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URGENT: Impending Board Move
Scheduled Server Upgrade
Our server will undergo a scheduled upgrade this Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 20:00 (8 PM) EDT. Maximum downtime is ~4 hours, but it should be closer to 30 minutes. Not a big deal, right? Unfortunately, part of this upgrade is updating the PHP version of the server from PHP 5.2 to PHP 5.3. The Problem
Our board cannot function properly (or, rather, at all) on PHP 5.3, and there will be no way to use PHP 5.2 on our host after the server upgrade. The software we're currently using for the board, IPB 1.3.1 Final, is very old, and our retirement from it has really been a long time coming... This server upgrade is just forcing us to get it done with on very short notice. What's Going to Happen
We are working on setting up a new board using different forum software and hope to have it up before the server upgrade happens Thursday. If we succeed, this is how the process of moving over will go:
Please note that this will be a permanent change. We are saying goodbye to IPB after five lovely years and shifting to a more modern platform. Aside from core information topics, we will not be transferring any of the current forum topics. The new board will be from scratch. We want to reassure everyone that we are NOT expecting any data loss as a result of this upgrade and move. This forum will be closed and preserved as an archive. You will be allowed to mirror and continue current threads on the new board, though old/finished threads should not be reposted. The server upgrade will also not affect any game resources not on the forum itself, so the RP Guide, the Wiki, and pack websites, and the yearbooks, will be unaffected. The new board will, of course, be different from the board you've been familiar with for the last five years. We most likely won't be transferring any of our old skins. We might lose some superfluous features, like CSS customizable profiles, but we'll be doing our best to retain as many fancy things as possible. A full list of technical changes will be available once we make more progress on/are ready with the new board. Since there will be a period of time when members will not be able to access the board in the coming week, we want to remind everyone of our offsite venues of update: Twitter will have the fastest, most up-to-date info in short snippets. Livejournal and Facebook will have bigger, more summarized updates in longer passages. Please don't panic! We'll keep you updated at every turn. What To Do in the Meantime?
For now, you are fine to roleplay as usual! Leaders are encouraged to go ahead and take care of any upcoming rank checks as it may take some time to restore post counts and other data after the move. Members may decide that it's a good time to wrap up threads to minimize the number of things they'll need to mirror onto the new board, but that's entirely up to you guys. You may also want to save local copies of profile information or whatever else you think you'll want immediate access to after the board move. Again, we're not expecting to lose any data, but it may take some time to restore the final archival copy of this old board. We're really, really sorry about the abruptness of this. |
We hope you'll be patient with us this coming week, and in the weeks after, as we work through the move and all it entails. If you have any questions or concerns, please do reply.| Messages In This Thread |