Downtime Monday 20.7

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 17 Jul 2015, 11:40

On Monday, we are attempting to migrate to a new server, so we can give our site a much-needed update. On that date, the Round Table forums will be set to read-only. Inactive users will be pruned and we will try to upgrade the forum to phpBB3.

We don't know how long the downtime will be. Minutes, hours, days ... we don't know. Wish us luck.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1437133240

Panda Tar · Unread postby **Panda Tar** » 17 Jul 2015, 13:32

Oh, good work and good luck then.

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 17 Jul 2015, 14:53

The rest of the site will be set to read-only as well. And a reminder to Dalai not to put anything on Mantis past that date until it's upgraded too.

soupnazii · Unread postby **soupnazii** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:06

Does that mean my account will be deleted? Even though I haven't posted anything in like... 4 or 5 years...

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:14

If a user has not posted anything in 4-5 years, yes, the account may be deleted.

Fnord · Unread postby **Fnord** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:17

But what if we don't like the taste of prunes?

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:22

Then you can have plums, don't be so difficult.

Panda Tar · Unread postby **Panda Tar** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:22

What about people who only check info and rarely post, however they can be regularly active?

Kalah · Unread postby **Kalah** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:29

That doesn't matter. With the new site, you will be able to read pages and the forum without being logged in, but you have to have a user and be logged in if you want to post something.

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:55

We haven't decided yet, but I believe it's safe to prune accounts that:
* Have 0 posts and have not logged in for a year
* Have < 10 posts and have not logged in for 5 years

Just to give some statistics: there are about 10,000 users with 0 posts on the boards right now. Additionally there are about 4000 more users with less than 10 posts. And chances that you, the reader, would be affected by this are almost none. Even if you were, you could reregister again (the loss of being attributed 9 or less posts probably isn't that huge, eh).

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 17 Jul 2015, 22:01

Clarification clarification: by "not logged in" I mean not logged into the forums, not the website. The two share account details but are otherwise separate systems.

About the website accounts, they won't be transferred at first, but will probably be connected to the forum accounts once again as soon as that can be arranged. But as Kalah mentioned, since the Game Selector is going away and the polls may be votable without needing to log in, there's no more need to log on when browsing the site unless you want to comment on articles, or you're a content creator.

Also, just to give a bit of perspective (and hype, woo

): the migration work that will be done starting on Monday will be quite literally a 10 year leap in technology. That's from Windows XP times to Windows 10 times, or the time it took for the New Horizons probe to fly from Earth to Pluto

The first part of the migration will be the backend tech parts, which is (hopefully) going to be not user-visible. But as soon as that's complete, thanks to the tech upgrade that makes it possible, both the forums and the website will be upgraded to current standards (think HTML5, good support for browsing on phones, much more powerful modular framework for content, such huge delays for upgrading never happening again etc.). And then once the migration bugs are ironed out (if any), we can get to the even more fun part: making something new. Among the ideas I have are the wiki revival, a much more streamlined map submission process and a HoMM/MM series artwork gallery.

I'd be interested in hearing more suggestions like that from the community too, but that's a question best left for discussing on the new forums

Panda Tar · Unread postby **Panda Tar** » 17 Jul 2015, 22:06

Great news, actually. Hopefully the next upgrade won't be just when Man sets foot on Titan, eh?

Hope everything goes ok.

mr.hackcrag · Unread postby **mr.hackcrag** » 18 Jul 2015, 02:19

Time for us old geezers to get with the times.

Steven Aus · Unread postby **Steven Aus** » 18 Jul 2015, 13:50

All the best! Good that I started posting recently, too.

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 21 Jul 2015, 23:08

And the forums are now upgraded! All other features are still in progress, and don't mind the vanilla looks just yet.

Galaad · Unread postby **Galaad** » 22 Jul 2015, 02:43

Omg, I am sorry, this new interface is horrible ...

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 22 Jul 2015, 05:44

Galaad wrote:Omg, I am sorry, this new interface is horrible ...

What part of "don't mind the vanilla looks" do you not get?

This is the stock phpBB3 theme, it will be changed later. It's just not a priority right now.

Bandobras Took · Unread postby **Bandobras Took** » 22 Jul 2015, 06:27

I'm posting only because I'm paranoid. :)

GreatEmerald · Unread postby **GreatEmerald** » 22 Jul 2015, 06:47

Bandobras Took wrote:I'm posting only because I'm paranoid.

You have more than 10 posts, so you're fine. ThunderTitan and DaemianLucifer, on the other hand...

Galaad · Unread postby **Galaad** » 22 Jul 2015, 09:25

Aaaww my mistake, well that's a relief :D

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