914world is showing its age Options

[SirAndy]

914world is showing its age (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

The recent outage was not due to some cyber attack or malicious plotting from the darkest depths of the interwebs.

It was simply due to the forum software being overwhelmed by the amount of data stored here combined with the amount of traffic we're receiving.

Fact is, the software we're running on is more than 20 years old, written at a time when the internet was a much different place.
It was never meant to run for this long or handle the amount of data we have accumulated.


So what are our options?

- Keep going until everything crashes and burns into a pile.

- Start over fresh with a new server with new forum software. We'd be losing everything we have.

- Try to fix some of the issues by re-writing parts of the software, reworking the database and changing the way uploaded images are stored. Maybe even update the server itself while we're in there.


While the last choice seems the obvious one, the problem is that i do have a day-job that needs my attention and my time is limited.
It would also mean i'd probably have to shut down the site for a longer period of time, maybe a week or two, and maybe more than once.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[BillJ]

Would be happy to donate funds to the cause

[fiacra]

Would be happy to donate funds to the cause

Like others, I'm willing to put my money where my mouse is.

It is invaluable to be able to search past threads and learn from them, and I think that is what attracts new people to this site and motivates a fair number of people to visit and participate. It would be tragic if all that went down the drain. I still rely on the advice and techniques of long gone members, a few of whom were mentioned earlier. I just read that we lost another long time member today. We we also lose everything that he contributed? That would be a double tragedy. I'm hopeful that the solution, in whatever form it is, preserves the history of this site. I don't have the fund of knowledge or the skills to take on this task, and it is easy to make work for other people, but my vote would be to prioritize any solution that preserves what work has been done thus far. If we lose that I think we also lose this forum.