Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I feel like 95% of the value of migrating everything to the new place is covered by dumping the existing forum on the Wayback Machine or some equivalent. It just doesn't seem worth the effort or cost, particularly on an ongoing, long-term basis...
I don't think we need every thread ever posted to be copied over to the new place since it's not like we will be posting in them but there is a bunch of stuff like old H&A advice and art stuff that shouldn't just drop off the face of the internet.
To all the mods, old and new, I say: thank you for two decades of an amazing community. Here's hoping we get another 20!
Happy to help with funding and technical support if needed. I mostly write python, Java, and JavaScript these days, but I can brush the dust off other languages if needed. Experience with rational and non-relational DBs, data migrations, etc etc. I even used to be Oracle RAC Admin certified. Can't promise infinite time, but I'd love to help.
"oh wow, this looks like an absolute nightmare to implement, lemmeatit!"
:100: this yes.
"Weird technical edge case" is basically my job (...and most of my free time, if I'm honest) description.
I would not want to have this place require payment to post. We have members who are stretched thin, and forcing them out of the community because they can’t afford it would be pretty messed up.
As someone who's in the stretched thin camp: I could and would do a dollar usd a month. I couldn't do 10 USD a month, and i'd be seriously reconsidering at the 5USD a month level.
Also, to be frank, the more folks are paying in, the more there's going to be Strong Opinions on the whole moderation, subforum splits etc
I'm all for a patreon or kofi or whatever. I've been thinking about custom badges for paying users, and apart from something extremely mundane (like the U or the background being, like, one alternate predetermined color) I'd be worried folks might try to wield it like a weapon, which might only get them viciously mocked in some parts of the forum, just based on who's there
I don’t know, I think by and large we’re better than that. I frequent several music forums that have various tiers of support (I’m actually considering buying a “lifetime” membership to one) and I have never seen this problem crop up.
Syndalis's tyrannical reign as "the guy with the logo in his posts" has never really been a problem
Yeah, because I don’t even know who that is or what you’re talking about!
I guess the question I'd have would be who will be the responsible party?
The forums would have to be registered to someone right?
The money we raise would go to someone who would need to pay the bills, and also to be there in case (not saying it would happen) someone breaks a law or something
who would that be? can a group take responsibility? I'm asking honestly because I have no idea!
That’s probably for the current mods to figure out. But either it’s one person who owns it or a real life organization would have to be set up.
I expect it will be just be a person. At least at first. I think an ex-mod, if one were willing to do it, might be a good choice.
+1
DrezI’m exactly the same in real lifeRegistered Userregular
Why don’t we build our own forum software in house and then steal bandwidth from the moon with a large siphoning cable
I don't think we need every thread ever posted to be copied over to the new place since it's not like we will be posting in them but there is a bunch of stuff like old H&A advice and art stuff that shouldn't just drop off the face of the internet.
With the legacy art threads, where the images and other art are hosted externally, how much of that has already succumbed to link rot? Are five-ten year threads filled with broken links? I'd assume quite a few are.
For uploaded images that are currently hosted by Vanilla, to preserve them we would probably have to do a copy-over of Vanilla data storage. Something I assume is in the multi-terabyte range at this point.
We would also likely have to run a script to go through all the existing posts that have img links, and update the inline image URL to reflect the new host - all the inlined image links like https://us.v-cdn.net/5018289/uploads/editor/6d/xxxxxxxxxx.jpg are going to break when the Vanilla contract ends.
You could probably do a regex pretty easily to update that, but how much of those uploaded images are just abandoned cruft that doesn't need to be copied over and preserved?
+3
HerrCronIt that wickedly supports taxationRegistered Userregular
One thing I will say is to me non-negotiable is that wherever the forums do end up, the list of permanent bans from here absolutely needs to carry over into the new space.
Strongly disagree. At most an official rule that if you were a formerly banned user and actually want to rejoin, send an email to a mailbox the mods can check and let them make the call.
If anything. The worst folks that would actually want to come back will be indistinguishable from trolls and get rebanned.
People contacting us about wanting a permaban reversed are pretty uncommon. They tend to manifest either by proxy ("so-and-so wanted me to ask...") or by signing up an alt and asking the mods that way (which is technically a no-no but we'll at least look at the situation).
Eleventy gazillionteen percent of the existing permaban list is spambots, on the other hand, some of which spend years poking at the forum. Trust me, you would not want the whole banlist wiped.
Anyway, I have to tag out for the evening to juggle some nonforum things. The discussion so far's great, and I'm glad people are taking some pretty stressful news well for the most part.
That's fair, I wasn't considering bots, just actual former posters who had been banned.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
0
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
Oh also if it's not possible to prevent public scraping then wherever the creatives threads go should be hidden unless you're signed in.
Fuck plagiarism bots
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
I guess the question I'd have would be who will be the responsible party?
The forums would have to be registered to someone right?
The money we raise would go to someone who would need to pay the bills, and also to be there in case (not saying it would happen) someone breaks a law or something
who would that be? can a group take responsibility? I'm asking honestly because I have no idea!
That’s probably for the current mods to figure out. But either it’s one person who owns it or a real life organization would have to be set up.
I expect it will be just be a person. At least at first. I think an ex-mod, if one were willing to do it, might be a good choice.
Setting up a non-profit would probably be the best long term situation. That way ownership doesn't lie in any single person, and money raised is held by an entity with legal responsibilities not a person. But that's also throwing a whole other can of shit on top of a pretty crazy transition.
I would not want to have this place require payment to post. We have members who are stretched thin, and forcing them out of the community because they can’t afford it would be pretty messed up.
Any fees should confer visual perks only. Like for $1/month, you get an avatar hat, for $5, you get 6 avatar hats.
100% agree that registration and posting should be free. We ain’t SA after all.
We can turn the community engagement into a hat simulator and call it The Forum 2.
I guess the question I'd have would be who will be the responsible party?
The forums would have to be registered to someone right?
The money we raise would go to someone who would need to pay the bills, and also to be there in case (not saying it would happen) someone breaks a law or something
who would that be? can a group take responsibility? I'm asking honestly because I have no idea!
This is a million dollar question yes. We don't know yet.
Even aside from handling money in a transparent and above board way, there's also some question of legal liability that we have never had to think about because it was someone else's problem before. GDPR and such, data portability and right to delete your account and etc.
+6
minor incidentpublicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
There’s no real reason for it to be a non-profit and plenty of reasons for it not to be. But in general, yeah, setting up some kind of entity seems like an absolute necessity (whether that’s a partnership, LLC, or whatever).
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
Any of the splinter forums still alive? Ttb, sheep shirts, ranssite (which I think became moose site, but I lost track). I guess I only know one that officially died ( flying stove)- I just lost track of the others
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
I do think having new forums, if we indeed decide to not stick with vanilla, up for a while to allow for a handful of things... namely a closed registration system where people would register under their name on the new forum, then get a code they would need to dm to a user here from the user they registered the name of... you could actually automate that whole thing.
I would also not allow posting over there for the first few months of registration... just let folks secure their usernames while the features, look and feel get sorted out by the admins / mods / developers.
And when the doors do open for user registration and posting, I would "blue check" folks who were verified from the old world.
I would also politely ask for the list of banned usernames and banned IPs to be carried over so that we could bar that door a little bit at the start at least.
That seems… absurdly convoluted and like a sure fire way to prune off current community members who don’t want to jump through weird private messaging based identity confirmation system? Particularly when I think they already talked about migrating accounts to whatever the new platform would be, so that would, barring unforeseen fans getting hit with unforeseen shit, be a solved problem regarding community continuity.
Also “you can’t post for a few months on the new forum” is another perfect way to kill community continuity.
Largely what you’d want is this place to transition to whatever the new, non-PA URL is while the new service is set up and primed for use; maybe have a few people (probably the mods) test it and kick the proverbial tires, then once it seems ready, set it up so that the new forum URL directs to the new, non-vanilla forum.
Which mind you is a good bit of work, but if the goal is maintaining the community you want to make that transition as smooth and immediate for the users’ end as possible; any hurdle on the users’ end will be a point where you start bleeding off folks
Yeah, I'm gonna try to drill down a bit - what is the thing you're trying to achieve here? "sanitizing your inputs"? (thank you, Bobby Tables)
Also you are talking about, largely, an entire volunteer effort by the mods to salvage the material/digital space of this community before PA corp sunsets it.
“PM someone on here to confirm you are who you say you are on the new board” is a lot to fucking ask given the number of posters you’re trying to carry over, unless your explicit goal is winnowing the community down to a dozen handfuls. You’re effectively saying “every legacy user must be confirmed by someone with admin status” and that’s a lot of fucking people
I’m honestly talking about something nobody would have to do.
Something that could be completely and easily automated.
Just need an account here, not even a person, who has an inbox.
It would be the easiest way in the world, short of direct DB access and password resets due to hashing, and everything else to make sure someone else doesn’t register lanz or Organichu or whatever else in advance and be an annoying troll about things.
The email from the new system could even have a link in it to click right into the inbox where you put the code.
Edit: like - this would take less than a day to implement end to end and would verify the person who registered as X on one side is X here.
And I am not sure getting a useful database dump is possible, or that we would even want the PII responsibility of everyone who ever registered on PA’s email address and other related info.
This place is important to me, but there's no way I'm going to be able to follow or meaningfully participate in whatever technical discussion is already scattered across the last 10 pages of a PA forum thread.
If anyone is making a list of potential worker bees, please add me to it, and feel free to PM to get my real contact info. Doing deep dives on technical data and cajoling square pegs to interface with round holes describes quite a lot of my career.
I do think having new forums, if we indeed decide to not stick with vanilla, up for a while to allow for a handful of things... namely a closed registration system where people would register under their name on the new forum, then get a code they would need to dm to a user here from the user they registered the name of... you could actually automate that whole thing.
I would also not allow posting over there for the first few months of registration... just let folks secure their usernames while the features, look and feel get sorted out by the admins / mods / developers.
And when the doors do open for user registration and posting, I would "blue check" folks who were verified from the old world.
I would also politely ask for the list of banned usernames and banned IPs to be carried over so that we could bar that door a little bit at the start at least.
That seems… absurdly convoluted and like a sure fire way to prune off current community members who don’t want to jump through weird private messaging based identity confirmation system? Particularly when I think they already talked about migrating accounts to whatever the new platform would be, so that would, barring unforeseen fans getting hit with unforeseen shit, be a solved problem regarding community continuity.
Also “you can’t post for a few months on the new forum” is another perfect way to kill community continuity.
Largely what you’d want is this place to transition to whatever the new, non-PA URL is while the new service is set up and primed for use; maybe have a few people (probably the mods) test it and kick the proverbial tires, then once it seems ready, set it up so that the new forum URL directs to the new, non-vanilla forum.
Which mind you is a good bit of work, but if the goal is maintaining the community you want to make that transition as smooth and immediate for the users’ end as possible; any hurdle on the users’ end will be a point where you start bleeding off folks
Yeah, I'm gonna try to drill down a bit - what is the thing you're trying to achieve here? "sanitizing your inputs"? (thank you, Bobby Tables)
Also you are talking about, largely, an entire volunteer effort by the mods to salvage the material/digital space of this community before PA corp sunsets it.
“PM someone on here to confirm you are who you say you are on the new board” is a lot to fucking ask given the number of posters you’re trying to carry over, unless your explicit goal is winnowing the community down to a dozen handfuls. You’re effectively saying “every legacy user must be confirmed by someone with admin status” and that’s a lot of fucking people
I’m honestly talking about something nobody would have to do.
Something that could be completely and easily automated.
Just need an account here, not even a person, who has an inbox.
It would be the easiest way in the world, short of direct DB access and password resets due to hashing, and everything else to make sure someone else doesn’t register lanz or Organichu or whatever else in advance and be an annoying troll about things.
The email from the new system could even have a link in it to click right into the inbox where you put the code.
Edit: like - this would take less than a day to implement end to end and would verify the person who registered as X on one side is X here.
And I am not sure getting a useful database dump is possible, or that we would even want the PII responsibility of everyone who ever registered on PA’s email address and other related info.
It’s already built! I did account verification of forumers for the GOTY polls, it’s rather straightforward.
Gives a clean way to reserve and reactivate accounts but without moving accounts or posts directly it also skirts around data laws nicely. It would be an opt-in thing. You could just have a list of account names with old posts to put in Pending Verification before they could post again. New account that wasn’t on the list, go nuts.
There’s no real reason for it to be a non-profit and plenty of reasons for it not to be. But in general, yeah, setting up some kind of entity seems like an absolute necessity (whether that’s a partnership, LLC, or whatever).
some sort of co-op that's under a corp probably
+1
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Any of the splinter forums still alive? Ttb, sheep shirts, ranssite (which I think became moose site, but I lost track). I guess I only know one that officially died ( flying stove)- I just lost track of the others
Yes, Platformers(arguably the OG) is somehow still active.
very easily seeing that the true benefit of this forum skewing so old is that there are a ton of us who have been mired in all aspects of the bullshit tech world of 'moving horrible old tech debt to something slightly less horrible' for decades.
This is the future. This is what we built. This is what we wanted. It must have been. Because we all had the fucking choice, didn't we? It is only our money that allows commercial culture to flower. If we didn't want to live like this, we could have changed it at any time, by not fucking paying for it.
So let's celebrate by all going out and buying the same burger. -transmet
+22
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
I started posting on these forums when I was under 13 years old by lying about my age.
So all of you are responsible for raising me, really. And I hope that haunts you to the end of your days.
But seriously, this place holds many treasured memories for me.
Dunno if I'll have end up following everyone to a new site or just let the past be the past, but thanks all.
If a user migration proves to be too unwieldy or impossible, one alternative could be to start fresh with an invite system, whereby established users here could apply for access to the new forum. That could help get the thing on its feet, allow you to test user permissions and other things, without turning the faucet all the way on. You could also control username poaching this way, though I think/hope that isn't really much of an issue anyway.
As for post history, worst case, you tell everyone hey, you've got a full year. Go scour the forum and save whatever you want to save.
If we do go with Post Arcadia, does that mean we’re changelings or that we’re True Fae?
With a vessel like that, both.
+2
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
Don't migrate the names. Let chaos reign.
Create new identities. Steal the name of your (least) favourite poster.
Destroy the past.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
+2
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Teamregular
edited October 2024
But yes, seriously.
I’ve kind of been good at this stuff over the years.
Like - I’ve supported financial institutions and global insurance companies getting off of their old internal shit into modern rails, both in hardware infrastructure and software replatforming / migrations.
I am mostly-lurking simple folk, but add me to the pile of people who would absolutely support the next incarnation of this place through patreon or a paid membership or whatever.
Like a lot of those still posting here, my account is old enough to buy a drink. In all that time, we've witnessed the meteoric rise of facebook, twitter, reddit, and for awhile it seemed a foregone conclusion that old school forums were a quaint relic doomed to fade away. But then we also saw all those big social media platforms rapidly turn to complete dogshit. So for at least the past 5+ years, it's been a serious respite to come here for discussion and banter that's generally intelligent and mostly respectful even if sometimes heated. I know there's no shortage of squabbles and we're not perfect, but seriously, compared to any other public platform? It's an oasis.
I'm sure I'm partly growing codgerish and just thinking that what I grew up with is the best anything ever was or will be. But, at least we don't have billionaire overlords directly exchanging our mental health for marginal increases in shareholder value.
I'm all in on keeping the relic afloat until I can lurk on you guys literally shitposting from your nursing homes.
Seagull on
+21
RamiusJoined: July 19, 2000Administrator, ClubPAadmin
To all the tech minded ppl discussing user migration, do some research on vanilla jsconnect, I think that is the likely path we would take since we have time to do it in an orderly fashion.
+12
RamiusJoined: July 19, 2000Administrator, ClubPAadmin
Any of the splinter forums still alive? Ttb, sheep shirts, ranssite (which I think became moose site, but I lost track). I guess I only know one that officially died ( flying stove)- I just lost track of the others
Yes, Platformers(arguably the OG) is somehow still active.
I think penny arcade cult has to be the OG, possibly followed by citadel of truth.
I can't believe I remember something like that a quarter of a century later!
Posts
Happy to help with funding and technical support if needed. I mostly write python, Java, and JavaScript these days, but I can brush the dust off other languages if needed. Experience with rational and non-relational DBs, data migrations, etc etc. I even used to be Oracle RAC Admin certified.
:100: this yes.
"Weird technical edge case" is basically my job (...and most of my free time, if I'm honest) description.
Yeah, because I don’t even know who that is or what you’re talking about!
That’s probably for the current mods to figure out. But either it’s one person who owns it or a real life organization would have to be set up.
I expect it will be just be a person. At least at first. I think an ex-mod, if one were willing to do it, might be a good choice.
With the legacy art threads, where the images and other art are hosted externally, how much of that has already succumbed to link rot? Are five-ten year threads filled with broken links? I'd assume quite a few are.
For uploaded images that are currently hosted by Vanilla, to preserve them we would probably have to do a copy-over of Vanilla data storage. Something I assume is in the multi-terabyte range at this point.
We would also likely have to run a script to go through all the existing posts that have img links, and update the inline image URL to reflect the new host - all the inlined image links like https://us.v-cdn.net/5018289/uploads/editor/6d/xxxxxxxxxx.jpg are going to break when the Vanilla contract ends.
You could probably do a regex pretty easily to update that, but how much of those uploaded images are just abandoned cruft that doesn't need to be copied over and preserved?
Can't do that,
Moon's haunted.
Celeste [Switch] - She'll be wrestling with inner demons when she comes...
Octopath Traveler - MY BLADE IS UNBENDING
That's fair, I wasn't considering bots, just actual former posters who had been banned.
Fuck plagiarism bots
Setting up a non-profit would probably be the best long term situation. That way ownership doesn't lie in any single person, and money raised is held by an entity with legal responsibilities not a person. But that's also throwing a whole other can of shit on top of a pretty crazy transition.
We can turn the community engagement into a hat simulator and call it The Forum 2.
This is a million dollar question yes. We don't know yet.
Even aside from handling money in a transparent and above board way, there's also some question of legal liability that we have never had to think about because it was someone else's problem before. GDPR and such, data portability and right to delete your account and etc.
Shit, you can have it.
I'm reregistering as WangDaddy420.
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I’m honestly talking about something nobody would have to do.
Something that could be completely and easily automated.
Just need an account here, not even a person, who has an inbox.
It would be the easiest way in the world, short of direct DB access and password resets due to hashing, and everything else to make sure someone else doesn’t register lanz or Organichu or whatever else in advance and be an annoying troll about things.
The email from the new system could even have a link in it to click right into the inbox where you put the code.
Edit: like - this would take less than a day to implement end to end and would verify the person who registered as X on one side is X here.
And I am not sure getting a useful database dump is possible, or that we would even want the PII responsibility of everyone who ever registered on PA’s email address and other related info.
If anyone is making a list of potential worker bees, please add me to it, and feel free to PM to get my real contact info. Doing deep dives on technical data and cajoling square pegs to interface with round holes describes quite a lot of my career.
It’s already built! I did account verification of forumers for the GOTY polls, it’s rather straightforward.
Gives a clean way to reserve and reactivate accounts but without moving accounts or posts directly it also skirts around data laws nicely. It would be an opt-in thing. You could just have a list of account names with old posts to put in Pending Verification before they could post again. New account that wasn’t on the list, go nuts.
some sort of co-op that's under a corp probably
Yes, Platformers(arguably the OG) is somehow still active.
So let's celebrate by all going out and buying the same burger. -transmet
So all of you are responsible for raising me, really. And I hope that haunts you to the end of your days.
But seriously, this place holds many treasured memories for me.
Dunno if I'll have end up following everyone to a new site or just let the past be the past, but thanks all.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
Also Badgers
As for post history, worst case, you tell everyone hey, you've got a full year. Go scour the forum and save whatever you want to save.
With a vessel like that, both.
Create new identities. Steal the name of your (least) favourite poster.
Destroy the past.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
I’ve kind of been good at this stuff over the years.
Like - I’ve supported financial institutions and global insurance companies getting off of their old internal shit into modern rails, both in hardware infrastructure and software replatforming / migrations.
You have my axe.
@Ramius
I care too much about this social place to not assist where I can.
Can't steal my own name. Checkmate, atheists!
You can't, but you can ignore user reports for five gems each, and you get 30 free ignores when you sign up.
I'd be happy to see all of my 20+ year old posts go away.
There are Draculas on the moon
We'd have to get a separate forum fund setup for arming ourselves with things like stakes and garlic
Surely there is a priest or witch amongst us that could bless some water for our war against the moon
Like a lot of those still posting here, my account is old enough to buy a drink. In all that time, we've witnessed the meteoric rise of facebook, twitter, reddit, and for awhile it seemed a foregone conclusion that old school forums were a quaint relic doomed to fade away. But then we also saw all those big social media platforms rapidly turn to complete dogshit. So for at least the past 5+ years, it's been a serious respite to come here for discussion and banter that's generally intelligent and mostly respectful even if sometimes heated. I know there's no shortage of squabbles and we're not perfect, but seriously, compared to any other public platform? It's an oasis.
I'm sure I'm partly growing codgerish and just thinking that what I grew up with is the best anything ever was or will be. But, at least we don't have billionaire overlords directly exchanging our mental health for marginal increases in shareholder value.
I'm all in on keeping the relic afloat until I can lurk on you guys literally shitposting from your nursing homes.
I think penny arcade cult has to be the OG, possibly followed by citadel of truth.
I can't believe I remember something like that a quarter of a century later!
Shush. No it's not.