Peoples Temple Discussion Forum

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

With the spate of recent problems with this forum's "host" (makeforum.org), you should all by now have happened to run into instances when you could not get to the forum b/c it was "unavailable"...........
It's happening on my end more frequently than I like......and it's not just this forum.....the entire makeforum.org goes unavailable........

In the event that something catastrophic happens, like their service crashes for several days or (gasp), they close up shop altogether, I wonder if it would be good to have a secondary "group site" for forums members to access in regroup whilst a new forum is built somewhere else...........

Any thoughts?

Joey
_________________
"It has to start somewhere.
It has to start sometime.
What better place than here, what better time than now?"

grenchat · Sophomore Member Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 191

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

jeremyredd · Sophomore Member Joined: 28 Dec 2007 Posts: 82

Is there a way to pull down the threads in perhaps some flat file we could import to another more stable forum perhaps? yes I think a back up plan is needed, this site is down at least 5 times a week for me.

grenchat · Sophomore Member Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 191

I’m ready for the en masse migration to Yahoo forums…

Cheers!
Jason

jonesy · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

I have encountered no problems yet but it would be a good idea to have some type of back up rather than lose contact.

ShellyAB · Sophomore Member Joined: 11 Jan 2008 Posts: 57

yahoo groups are pretty user-friendly, right? so let's have one person build one and send email invites to the membership of this forum. we can leave it open to the public though, right? does yahoo have that kind of group? i dunno. anyone [i]not[i] have a 75 page thesis due in 25 days? i would gladly create it after this project is over, but until then, i really shouldn't even be checking email, much less perusing other internet sites.

jeremyredd · Sophomore Member Joined: 28 Dec 2007 Posts: 82

No No NO, yahoo sucks majorly. They can and will jerk a yahoo group down without notice. I have seen this done before. The best thing I think we should do is take up a collection from some of us via pay pal and buy a us a cheap web host site on a unix box. (65.00 per year). We then could install and run our own forum as well as photo journals and chat via CPANEL and not be at the mercy of these "free" places. I am telling you, Yahoo is not the answer here.

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

TusneldaDK · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject:

Finally the forum is up and running again and my hands have stopped shaking....I am too weak and feeble to endure emotional turmoil like that Laughing

I am ready for mass migration too. And would love if some computerwizzard would make a back-up of the content as a safety precaution!

jeremyredd · Sophomore Member Joined: 28 Dec 2007 Posts: 82

being that this is a free forum Joey found, we may not have that option to export the threads, he would be the one who would have to look into that for us.

Woody · Freshman Member Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

I've had a lot of problems in the past with the so called Free forums.
One of the benefits of makeforum.org is that you don't get overwhelmed by advertisments.
But mostly, the security is overestimated and server's time offline is underestimated.

There are several stable and good payed-hosts, and I recommend you to swith to one of them.
Some servers are absolutely not expensive.
I can sum a few, but don't want to post them because I don't want people to think that I'm spamming.
Now, if you want, I am willing to participate in the costs you have to pay for the domain and hosting.
Remember, this is only for the respect of the matter of this forum.
The admin may contact me.

Otherwise, I can also advice to set up a sort of "donation" with the members by Paypal for instance.
(wich is secure and easy for most members to get a membership)

(Sorry for my poor English).

Woody

Sloyment · Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:55 am Post subject:

Also I have a Debian box at home which is connected to the Internet via DSL, running almost permanently. I could install a Mediawiki (that's a matter of a few minutes). I have never installed PHPBB yet, but if there is a good manual (which I assume there is), this should not be such a big deal either.

I think, virtual servers can be rented for just 10,-- € / month. I'm playing with this thought for a while...

Here is a test wiki installation:
http://sloyment.ath.cx/testwiki/index.php/Q042
http://sloyment.ath.cx/testwiki/index.php/Q042_%28de%29
(Warning: Domain name will be changed soon...)

Woody · Freshman Member Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

Remember to go to

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PTDiscussionGroup

and sign up.
This is our re-grouping site if this site should go down.
Please avoid posting to the Yahoo site for now, as it is a "in-case-of-glass" thing and we dont need to clutter it up yet.

Thanks!!!!

Joey
_________________
"It has to start somewhere.
It has to start sometime.
What better place than here, what better time than now?"

TusneldaDK · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject:

For some reason I simply cannot log on to Yahoo groups. It is driving me nuts. I have had 4 new pass words created within the last 15 minutes, and I am still no closer to logging on. Could you, Joey, possibly just send me an e-mail in case of a break down? I know it is not what we agreed on, but I simply can't make that yahoo-thing work...... Evil or Very Mad

Woody · Freshman Member Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 6

Sloyment · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:20 am Post subject:

I am thinking about renting a virtual server, but I'm not sure yet, wether I should do it. Difficult to explain...

Very Happy

* The server I have in mind offers 500 GB monthly traffic, so it could be used for hosting audio files.
* There could be a wiki for indexing documents, translating documents into other languages, correcting transcrips, writing Wikipedia-style articles about JT/PT issues etc. (Is anybody interested in such a wiki?)
* If you like, I could host this forum there.

Shocked

* I would also like to use the server for two other, unrelated (lower priority) projects (under a different domain name).
* I don't want to run the server idle. If there is no demand for it, i won't sign up and waste the money.

Please tell me what you are thinking.

Please also spend some thoughts on what might be an appropriate domain name. peoplestemple.org is still available, but looks very "official" and might thus be a bit misleading. (But why not?)

This is the server I have in mind: http://www.strato.de/v-power/start/index.html

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

I'll say this...................

I dont have much in this world......

I have the PT ham radio site
I have the PT Q875 site

and I have this forum..............

so I'll just come right out and say my peace about it.

#1. Yes, it is a gamble to put all your eggs in one free basket (makeforum.org)
#2. I can't afford to pay for a new domain myself.
#3. I dont want to take up a collection to pay for one b/c
a) then you have to count on other people to cough up $ on a monthly....if you've ever had roommates, you might know what a pain in the ass that can be.
b) then the site is "co-owned" and I dont want that......when people "co-own", they sometimes want their way and use the "I'm paying for it" line of reasoning to try and force the others to support his or her "thing". Ansd that "thing" might not be everyone elses cup of tea....
For instance, newly paying members might say, "Joey....I really dont like that you will delete posts b/c of something in it that you think is offensive.....people should have freedom of speech here...and since I give $5 a month for this forum, I want you to......." You see where that is going?
c) It doesnt sit well with me, period. I cant describe it......other than, if I was for your proposal, I would "know it"....Im just not feeling it, bro.
d) If several people "co-own" then several people will be allowed access to all the "bells and whistles". Some may want to make changes....or add things....or take things down. So ok, we vote on that stuff.... then we end up with "winners" (happy) and "losers"
(disgruntled people who think no one understands them or respects their opinions)....what a mess.

That being said, I can't stop you from doing your own thing. Anyone can leave here and start up their own PT thing elsewhere....
I would broken hearted and sad to see you go, but it's a free country....and you have to do what you think is right.

So....put me down for one, "No".....I'm gonna stick here.....for the time being. Who knows what I will want to do in a year.Perhaps this thing gets huge.....and we have hundreds of members.......I might be more inclined then, but that's no promise.

That's Joey's two cents......
_________________
"It has to start somewhere.
It has to start sometime.
What better place than here, what better time than now?"

jeremyredd · Sophomore Member Joined: 28 Dec 2007 Posts: 82

new members is about to take a huge hit considering we lost our you tube traffic.

Mike · Sophomore Member Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 136

How much is it to host a forum anyways? $100 a year or so?

jeremyredd · Sophomore Member Joined: 28 Dec 2007 Posts: 82

The easiest and best thing we could do is the following. Have Joey set up a Pay Pal donations area where us forum regulars can donate money to a new host and new forum. All we need is about 70.00 a year to donate to joey. Everything would remain in Joey's name and he could make the domain name/host purchase at that time. We would not be involved any with the site except participating on the forums as we do now. I would however like to see him build a little site with a gallery and a downloads area.

Joey I can help get you in the right direction for getting a host once the donations are in. And do not worry, i do not think any of us want to run a web site with you, we just want a stable place that is not going to be down and will not get our audio jerked out from under us. There I said it......

Mike · Sophomore Member Joined: 09 Apr 2008 Posts: 136

Just after typing in "Webhosting" on Google, I saw this:
http://www.canaca.com/virtual.html

Their gold plan comes to just over $204 a month, not counting taxes, buuuuuut, you get 11,000GB a month of bandwidth. Considering you're planning to host audio and perhaps even video content for the masses, you need to consider bandwidth usage.

It has all the additional requirements (the SQL database for running a forum) as well.

But hey, I'm sure there's cheaper out there. Confused

joeyjosef · Site Admin Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 574 Location: Oregon

TusneldaDK · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:50 pm Post subject:

I think we have to respect Joey's position on this one - and I understand where he's coming from.
Having said that - is there anyone of you tech-wizzards who would mind looking into how we could save a copy of the content of "our" (i.e. Joey's) forum in case the worst should happen?

And Joey....please don't say that you may have lost interest in this in a year or so......give me a shout if you get to a point where you need some help with the practical stuff. I will gladly volunteer as your "secretary" if this can help keeping the forum up - meaning that you will get the job done while still maintaining control.