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meow

meow

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That is, this current forum.

Please, rather than (trying to) import the database, just archive this forum and let it be as it is. And let it keep the current URL. The new forum can be in a subdomain, like forums.dpreview.com or whatever you like.

1. It will be more readable this way. Importing would mess things up.

2. You can start the new forum fresh, without glancing at the old categories.

3. Links from search engines and other sites will still be valid. If you incorporate it in the new forum every link to it will be broken.
 
Last edited:
meow said:
That is, this current forum.

Please, rather than (trying to) import the database, just archive this forum and let it be as it is. And let it keep the current URL. The new forum can be in a subdomain, like forums.dpreview.com or whatever you like.

1. It will be more readable this way. Importing would mess things up.

2. You can start the new forum fresh, without glancing at the old categories.

3. Links from search engines and other sites will still be valid. If you incorporate it in the new forum every link to it will be broken.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if they've thought out how ad revenues work, old versus new

flat view appears to me to have 1 url hit for the entire page

whereas threaded view appears to me to hit on a different url hit each time

anyway, it is above my paygrade how they intend to get paid

they had a stable site for 25 years they are about to... who knows what will happen
 
From a technology perspective that’s not really going to help reduce the support and maintenance to keep even an archived version available. Underpinning a system like this will be a database (and associated servers) which will need ongoing maintenance and support, even in a read only state.

That’s a significant part of the reasoning behind the shift to a new forum, to stop supporting and maintaining the current system. Additionally, the platform behind those dependencies could also be aging and becoming a security risk.

One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
 
nightowlnz said:
From a technology perspective that’s not really going to help reduce the support and maintenance to keep even an archived version available. Underpinning a system like this will be a database (and associated servers) which will need ongoing maintenance and support, even in a read only state.

That’s a significant part of the reasoning behind the shift to a new forum, to stop supporting and maintaining the current system. Additionally, the platform behind those dependencies could also be aging and becoming a security risk.

One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
Click to expand...
You could use something like wget to pull a static copy - but you’d have pick - threaded or flat :-)
 
Last edited:
Overrank said:
nightowlnz said:
From a technology perspective that’s not really going to help reduce the support and maintenance to keep even an archived version available. Underpinning a system like this will be a database (and associated servers) which will need ongoing maintenance and support, even in a read only state.

That’s a significant part of the reasoning behind the shift to a new forum, to stop supporting and maintaining the current system. Additionally, the platform behind those dependencies could also be aging and becoming a security risk.

One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
Click to expand...
You could use something like wget to pull a static copy - but you’d have pick - threaded or flat :-)
Click to expand...
True - but if you were working for DPR you'd presumably be able to access the database and it'd be more efficient to script an export from that. Especially with the way the forums lag at times.

Either way, it seems to be a moot point - from what I understand, they're migrating the old threads and posts to the new forum, and I think it's already underway.
 
nightowlnz said:
One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
Click to expand...
They could contract that out to the Internet Archive - it's something they already do anyway.
 
Mark Ransom said:
nightowlnz said:
One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
Click to expand...
They could contract that out to the Internet Archive - it's something they already do anyway.
Click to expand...
( See https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68456066 )

If you look a recent snapshot at one of the Forums on the Archive.org it says:

“The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL.

This page is unavailable for archiving. The server returned code:

because access is forbidden”

So I presume either DPR are currently blocking Archive.org from archiving it, or it’s too detailed for Archive.org to be concerned with.

They have other things than the (free) WayBack Machine like Archive-It but I think there are costs associated with that.
 
Overrank said:
Mark Ransom said:
nightowlnz said:
One way around this would be to export everything into static pages, but that’d be quite the undertaking - if they’re already working on data migration, probably not something they want to take on.
Click to expand...
They could contract that out to the Internet Archive - it's something they already do anyway.
Click to expand...
( See https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68456066 )

If you look a recent snapshot at one of the Forums on the Archive.org it says:

“The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL.

This page is unavailable for archiving. The server returned code:

because access is forbidden”

So I presume either DPR are currently blocking Archive.org from archiving it, or it’s too detailed for Archive.org to be concerned with.

They have other things than the (free) WayBack Machine like Archive-It but I think there are costs associated with that.
Click to expand...
I never said it would be free.

The point is that they already have the infrastructure and experience to pull off such a task, easily. If it were a cooperative effort then I'm sure they could get around the "access is forbidden" problem.
 
The forums will be making a complete migration to the XF platform, so you'll have everything archived on the new system, essentially.
 
meow said:
3. Links from search engines and other sites will still be valid. If you incorporate it in the new forum every link to it will be broken.
Click to expand...
FYI, although XenForo has a slightly different URL structure, there will be redirects in place to ensure no broken links - the old URL will still work and redirect to the new location of each post.
 
Richard_L said:
meow said:
3. Links from search engines and other sites will still be valid. If you incorporate it in the new forum every link to it will be broken.
Click to expand...
FYI, although XenForo has a slightly different URL structure, there will be redirects in place to ensure no broken links - the old URL will still work and redirect to the new location of each post.
Click to expand...
This is very important as I have hundreds of browser bookmarks pointing at this site.
 
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