Years of messages and threads gone. GTAM history wiped out. Who cares?

Vlad said:
No contract is necessary. If you assume a role, you take the adequate responsibility. It is not my information. It belongs to all members, but only one can keep it safe.
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I thought your point was that a role was assumed with a responsibility to keep information safe. As I posted earlier, that was clearly relayed not to be the case.

I hope you recover what you have lost.
 
mlc said:
I thought your point was that a role was assumed with a responsibility to keep information safe.
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With roles come responsibilities and there is no copulation without penetration. The more powerful/exclusive the role, the bigger the responsibility. It has nothing to do with "small print" and everything to do with trust. I trusted someone to be responsible but they have proven not only irresponsible but also arrogant and rude. That's why I'll place my trust somewhere else from now on.

mlc said:
I hope you recover what you have lost.
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How many times do I have to say that it's not about what I lost? It seems like I'm the only one who ever placed any worth in GTAM. So be it.
 
Noise (I mean this as in signal theory) will bounce back very fast, it actually never missed a beat. Flash in the pan post whores don't care because they do not add any value and therefore have nothing to loose.

Serious contributors will move elsewhere because the board had lost it's value to them. There is no point in (re)building something that's evidently mismanaged and unstable.

If I didn't care I wouldn't bother to raise my voice.
 
Kudos for speaking up, Vlad...I also hope the history is brought back online soon. (Loads upon loads of useless drivel, but also a lot of quality motorcycle-related content.)
 
if paul brought back all the MC related threads, would you be happy ?

of course, this would exclude your Anti-religion pride and joy thread.
 
Vlad said:
Let me draw a picture for you:

- A neighbor decides to build a house or designate a part of his house as a library for everyone to use. He built it and they came.

- He supplies the space and basic maintenance for free, but he's hoping everyone else will contribute books and other materials that make a library what it is. He also hopes some of the book donors will agree to volunteer as librarians. He asks patrons and contributors alike to pitch in a few bucks if/when they can (for that they get a Library Supporter bumper sticker).

- So far so good. Many people contribute their books and their time, the library and it's patronage is growing daily. People from other parts of the city come to borrow/read books they can't find elsewhere because they are unique. There is an occasional vandal and some people cannot be taught to be quiet in the library but they are dealt with swiftly thanks to solidarity of regular patrons/contributors.

- Eventually the the house became so full of books and shelves that patrons couldn't navigate through it any more or reach what they wanted to read. The house owner takes out a bunch of "old books" to the back yard in the middle of the night and burns them. He didn't warn or consult anyone, he didn't tell his contributors/patrons/donors which books he is burning or why, he doesn't say if there are copies somewhere. After a few days, when patrons start complaining they can't find their favorite books or the ones they donated personally the owner says "Sorry, I burned them to make space.". He also tells those that complain that they should have kept the books at their own house if they wanted them safe.

- It's his house and he can do with it's contents whatever he pleases. He is not paid to keep those books, actually he invests his time and money in order to run the library. The books were given to the library with no strings attached - there is no contract obliging the library owner to keep them. And yes, many are only copies or unique specimens, but no price or value was ever associated with them.

Nothing wrong with that picture, right? Don't tell me it's a bad analogy.

I won't waste any more of my time. The only messages I may reply to will be those that contain answers to one of the following questions:

- When was the data deleted? (day is enough)
- What data was deleted? (everything older than n, just threads in forum X older than n, just these n threads, etc.)
- Is there a backup and how current is it?
- Can the backup be restored and how/when that will be done?
- What can I can do to help?

I'd also like to hear that we will be kept in the loop and given prior notice whenever possible in the future, or informed in detail as soon as possible after an unforeseen incident happens. Is that too much to ask?
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Look at the underlined part, your entire analogy revolves around YOU thinking you have any weight in someone else property. You don't. It's a bad analogy and flawed from the start.

Vlad said:
I can't counter irrational arguments but with logic. Find one point in my analogy that is not relevant and shouldn't apply to GTAM and we can talk. None applies? Only an irrational person can claim something like that or worse, try to enforce it as a modus operandi. This is not a religious forum where abandoning all reason and logic is a basic requirement.
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It' funny that for someone so well articulated that you show such a lack of vision. Your entire analogy of this place is flawed to the core.

It's a private site Vlad, are you so dense you cant understand that? It's not yours, not mine, not anyone's but Paul's. If he decides to flick the switch and empty the database daily cause he feels like it he can. it's HIS. Just like facebook owns everything that's on it, even if it's personal information about people. You sign up you agree.

It's simple Vlad, use the site for what it's for or just go. If you dont like something that's perfectly fine and it's great that you voiced your opinion but it's his place bud. If you think it's become a total joke then use your energy to start something better.
 
Vlad said:
Let me draw a picture for you:

- A neighbor decides to build a house or designate a part of his house as a library for everyone to use. He built it and they came.
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And if he has to throw out a bunch of the books because the house is sinking into the ground, we'd understand.
 
Jenerator said:
Kudos for speaking up, Vlad...I also hope the history is brought back online soon. (Loads upon loads of useless drivel, but also a lot of quality motorcycle-related content.)
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Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Useless drivel is an unavoidable part of a board like this, just like useless people are unavoidable part of a community. The creme will come to the top either naturally or via prudent moderation while communication noise forms a muddy sediment no one dives to. Trying to pick and choose which parts to delete requires a much bigger effort than making sure the board can take the load (in the technical sense). After all, it's obvious that the massive delete did not solve purely technical database stability and board usability problems.

On a side note, the massive and indiscriminate history wipe-out turned the post counts into an interesting indicator. 2002/100 on one side and 2011/800 on the other. Combine it with the message quality/content and it's very easy to see who cares more and who lost more.
 
Back on topic for a second, I think I might have something constructive to say.

VBulletin has an archive function. Perhaps that would have been a better choice than an age based purge. AFAIK, the archive function creates static web pages of entire threads and then those tables can be deleted from the database. Those threads would effectively be closed, but if they're archived because of inactivity that shouldn't matter much. The core of the problem, data loss, would be taken care of. I've never administered VBulletin (just simple phpBB's) but maybe somebody with more experience could investigate. If Paul can restore all the valuable lost threads then maybe an archive at that point, to free up the DB, would be helpful.
 
Ok...now that Vlad has resorted to name calling - he's been banned. Sorry folks...I really don't need him badgering me calling me names in other threads as well as this one.

Anyway....back to an update. And thanks doozerdave....I'm going to implement your suggestion. The posts that were removed had no responses to them in over a year. Little did I know that putting them back into the database would be so difficult - (I figured - take info out of a table - put info back into a table, apparently that's not the case.)

I could do a full back up from June 5, but then we'll have lost everything from June 5 to now.

Because the deleted posts are inactive - I don't think that's a solution. I also agree with others that information gets updated as it gets repeated.

So the best solution is to create another database as an archive. I'll restore all the old posts to that database so they are accessible and searchable....but you won't be able to respond to them.

This might take some time as I install - test - back up - install - test etc etc....

Plus...it's a long weekend... :)

Happy Canada Day folks!! Have a great weekend!
 
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Vlad said:
Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Useless drivel is an unavoidable part of a board like this, just like useless people are unavoidable part of a community. The creme will come to the top either naturally or via prudent moderation while communication noise forms a muddy sediment no one dives to.
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For someone so articulate, that statement has to rank up there with some of the most arrogant things I've ever had to read on a message board - what's next Vlad, purging members from a community you don't feel are the "creme"? Perhaps we can round up all the "useless" people of the community and segregate them? Oh wait, should I ask your permission first before posting? Maybe we can have all posts made go into a holding pen for yourself and the rest of the "creme" to approve and then release unto the fine denizens of this here board?

You might want to give your head a shake, sir, because your thoughts as presented in that last post of yours smack of, at best, elitism and at worst, something akin to a pogrom...
 
doozerdave said:
Back on topic for a second, I think I might have something constructive to say.

VBulletin has an archive function. Perhaps that would have been a better choice than an age based purge. AFAIK, the archive function creates static web pages of entire threads and then those tables can be deleted from the database. Those threads would effectively be closed, but if they're archived because of inactivity that shouldn't matter much. The core of the problem, data loss, would be taken care of. I've never administered VBulletin (just simple phpBB's) but maybe somebody with more experience could investigate. If Paul can restore all the valuable lost threads then maybe an archive at that point, to free up the DB, would be helpful.
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And THIS ^^^ is the correct answer

Paul said:
Ok...now that Vlad has resorted to name calling - he's been banned. Sorry folks...I really don't need him badgering me in other threads as well as this one.

Anyway....back to an update. And thanks doozerdave....I'm going to implement your suggestion. The posts that were removed had no responses to them in over a year. Little did I know that putting them back into the database would be so difficult - (I figured - take info out of a table - put info back into a table, apparently that's not the case.)

I could do a full back up from June 5, but then we'll have lost everything from June 5 to now.

Because the deleted posts are inactive - I don't think that's a solution. I also agree with others that information gets updated as it gets repeated.

So the best solution is to create another database as an archive. I'll restore all the old posts to that database so they are accessible and searchable....but you won't be able to respond to them.

This might take some time as I install - test - back up - install - test etc etc....

Plus...it's a long weekend... :)

Happy Canada Day folks!! Have a great weekend!
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Merry Chrismas!
 
Paul said:
Ok...now that Vlad has resorted to name calling - he's been banned. Sorry folks...I really don't need him badgering me in other threads as well as this one.
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I don't normally agree with bannings given that those type of individuals make for amusing discourse (off topic, of course), but the sense of entitlement that was associated to his postings went from moderately amusing to downright laughable.

Man needs another hobby, imho.
 
Paul said:
Ok...now that Vlad has resorted to name calling - he's been banned. Sorry folks...I really don't need him badgering me calling me names in other threads as well as this one.

Anyway....back to an update. And thanks doozerdave....I'm going to implement your suggestion. The posts that were removed had no responses to them in over a year. Little did I know that putting them back into the database would be so difficult - (I figured - take info out of a table - put info back into a table, apparently that's not the case.)

I could do a full back up from June 5, but then we'll have lost everything from June 5 to now.

Because the deleted posts are inactive - I don't think that's a solution. I also agree with others that information gets updated as it gets repeated.

So the best solution is to create another database as an archive. I'll restore all the old posts to that database so they are accessible and searchable....but you won't be able to respond to them.

This might take some time as I install - test - back up - install - test etc etc....

Plus...it's a long weekend... :)

Happy Canada Day folks!! Have a great weekend!
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Thanks Paul.......cheers:occasion5:
 
Thanks Paul

While we wait for that, I seem to be able to see some of the old threads using Google's cache.. kinda helpful if you have a specific question in mind
 
Paul said:
Ok...now that Vlad has resorted to name calling - he's been banned. Sorry folks...I really don't need him badgering me calling me names in other threads as well as this one.

Anyway....back to an update. And thanks doozerdave....I'm going to implement your suggestion. The posts that were removed had no responses to them in over a year. Little did I know that putting them back into the database would be so difficult - (I figured - take info out of a table - put info back into a table, apparently that's not the case.)

I could do a full back up from June 5, but then we'll have lost everything from June 5 to now.

Because the deleted posts are inactive - I don't think that's a solution. I also agree with others that information gets updated as it gets repeated.

So the best solution is to create another database as an archive. I'll restore all the old posts to that database so they are accessible and searchable....but you won't be able to respond to them.

This might take some time as I install - test - back up - install - test etc etc....

Plus...it's a long weekend... :)

Happy Canada Day folks!! Have a great weekend!
Click to expand...

Woo-hoo! Thanks for the update Paul!
 
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