Welcome back!

[MacSE/30]

I am very sad for the loss of back ups but it is very good that you are back!

 

[zydeco]

It's nice to be back. Poor backups

 

[CaryMG]

Nice ta be back back, Tom !

And now we have avatars !!

WOOT! WOOT! lol

:b&w:

 

[iMac600]

I wrote this when the forums were down. Actually, it was placed online just before the forums came back, but i've decided to share it with you all regardless.

The 6 Stages of Downtime by iMac600

Panic. You realise whatever it is you enjoyed so well has become out of your reach. Inaccessible. You panic, joining fellow users at any place you can to explain your withdrawal symptoms and group together.

Rumors. You all talk, discussing what could have happened. A lot of unusual points are thrown around in the process, including the one person who always suggests supernatural or paranormal activity caused the issue.

Contact. You frantically try to contact anyone in higher power. The admins, a mod, a hosting company, the President. Anyone. Usually expecting an answer at best. And often you get it, and it ends here. But in some cases, the admin doesn't know either, and so it continues.

Ideas. Everyone gathers around to get ideas for the revival of the downed site. Payments and donations, offering server space, making a temporary community where everyone can go. None of it ever happens though, which is probably why this stage is completely useless. But amusing none-the-less. It has a similar feel to stage 2.

Nostalgia. At this point it's been down for a while, and you start to remember all of the good times we had. Posts, events, trades... all the information and more. Everyone gets around to have fun by pretending the community is still online, remembering threads crystal clear (and in some cases posting on to them in the IRC channel). Similar threads are thrown around, from the same and other communities.

Acceptance. This usually takes a long time to get to. It's not easy to just move on, especially if you're the kind with the forum logo burned in to your mind. Sometimes this stage is often halted abruptly though, so it doesn't even really count. Hence the "6" stages. It stops usually before it begins, so it's either this stage...

Or...

Restoration. The community springs back in to life again, fully restored in one way or another. All the previous stages seem to somehow erase from your mind as you dash back to claim the title of "First Post on the New Forum".

8)

 

[JDW]

...it is extremely bad news about the last 3 1/2 years worth of members, posts and threads being lost. In less than just a year, myself, JDW, and others made huge strides in figuring out kinks with and discussing problems and possible solutions with very valuable and rare compact mac upgrades. I'm sure other information just as important was lost as well. It really makes me want to cry.

I makes me want to do more than just cry. There was a tremendous amount of very detailed and useful information posted that we all should do everything within our means to restore. I think it is still possible to resort it.

One idea I had was to tap into Google's cache of forum pages. I see that one poster earlier in this thread mentions the same. But rather than just relying on Google for accessing that information (which, by the way, won't be cached forever you know), it would be best to restore it here.

If a few of us, active in the threads, were to copy the content of our posts and re-post it into a new thread, we could restore a lot of information that would be helpful to classic Mac users. Another side benefit of this approach would be that we could then filter out all the silly "thank you" and meaningless posts, keeping the topic 100% on-topic and useful. With only pertinent posts added back, it would also make wading through the information much easier for newcomers.

For example, I searched Google for my "JDW" name and some keywords I could remember about my SE/30 power supply posts. The search allowed me to bring up this cached page.

Thoughts?

 

[~tl]

There's already a thread about the possibility of restoring the posts from Google's web cache.

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=97

I've been looking at the pages sunder saved, and it should be possible to get a script whipped up to parse the files and save the data into a MySQL database in a format that can then be imported into phpBB. It's going to take quite a bit of work to get everything set up for that, so don't expect anything immediately, but I should be able to get something working soon.

The other option is to set up some sort of "information base" where we can archive all the useful things that come up on the forums. For reference, forums aren't really the best way of presenting the information. A wiki would probably work quite nicely, and there have been discussions about setting one up in the past. I'll take another look into that.

 

[Temetka]

I am so glad the forums are back. I joined up with the PPC-MLA in hopes of getting getting back in contact with some former members from here.

Sure it sucks about the data loss and all. Some will be recovered, some will not. In the end though, the forum has survived and will be just as strong, if not stronger than it was before.

In a geeky way I am glad the forums are back up. I have loved the mac and more importantly it's OS for years now. The 68kMLA was one of my daily visited (often for hours on end) forums. Heck I would visit more than once a day.

Congrats Tom on getting things back up to where they are. Don't sweat the details are I am sure everyone here will be more than happy to lend a hand.

On that note, I would love my captains bars back.