Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

General Chit Chat about Sinclair Computers and their Clones
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RWAP
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Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by RWAP »

With the recent passing of yet another ZX81 personality, it has raised the question with me as to how to ensure that these forums remain accessible and continue should anything happen to me..

I know that I run several websites and forums which does not help, but is anyone interested in acting as a backup administrator, in case I am not contactible?

What is the best way of managing this - especially as I use one lot of hosting for all of my rwap websites and forums (and a separate hosting provider for sellmyretro) ? OK, so hosting is paid for a year in advance, but someone would need to be able to access it and get the domain and hosting renewed...

:?:
RWAP
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by RWAP »

Talking of which I really ought to find someone to co-adminster the Facebook group - "Keeping the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 Alive"
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by nollkolltroll »

These are indeed very good questions. I hope we as a community come to a solution.
/Adam
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RetroTechie
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by RetroTechie »

Guessing there's 2 basic options:

1) Make sure you have some sort of co-administrator(s?), read: at least 1 person beside yourself that has both the knowledge and access credentials to do what's needed to keep things running. Or
2) Provide some sort of (read only!) public access to the 'source code' of this site, that is: site-specific programming, configuration, contents database, and anything else that one would need to set up a copy/mirror of this forum. That could be in some form of GitHub like 'repository', which some people (or anyone?) could use to keep a local up-to-date copy. Then (in the worst case) the site becomes inaccessible, such a 'local repository' could be used to reboot the forum elsewhere. Or wrap up that data in a big .zip or torrent, and kick that out on a regular basis (every month? couple months?).

One way or the other, 1) would involve 'write access' for 1 or more trusted co-maintainers. 2) Would not (necessarily), but would imply the ability for some (anybody?) to set up a mirror site. Possibly even in cases where you wouldn't want that to happen. Personally I think the ZX80/81 community (whatever that is exactly) is small & friendly enough to not worry much about that. :) But you never know.
Note that 1) and 2) are NOT mutually exclusive.

If it were for the sole purpose of serving as backup in case you would be 'disabled' for shorter or long, and 'push a few buttons' to keep things going, then for this ZX80/81 forum
RWAP wrote:but is anyone interested in acting as a backup administrator, in case I am not contactible?
I'd be interested, as long as it wouldn't eat too much time. For other websites you're running (like where you're selling ZX parts), that's your problem as far as I'm concerned :mrgreen: (no offense).
RWAP
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by RWAP »

I am more than happy to make one or two users administrators on the forums - that would tackle any immediate needs.

I have made retrotechie an admin and sirmorris is already an admin.

I shall continue to do the main administration - so this is really just in case I cannot be contacted.

Access to the source code etc is more difficult - the site mainly uses phpBB but of course, what is necessary for someone to re-create the site is the ability to access the database and file uploads as these change all the time - so how do you do that, other than providing access for someone to my hosting account?

I shall check with whether I can provide another person limited access to my hosting account - ie, the directory for these forums and the database admin..
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by RetroTechie »

RWAP wrote:I have made retrotechie an admin and sirmorris is already an admin.
Okay, thx! 8-) Having 3 people with admin access should mitigate most concerns there, I think. Just have to make sure us 3 are never in the same place @ the same time! :lol:
I shall continue to do the main administration - so this is really just in case I cannot be contacted.
Yes please! In case I'd ever feel an itch to help with maintenance, I'll fire a PM first to ask if doing XYZ would be okay.
Access to the source code etc is more difficult - the site mainly uses phpBB but of course, what is necessary for someone to re-create the site is the ability to access the database and file uploads as these change all the time - so how do you do that, other than providing access for someone to my hosting account?
Well, perhaps like I wrote:
Or wrap up that data in a big .zip or torrent, and kick that out on a regular basis (every month? couple months?).
Is there some easy way to (for example) export that database? Btw. it might be good to simply have some up-to-date & complete documentation about how the site is organized. That is: what files/directories/database(s?) are used, what programming languages (PHP I assume) / software (phpBB?) is used & what versions, where site is hosted, contact info for that hoster, things like that. Wouldn't need much pointers to at least have an idea how things are put together (personally I know little to nothing about database-backed websites / PHP programming or stuff like that).
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Re: Ensuring the longevity of the Forums

Post by 1024MAK »

I have no experience of running a web site or a forum. But if you need somewhere safe to store a back-up file, I have space on a 3T byte HDD that I use for my own back-ups.

I am also happy to help in anyway I can :)

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