In the course of looking into the most recent problem with the forum, Dave mentioned that he's probably going to migrate the site to a new platform sometime Relatively Soon™. When that happens, he's willing to try to adapt DCForum to keep working in the new environment, but it's so old and crufty at this point that it's probably not going to work.

The upshot of this is that when we do the jump, we'll most likely have to set up a new forum at the same time. Unfortunately, another consequence of DCF being so old and long-abandoned is that none of the modern candidates can import its user base or post archives (and the EPU DCF's database is in rags anyway, which would make it a dicey proposition even if the tools did exist). The most likely scenario is that we'll have to start all over again--new accounts, zero posts, a complete blank slate. We've looked at a few candidates and found one or two that look promising, but the investigation is still in a very early stage.

As to what will happen to the old forum, that depends on what we find when the time comes. It may be possible to shut it off and leave it in place, so that posting is barred but it can still be read, but more likely we'll dump it through some kind of static site generator so that nothing of the DCF backend has to remain operational. Either way, the old discussions and whatnot will still exist in some form if it's in any way possible. Part of the reason why we've hung onto this old software this long is because I can't bear the idea of losing all the history that's piled up here in the last 21 years.

I'm also going to look at extracting the content (i.e., the Mini-Stories, Featured Documents, and whatnot--creative works that were only released directly to the boards) and putting it somewhere on the main site. I know ways of doing this, as we've seen with things like the Mini-Story Omnibus files and the static remake of Warrior Dawn: The Contract, but it's a labor-intensive process and will take... a while.

To be clear, this isn't something that's happening imminently--I got the impression from our discussion that Dave has started working on the new system, but he hasn't set a date for the cutover--but the realities of security and whatnot dictate that it's going to have to happen sooner or later. I'll try to keep you abreast of developments.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I imagine it would be horribly painful to lose stuff like posts from CMeadows, and other members of The Crew who are for various reasons No Longer Around one way or another.

Whichever way you end up going, might there be room for the inclusion of a fan discord? I don't imagine you lot still use IRC.

Well, at least I'll finally be able to fix my username...

I'm pretty much OK with anything... I've seen a lot of boards come & go over the years.

I have a fair bit of experience with extracting data from the rags of a damaged database, and with static site generators. Let me know if I can help in any way. I don't have a whole lot of spare time, but I'd also hate to see all those years of history get lost.

Wot zwol said.

I've had a lot of experience migrating data from ancient and creaky applications to new shiny hotness. My day job is primarily as a database and ETL specialist and I'm working in the finance industry these days, which has a lot of big iron software engineered in the 70's and endlessly grafted onto since. As you might surmise, there's rarely any sort of comprehensive documentation.

--sofaspud
--to (mis)quote Balthazar: "JCL? I was born of this!"

>--to (mis)quote Balthazar: "JCL? I was born of this!"

"this is UNIX! i KNOW this!!" :D

-Z

---
Remember kids: guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.

On the one hand, the utterly convoluted system is part of the Eyrie "feel"....on the OTHER hand, broken stuff makes no-one happy, so yeah...

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

I know I'm months behind on this, but I've had experience moving my own forums some years back from the former Yuku on their site to MyBB on my own site. (Someone else scraped the old site into a SQLite DB for me, but I wrote scripts to port it all up into MySQL by way of MS SQL.) If my experience can prove helpful, you're welcome to any aid I can give.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

> You'd think after all these years I'd learn that surfing the forum on my phone is a bad idea, thanks to the absence of confirmation dialogues on things like the "delete thread" button and the likelihood of poking it accidentally, but noooo.

Ok, important requirement - the new Forum software must have a non-awful admin interface on a phone.