fool I guess! :D

I like this look, too. I guess I'd have to see what ideas people had for a new look...

it is a very good idea to have a new forum so we can all move forward.

I agree. This forum is difficult to navigate.

Personally, I find it difficult to get very involved in this forum because I am overwhelmed at the sheer mass of it.

But then, I could just be disorganised / inconsistent / a slacker.

At any rate, a new forum is favourable to the citizens of Farandol.

I don't really see the advantage, unless there is a risk of further data loss here. The forum is perfectly usable in its present state, and we'd lose a LOT of history by relocating.


On a side note, as far as I was aware the root account can not be deleted in IVF. It's the one they use to carry legal ownereship and responsibilty for the board. I think someone will have to end up with that status.

You do have a good point. :yes:

:huh:

That'd be cool!

Which is why on the proposed new forum the Email address is a dedicated account for the forum meaning that ownership of the forum is collective to the membership ;).

Sorry - I'm clearly not understanding what you are saying. Does everybody have admin rights? That seems incredibly dangerous.

No. The Root-Admin account is set to a generic Email account (yahoo.ca). This can be deleted or modified by the Root-Admin so that there is no Root-Admin account, meaning that ownership of the forum belongs to no-one, yet everyone.

To clarify: only the Root-Admin can modify the Root-Admin accont details. If this account (the Root-Admin) were to be deleted on the new forum, there would be no Root-Admin account meaning that all Administrators would be put in place by the voting populous and any bad decision or err in judgment would need to be dealt with by the laws in place (such as the Constitution) rather than using the Root-Admin 'get out of gaol free' card.

Basciallyt, this would mean that there is no Root-Admin account and the Email address used for 'ownership' - such as receiving Emails from InvisionFree - would be accessible to Global Moderators (Cabinet) or Admin, the -- for want of a better expression -- customer service team.

It's that step of deleting the root (i.e. member #1) account, which is (AFAIK) not possible without deleting the board.

That may well be the case but it is possible for the Root Admin to indefinitely ban their own account - which is the silver medal in this case if the alternative option (deletion) is not possible. The rationale is that there is 'get out of gaol' / 'run with one's tail between one's legs' should a bad call be made in selecting a site Admin.

If you re-read what I quoted above, I think you'll find that's covered. Invision really do not want people to be able to lock out the #1 account.

I'd be happy to have you prove me wrong, but I just don't think it's possible. If so, it could presumably be applied to this board, so no need for a new one on that account.


Meanwhile, I also don't want to see the loss of history involved. Surely what we have got back so far is better than having nothing at all?

What is the state of play vis-a-vis this board...
1) Is there a risk (above baseline) of additional data or service loss here?
2) What is the best estimate on how much we can recover of what is currently lost?

Personally I think there is. This server is outdated, basically invisionfree doesn't care about this server anymore. They have moved on and up to bigger and better forums. Reading any of the threads at invisionfree on the server crash topic pretty much tells us that.

Carb has many threads archived and has access to many important threads. Cabinet actually made a Canadian Historical Thread Museum and moved many of the older threads there just before the crash. Wiped out! Lucky enough Omni was able to recover the threads that were moved to the archives and the list is being stored in Cabinet. (I also have the list on my computer)

Personally I think it is time to move forward to a server that will receive regular back-ups from invisionfree. We lost over three months of posting due to them not bothering to back up this server. It is my understanding that the new servers are backed up more frequently.

But it's Canada's call and I feel all members should have a say in this matter.

Thanks Parrrtay, that makes the reason for the proposed move much clearer.

The flipside is then - how much can we take with us? Are there tools available to port one board to another?

You need a computer guru to answer this one. :rolleyes:
I do know that another game I am in they moved to a new server and were able to move everything over. However the new server they moved to is not hosted by invisionfree. How much time this will take could be another story.

I don't see why the new forum can't be set up the same way this one is and a link added to direct people back to this one for historical reference. :shrug:

A history link is fine for things which are essentially complete (e.g. old RPs). For ongoing sections/threads such as embassies it would be better if the whole history were immediately available.

I'd be quite happy to chip in some time if that would help in getting a better transition. I'm generally computer-literate, and have run a couple of IVF boards, although I've never had to deal with a forum transfer.

Two answer to key points:

1) Our current Root-Admin, upon request, has been indefinitely banned from logging on with that account. The Root-Admin has certain -- extra -- Admin privileges that do not extend to the user-created Admin group.

2) We could -- although it would take time -- merge existing topics here with topics of the same name on the new forum. It would be slow in that we'd need to recreate each thread. In addition, if this were to be done, old post counts would be carried across (I think) as it just ports the thread data (much like saving a web-page in it's complete forum rather than compressed .html (.htm).

If this were to be done, I think it best done by temporary accounts so that they can be deleted after the maintenance to prevent credit or the creation of a thread going to the wrong person.

---

But as Parrrrtay rightfully said, this is an issue for the region as a whole to decide upon.

One idea cooked up on a dull Sunday evening: NSCanada

I usually hate change but I like that. :fonz:

35 posts???? :o :lol:

( 106.06% of total forum posts ) at that!

Methinks someone was playing with the Admin CP.

I really like the colour we have here. Does Canada have an "official" red?

Not official, but the unoffical standard is "St George's red", pantone 186, something like this.

I liked the design, but I have vision difficulties due to a medical condition and the colour palette (mainly the -- for want of a better word -- insipid pinks) seemed to undulate which made the page uncomfortable to look at and read.

Striking colours (as in basic colours), are often the way forward as they are easy on they eye and enable items to be easily distinguished.

I like the current set-up with the deep red and gold. I think we might be able to find an improvement for the grey, but that's the only change I personally would make.

As regards the logo, I think the main cause of the "Jaggies" is the word Canada - that was copied over from the previous logo. The rest of it was my design, and I still have the source files. If anyone knows what the font is that was used for "Canada", I can remake it at a higher quality.

You're incorrect. The posts are for uploading images to the forum and not all posts are in visible parts of the forum.

Additionally, the current banner is a modification of my design. You added the light burst, Nation States and a second branch. I'm not dismissing your contribution, but I feel you dismissed mine.

Sorry Blackshear, I hadn't remembered whose was the original design. I didn't mean to slight you at all.

Anyway, good news - since it was you, can you tell me what the font was?

Correct. Blackshear provided the original design and and bandwidth from his host.
Blackshear - the current banner is your design. The only difference is the size I believe.

Who's dissing who now?

IIRC, in Blackshear's original (very fine) design, "Canada" was centred on a plain red background with a red & white Maple leaf. There was a thread to look for alternatives, which included a variant with single branch, somewhat pixellated and in the opposite orientation. There was definitely a play of ideas between several contributers and the commenting public.

The current background has 4 layers of shading, I re-sourced and re-edited the branches, took Blackshear's "Canada" by popular request and came up with the layout you now see.

If it hadn't been for Blackshear, this banner would not exist, but in terms of it's construction the only actual element I took from his original designs was the word "Canada".

Meh - it's been like twelve months.

PS: My shwartz is bigger than <this> *shows life size replica of the Grand Canyon*.

At the end of the day it was a cooperative effort for a larger cause than "I did this" or "You did that".

PPS: You can both have 100 experience each :P :wub:.

Read all about it :D
Forum Header

Indeed. I'd forgotten quite how many variants we both came up with.


Meanwhile, checking the attributes of the current banner, it looks like it has been re-saved at least once as a JPG. Since that is a lossy format, that accounts for some of the jaggies. The original is a lot smoother, although also 30% larger file size.

One way or another, I think we can improve it, which was the original point of mentioning the banner at all. :)

Aye. It was converted to save overhead bandwidth for those not on ADSL as well as to save bandwidth from the kind host :).

If a sharper image at either a similar or smaller size can be constructed (same dimensions to prevent jagging when set to 100%), that would be awesome.

It appears you had resized it to 998px. The original was 960x150. I'm gussing that was an approximation to 1000, so this one is 1000x156. If you need 998 for some arcane reason, I can easily re-do it. Conversely if 960 is good enough, then that should be smaller and better quality.



I wouldn't recommend keeping it on ImageShack - their performance has been pretty poor recently.

EDIT - D'oh - that was the display size on my machine. Yours is 800*125. Hang on and I'll do another version.



That should do it.