Hi people, Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server. (thanks Noodles!) A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding! You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know. Thanks Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
Hi people,
Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server.
(thanks Noodles!)
A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding!
You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know.
Thanks Adam
To clear up my understanding, are you saying that the content on the old wiki is gone for good? Or is this a case of needing some filler until the hoster's support team eventually responds to either sort the problem out or provide a backup copy of the data? Peter.
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 05:10:40PM +0000, samwise wrote:
To clear up my understanding, are you saying that the content on the old wiki is gone for good? Or is this a case of needing some filler until the hoster's support team eventually responds to either sort the problem out or provide a backup copy of the data?
As far as I am aware attempts at contacting the provider has resulted in no communication back from them. If they don't come back to us then the only option is to rebuild. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On 20 February 2010 17:31, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
As far as I am aware attempts at contacting the provider has resulted in no communication back from them. If they don't come back to us then the only option is to rebuild.
Firstly thanks to Noodles! Secondly, what happened to the old wiki, it can't of just vanished? Hackers, server failure, corrupt database, wiped by the hosts, has the hosting company shut down? Who was the hosting company? -- Regards, James ;) Pablo Picasso - "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pablo_picasso.html
On 20-Feb-10 18:45:22, James Bensley wrote:
On 20 February 2010 17:31, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
As far as I am aware attempts at contacting the provider has resulted in no communication back from them. If they don't come back to us then the only option is to rebuild.
Firstly thanks to Noodles! Secondly, what happened to the old wiki, it can't of just vanished? Hackers, server failure, corrupt database, wiped by the hosts, has the hosting company shut down? Who was the hosting company?
-- Regards, James ;)
The DNS change doesn't seem to have properly percolated through yet. http://www.alug.org.uk still reults in the "suspended" page. dig -a www.alug.org.uk returns the IP address 193.111.226.225 This also results in the same "suspended" page. And leads to an answer to the above query: whois 193.111.226.225 netname: PFLUK descr: PFL Worldwide UK descr: UK Internet Consultancy Services descr: ESSEX On the other hand, nslookup www.alug.org.uk gives Non-authoritative answer: Name: www.alug.org.uk Address: 217.147.81.2 and http://217.147.81.2 gives a primitive page (hosted by earth.li) for which a whois leads to person: Jonathan McDowell e-mail: noodles-ripe@earth.li so we know we've found it this time! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Feb-10 Time: 19:13:30 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 07:13:33PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote:
The DNS change doesn't seem to have properly percolated through yet. http://www.alug.org.uk still reults in the "suspended" page.
The DNS should take up to 24 hours to be fully propogated everywhere as the change was made at short notice. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 06:45:22PM +0000, James Bensley wrote:
Secondly, what happened to the old wiki, it can't of just vanished? Hackers, server failure, corrupt database, wiped by the hosts, has the hosting company shut down? Who was the hosting company?
This is all what I understand, the details might be /slightly/ different as it wasn't myself that was involved with the status of the wiki. Anyhow, what I understand that happened was the website stopped working one day last week, there was no dialogue established with the provider after someone tried to mail them directly. While someone was taking a backup of the wiki their login was terminated and ssh login disabled, as yet I don't think anyone who has asked has heard anything back so as something must be done the wiki has been reborn. If I've got anything in the above wrong hopefully someone will put me right. Also, it is worth pointing out that we were not paying for this hosting and it was provided generously for free so we can't complain at what has happened. Although it is a shame that we weren't spoken too before the wiki disappeared and that the attempts to get in touch haven't been successful as we could have at least recovered the content before losing access to it. Thanks Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
I'm not intending to come across as completely ungratefully but to say I'm not happy would be an understatement. Tune out if you have no interest in rants. I, and I know for certain I wasn't the only one at the time, assumed on first-impressions that ALUG was inactive after moving to East Anglia on the basis that the original website in place was hideously out of date and riddled with spam. Several years on, in 2007, I chose to get involved with a LUG and on closer inspection unearthed the community around the ALUG mailing list, and IRC. With a desire to set up an Ipswich LUG, I invited several others I thought might be interested to join this mailing list and then I started a discussion which essentially boiled down to me being quite happy not to be a "splitter" by creating an Ipswich LUG, if we could come to some arrangement about being able to access the website and such. Despite me offering to travel to Norwich to meet any of the current website maintainers or on IRC, I heard nothing. I also offered to effectively setup a completely new infrastructure, if someone could provide me with SFTP access and a database but it was made perfectly clear that - presumably as the new guy - I couldn't possibly be provided with such access. Despite us being able to claim free hosting from lug.org.uk, it was quite clear that the general feeling on the list was that we should try to make use of the existing resources rather than start afresh. This effectively, meant using a web server which, as far as I could tell, was controlled by some old ALUG boys' network with some hosting provider that some member had / or had once worked at. Despite being as polite and patient as possible, the discussion went round and round in circles for ages - noone would consider allowing us access to the site, yet did not want to spend any time on the existing site themselves. Eventually, presumably to shut me up, MoinMoin was unpacked alongside the old site. Was I happy? Not particularly. It looks dreadful out of the box, the product and syntax wasn't familiar to me (or anyone else I knew) in the slightest and, of course, we were still in the position that we had no access to the server so couldn't keep the underlying site up to date, perform backups of our own or install any other apps that might be of use. But I naively thought this was what a community was about. I was assured the site was being maintained by great guys. I was the new kid, so I endeavoured to keep the majority happy by not splitting even only at the website level and tried to make the best use out of MoinMoin as I could. I spent hours moving and updating content from the original site to the new wiki, I put up with a torrent of people complaining about how bad it looked even though I had no access to change the terrible default theme myself - I sent several suggestions of alternative themes to those with access, none of which were ever investigated as far as I'm aware. However, I and others plugged away at it and after a lot of man-hours, I think finally got it to a point where at least it looked in-use and up-to-date albeit still a bit ugly. Most of the complaints on the list died down, and eventually the new wiki replaced the old site. For the next three years, I kept our comprehensive meet details complete and up-to-date and also regularly contributed meeting reports every month - not only to record a history of what we've been up to for the benefit of ppl who can't make the meetings, but also to show visitors to the site that we are an active group. And, now, it's just dropped on to the list that actually this "arrangement" hasn't worked out and we have, in fact, lost it all? There are no backups and we're at a mercy of a hosting provider who presumably has no ties back to this group, and I assume has never received any money from anyone for the services they've been providing thus far.
From what little information that has been allowed to trickle down to me, I don't think the hosting providers can be blamed much here at all.
I will cross my fingers that someone from the hosting provider will eventually respond and the missing data is recovered but if it is permanently gone, I'm afraid there isn't a chance I personally am putting any effort whatsoever into another blank ALUG MoinMoin site that once again runs at the whim of someone else I only barely know, who provides no guaranteed level of support. I think it'd be a(nother) waste of my time to contribute. For those who turn up to the next Ipswich meet we can discuss whether to make do with the blank site (maybe someone else will offer to fill in some Ipswich meet details for us and we'll leave it at that) or whether we want to set up a new site ourselves - one which /isn't/ restricted to an elite few, is reliably backed up and provided with some basic level of support. Such hosting is available for free to groups such as this and has been for a very long time. Not that I particularly want to split from ALUG, but the latter option of course may bring up the question of whether having a separate site would also lead us towards choosing our own domain name. Rant over - and I'm not casting aspersions on the reliability of Noodles' server. If the ALUG site is required to start again from scratch there, I truly wish best of luck to anyone willing to contribute their time re-building it. It's no secret that I have always considered the website an important first point of contact for potential new members. Cheers, Peter.
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 07:16:48PM +0000, samwise wrote:
whether we want to set up a new site ourselves - one which /isn't/ restricted to an elite few, is reliably backed up and provided with
Erm, it's a wiki.... how the hell can it be restricted to an elite few? You seem to think that it's not on equal terms but as content is created by all how can it be exclusive? Anyhow, Alug has always been run on the basis of someone doing something so most of your rant doesn't really make sense as if you didn't do something why would it be somebody elses fault? Even so, if you feel that you want to create a new group or split it then go right ahead, you really won't be stepping on anyones toes. All I can ask is that if you feel unhappy at the lack of backups then why weren't you doing them? Thanks Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
I have no intentions of drawing this out but it's patently obvious that to backup the wiki would require SFTP access to the files on the server, which is the access that was available only to a select few. I'm sure you understand this. If you check the 2007 archives, you will see I was more than happy to setup a new site but it was very clear that people would view this as a "split" and so we agreed to make the best of what we had available. I then "did something" as you put it, which was a good chunk of the site that has just disappeared. I think the many hours I put into the content that was on that site, gives me the right to say my piece. To suggest as you appear to be doing, that I may not have contributed enough to the development or management of the site is, may I say, a gross misrepresentation. Peter.
On the subject of a web system, have we ever considered some kind of CMS / Joomla / phpbb3 + portal? It would certainly be easier for every to contribute to (just sign in and put up a post) Could have a forum area for tutorials, reviews etc. Also this would open up ALUG to a wider community (ie our tutorials etc could come up in search engines, if configured) Mis dos centos James Elsey On 20 February 2010 19:54, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
I have no intentions of drawing this out but it's patently obvious that to backup the wiki would require SFTP access to the files on the server, which is the access that was available only to a select few. I'm sure you understand this.
If you check the 2007 archives, you will see I was more than happy to setup a new site but it was very clear that people would view this as a "split" and so we agreed to make the best of what we had available. I then "did something" as you put it, which was a good chunk of the site that has just disappeared.
I think the many hours I put into the content that was on that site, gives me the right to say my piece. To suggest as you appear to be doing, that I may not have contributed enough to the development or management of the site is, may I say, a gross misrepresentation.
Peter.
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On 20 Feb 2010, at 20:08, James Elsey wrote:
On the subject of a web system, have we ever considered some kind of CMS / Joomla / phpbb3 + portal?
It would certainly be easier for every to contribute to (just sign in and put up a post)
How is that easier that editing a wiki page?
Could have a forum area for tutorials, reviews etc. Also this would open up ALUG to a wider community (ie our tutorials etc could come up in search engines, if configured)
Again, not sure how this is massively different to a wiki. -- David Reynolds david@reynoldsfamily.org.uk
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 07:54:19PM +0000, samwise wrote:
I have no intentions of drawing this out but it's patently obvious that to backup the wiki would require SFTP access to the files on the server, which is the access that was available only to a select few.
I think you are mistaking how many people had access to the site, it was few who all volunteered their time. There was no "old boys network" as you suggest which is quite frankly a fairly offensive comment.
If you check the 2007 archives, you will see I was more than happy to setup a new site but it was very clear that people would view this as a "split" and so we agreed to make the best of what we had available. I then "did something" as you put it, which was a good chunk of the site that has just disappeared.
It doesn't matter if you had have split, if this is what you would have rather done then don't cry to me about it. Nobody ever stopped you! it was your choice!
I think the many hours I put into the content that was on that site, gives me the right to say my piece. To suggest as you appear to be doing, that I may not have contributed enough to the development or management of the site is, may I say, a gross misrepresentation.
All you are doing is throwing around bad vibes directed at other people who may not have been in a position to have done anything better or differently. Yes it's a shame, but as yet you've not done anything constructive only start slinging mud. The choice now for aluggers is to rebuild the site or move on, having a witch hunt isn't going to be helpful. There really isn't anything that can be done now that will bring the old site back, if you want to create your own sites then please do so, nobody here is stopping you. What else do you want people to do? I suppose we could offer a full refund? Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On 20 Feb 20:24, Adam Bower wrote:
The choice now for aluggers is to rebuild the site or move on, having a witch hunt isn't going to be helpful. There really isn't anything that can be done now that will bring the old site back, if you want to create your own sites then please do so, nobody here is stopping you.
Whole heartedly agree. New foo, new fun, new start. And thanks to Noodles for giving us the opportunity. -- Brett Parker
http://web.archive.org/web/20080505020846rn_1/www.alug.org.uk/wiki/ Works for me, Google cache only seems to have picked up the front page though :( I also agree that some new foo is needed so we can all get more involved. I signed up to the old site a while back but was having difficulties with my account and couldn't seem to get any help but now we have a fresh start. It will probably be for the best in the long term. -- Regards, James ;) Jonathan Swift - "May you live every day of your life." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_swift.html
On 20 February 2010 19:54, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
I have no intentions of drawing this out but it's patently obvious that to backup the wiki would require SFTP access to the files on the server, which is the access that was available only to a select few. I'm sure you understand this.
If you check the 2007 archives, you will see I was more than happy to setup a new site but it was very clear that people would view this as a "split" and so we agreed to make the best of what we had available. I then "did something" as you put it, which was a good chunk of the site that has just disappeared.
I think the many hours I put into the content that was on that site, gives me the right to say my piece. To suggest as you appear to be doing, that I may not have contributed enough to the development or management of the site is, may I say, a gross misrepresentation.
Peter.
At the end of the day this has happened and there is no backup. I suspect if the site had been hosted by noodles there would have been a backup. I would trust him with my data any day. However this has happened and we have to make the best of it, lesson learned. Lets get some content on the wiki and move forward. Cheers, BJ
On 20-Feb-10 20:25:24, John Woodard wrote:
On 20 February 2010 19:54, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
[snipped -- purely for space, no mean intentions!] Peter.
At the end of the day this has happened and there is no backup. I suspect if the site had been hosted by noodles there would have been a backup. I would trust him with my data any day. However this has happened and we have to make the best of it, lesson learned. Lets get some content on the wiki and move forward.
Cheers, BJ
One key question, for all: Did *anyone*, in any recent years (the wiki hasn't changed a lot for a while) ever do a 'wget' on the site? Unfortunately I didn't; but if anyone did then we have an opportunity to re-create at least some of it as it used to be. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Feb-10 Time: 20:53:00 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On 20 February 2010 20:53, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
On 20-Feb-10 20:25:24, John Woodard wrote:
On 20 February 2010 19:54, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
[snipped -- purely for space, no mean intentions!] Peter.
At the end of the day this has happened and there is no backup. I suspect if the site had been hosted by noodles there would have been a backup. I would trust him with my data any day. However this has happened and we have to make the best of it, lesson learned. Lets get some content on the wiki and move forward.
Cheers, BJ
One key question, for all: Did *anyone*, in any recent years (the wiki hasn't changed a lot for a while) ever do a 'wget' on the site?
Unfortunately I didn't; but if anyone did then we have an opportunity to re-create at least some of it as it used to be.
Ted.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080505020846rn_1/www.alug.org.uk/wiki/ is the best that we have so far. May 2008 is the most recent but at lest some of it is there. Cheers, BJ
On 20-Feb-10 21:33:04, John Woodard wrote:
On 20 February 2010 20:53, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
On 20-Feb-10 20:25:24, John Woodard wrote:
On 20 February 2010 19:54, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
[snipped -- purely for space, no mean intentions!] Peter.
At the end of the day this has happened and there is no backup. I suspect if the site had been hosted by noodles there would have been a backup. I would trust him with my data any day. However this has happened and we have to make the best of it, lesson learned. Lets get some content on the wiki and move forward.
Cheers, BJ
One key question, for all: Did *anyone*, in any recent years (the wiki hasn't changed a lot for a while) ever do a 'wget' on the site?
Unfortunately I didn't; but if anyone did then we have an opportunity to re-create at least some of it as it used to be.
Ted.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080505020846rn_1/www.alug.org.uk/wiki/ is the best that we have so far. May 2008 is the most recent but at lest some of it is there.
Cheers, BJ
Hmmm -- that URL gives me: Not in Archive. No archived versions of the page you requested are available. If the page is still available on the Internet, we will begin archiving it during our next crawl. You may want to: * Search for all pages on the site alug.org.uk/ * Try a different page address, at top I have clicked on the "Search" link, and am still waiting for somthing to happen ... I now also wonder if, recently, that site "did a crawl", found nothing (because "suspended"), and so now has nothing in its archive ... ? Meanwhile, my browser is still "Waiting for web.archive.org..." Hmmm. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Feb-10 Time: 22:10:41 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:10:44PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote:
Hmmm -- that URL gives me:
Most odd, gives me a copy of the wiki as was in the past. Nothing itself is missing from the archive as they save different versions as snapshot on different dates. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On 20-Feb-10 22:15:44, Adam Bower wrote:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:10:44PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote:
Hmmm -- that URL gives me:
Most odd, gives me a copy of the wiki as was in the past.
Nothing itself is missing from the archive as they save different versions as snapshot on different dates.
Adam
Me too, now. It took about 20 minutes before anything was returned from the search, but now going directly to BJ's URL gives me the website "last edited 2008-04-16 15:45:33".[*] The search through up the first 10 of "about 1680". Presumably these are stored earlier versions and not of any particular interest from the point of view of re-creating the wiki? [*] Maybe my search triggered opening-up of BJ's URL? Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Feb-10 Time: 22:37:05 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
Steve Fosdick wrote: In choosing my NAS I wanted something which: 1. Has low power consumption. 2. Supports the applications I want to run on it. 3. Is open enough to support further applications as time goes by. 4. Is neat and tidy. I ended up with a QNAP TS-419P which is the four bay unit based on the Marvell Kirkwood (an ARM SOC). ======== Good choice - I run a QNAP TS-109 (Orion) at home, and my work recently purchased a QNAP TS-119 (Kirkwood). Both now run Debian, but the supplied OS was surprisingly good, and I ran my TS-109 that way for about a year before recently rebuilding it (on a new SATA drive). The Debian install is very well documented here: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/orion/qnap/ts-109/install.html http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/qnap/ts-119/unpack.html Hope this helps! Simon
Thanks for all the replies on this, very informative and helpful. We are definitely limited in cash, but what its really saying is that its worth going to some trouble to get a device which runs a 'proper' OS. Alas, the little Revo boxes are selling out before the funding comes through, so I may end up putting together a litte Atom bases ITX. There is a great little case available from Linitx for 20+ which you can put the integrated Intel board into. It will end up being more expensive, but also smaller. I can see also there is more to be said for the Sheevaplug than I had realized, and apparently from the guides on the net, it is not too hard to install standard stripped down Debian on it. Restarting after power outage is quite an important feature if the staff are just going to call up and say 'its not working', and not realize they have to check and see if its turned on.... Cheers Peter
On 20 Feb 19:54, samwise wrote:
I have no intentions of drawing this out but it's patently obvious that to backup the wiki would require SFTP access to the files on the server, which is the access that was available only to a select few. I'm sure you understand this.
I call bullshit... no, to back it up did not require that at all, a simple python script can do it, especially one that logged in as a registered user. Don't talk such shit all your life. -- Brett Parker
On 20 Feb 19:16, samwise wrote:
I'm not intending to come across as completely ungratefully but to say I'm not happy would be an understatement. Tune out if you have no interest in rants.
So, this and then a rant that sounds completely ungrateful... You're doing well... it was bent to your will with the wiki to start with, the hosting was 'free' and not controlled by a contributing member, you offered nothing more than maintaining a wiki, and *you* rant like a mad man. Get over it. A lot of us that have been involved a *lot* longer than you are a *lot* more annoyed by this, but are actually going to just get on with it and thank Noodles for being an absolute star and doing his best to get us going again. There general content was mostly out of date anyways, so we're not missing that much, and it gives us an opportunity to replan what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how to make sure we don't lose content again. *sigh* - whinging for free content that you have no monetry input in is just bloody silly, you had enough access to make backups, but you didn't think to either. Congrats on making the worst of a bad situation. I emplore you to try harder next time. "Thanks", -- Brett Parker
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 01:39:19AM +0000, Brett Parker wrote:
you had enough access to make backups, but you didn't think to either.
Sam's right that the easiest (and most helpful) way to create backups was via SFTP. I am kicking myself that I wasn't doing so - we had backups on the actual hosting in case the wiki got completely trashed or went wrong during an upgrade, but unless one of the other 3 or 4 people who had access made offsites then we're a bit stuck. I'm the one who made the choice to install Moin on the old site. I had nothing to do with organising the hosting so didn't feel able to hand out ssh access to others (I only had access because I'd been the one updating the Norwich meeting page). There was a definite lack of people actually working on the site and a wiki seemed like the best way to let anyone who had an interest get involved. I'm sorry if anyone feels it was installed just to shut them up. I went with Moin because I have experience with it and knew it could run without too many other dependencies. I suspect the option that would have been most familiar to people would have been MediaWiki and it requires a backend database (which we had on the old hosting, but would have made it harder to move elsewhere). As to the old boys network claim there is certainly a more active clique but the old website had been deliberately left with the sponsor rather than moved to something I controlled in order to avoid any suggestion that I might be trying to over reach. J. -- ] http://www.earth.li/~noodles/ [] Love is the delusion that one [ ] PGP/GPG Key @ the.earth.li [] woman differs from another. [ ] via keyserver, web or email. [] [ ] RSA: 4096/2DA8B985 [] [
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:40:38AM +0000, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 01:39:19AM +0000, Brett Parker wrote:
you had enough access to make backups, but you didn't think to either.
Sam's right that the easiest (and most helpful) way to create backups was via SFTP. I am kicking myself that I wasn't doing so - we had backups on the actual hosting in case the wiki got completely trashed or went wrong during an upgrade, but unless one of the other 3 or 4 people who had access made offsites then we're a bit stuck.
I'm the one who made the choice to install Moin on the old site. I had nothing to do with organising the hosting so didn't feel able to hand out ssh access to others (I only had access because I'd been the one updating the Norwich meeting page). There was a definite lack of people actually working on the site and a wiki seemed like the best way to let anyone who had an interest get involved. I'm sorry if anyone feels it was installed just to shut them up.
I went with Moin because I have experience with it and knew it could run without too many other dependencies. I suspect the option that would have been most familiar to people would have been MediaWiki and it requires a backend database (which we had on the old hosting, but would have made it harder to move elsewhere).
As to the old boys network claim there is certainly a more active clique but the old website had been deliberately left with the sponsor rather than moved to something I controlled in order to avoid any suggestion that I might be trying to over reach.
Regarding choice of Wiki software I've been doing this (for the umpteenth time) recently and Moin was one of the front runners. However I've decided on DokuWiki for a number of reasons:- It *looks* a whole lot better 'out of the box', Moin is distinctly geeky to look at to my mind. Much cleaner install, much easier than Moin (which I have installed as well because I want to do fairly in depth comparison). Continuing from the easier install adding plugins and such is easier in DokuWiki, Moin's 'markets' seem a rather odd hodge podge of things with no clear organisation. I'm not sure about Moin but DokuWiki's data is stored in directly editable text files, it is actually set up so that if you just drop text files into the right places they will become DokuWiki pages with no further ado. It's just a pity that Moin is the only serious Wiki contender written in my favourite language python and that DokuWiki is all PHP. Still, PHP isn't too bad to work with. -- Chris Green
Sam's right that the easiest (and most helpful) way to create backups was via SFTP. I am kicking myself that I wasn't doing so - we had backups on the actual hosting in case the wiki got completely trashed or went wrong during an upgrade, but unless one of the other 3 or 4 people who had access made offsites then we're a bit stuck.
I'm the one who made the choice to install Moin on the old site. I had
Jonathan, In the cold light of day, that was an over-reaching part of my rant. Whilst it wasn't my first choice, MoinMoin did the job as required - the fact that it's been up there for three years is testament to that. I also fully appreciate that you were the only one willing to step up and do /anything/ at all to my pleas for something we could all get involved with at the time. You've also been the one to address the problems since the install, like spam, and have been nothing but professional. My apologies for suggesting there was anything wrong with that choice of wiki. I also don't have any expectations that anyone with access to the site should necessarily have been taking regular backups. My complaint is purely and simply about the choice of hosting provider. Companies don't do stuff for free. If an "arrangement" is made between an ALUGer and someone at the company, that's fine. However, if one of those people leaves (either at the company or from ALUG) then that arrangement is at risk. It is not an unfortunate accident that the hosting company has pulled the hosting - it was almost inevitable they would do so eventually when someone less favourable to our group noticed they were providing it for free. The unfortunate part is that they gave no notice, and seemingly won't allow access to the data but it's hard to hold that against them. This was a manageable issue that could have been avoided. In hindsight, I'm sure we would have been better off if you had taken over the site and put it on your server, as you remain an active member of ALUG. If I'd known that there was no longer a working relationship between ALUG and the old hosting provider, I'd've voted for you. ;) I've said my piece which I feel I have justification for, given how much I contributed of my own time. Looking to the future, I would ask whether putting the new site on a member's server is really learning the lesson. If something were to happen to Jonathan (sincerely hope not), there is a danger I assume of the same thing happening again. Unlikely, but there it is. Why not sign up for something like lug.org.uk third party hosting, which isn't tied to one ALUG member? Peter.
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 01:46:00PM +0000, samwise wrote:
Looking to the future, I would ask whether putting the new site on a member's server is really learning the lesson. If something were to happen to Jonathan (sincerely hope not), there is a danger I assume of the same thing happening again. Unlikely, but there it is. Why not sign up for something like lug.org.uk third party hosting, which isn't tied to one ALUG member?
I think it would be a worse outcome, I think that if you compare the two then lug.org.uk has had greater downtime over the years compared to alug. Having had problems with hardware failure, security compromises and people not being contactable at one point or another. What happens when lug.org.uk dies and the people responsible aren't contactable or the hosting has the plug pulled or they have a hardware failure? It would mean we end up in a position much the same as we were in that caused us to lose the wiki in the first place. At least Jonathan has been contactable and a member of the Lug for ages, using lug.org.uk puts us in the same position again that we want to avoid. I think you'll also find that although his server has had downtime in the past due to hardware problems he uses it personally and for hosting for more than a few other groups/projects and it has been very reliable considering how long it has been in operation. I'd much rather the alug server and services are under the control of alug members rather than 3rd parties who aren't actively involved in case the same thing happens again! Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
All perfectly reasonable points. Whichever hosting provider, I don't think downtime per se is something that needs to be too much of a concern - so long as it's not excessive, and comes back up within a reasonable time. I am absolutely not casting aspersions on Noodles' server or his personal availability. My question is purely and simply - what's the plan if he's abducted by aliens? If something were arranged, such as the details of an alternative contact at the ISP in question (that could arrange access if the machine was switched off) were shared with at least two or three other ALUGers that would probably suffice. However, the list of people with those details needs recording somewhere so that they can be replaced, if they stop being an active member. Peter.
On 21 February 2010 14:22, samwise <samwise@bagshot-row.org> wrote:
I am absolutely not casting aspersions on Noodles' server or his personal availability.
My question is purely and simply - what's the plan if he's abducted by aliens?
Simple answer is that this is a non issue because there are no aliens that would want him! :-)
If something were arranged, such as the details of an alternative contact at the ISP in question (that could arrange access if the machine was switched off) were shared with at least two or three other ALUGers that would probably suffice. However, the list of people with those details needs recording somewhere so that they can be replaced, if they stop being an active member.
I still think the hosting is safer in the hands of Noodles his track record with the hosting if the ALUG maling list speaks volumes. Cheers, BJ
John Woodard wrote: [SNIP]
I still think the hosting is safer in the hands of Noodles his track record with the hosting if the ALUG maling list speaks volumes.
I'm willing to host a mirror and/or provide off-site backup facilities. Just so long as you're happy to hold your noses and use a gentoo server! I have a DIA 2meg pipe and lots of kit/space. If two or three of us did that, we'd be safe again... Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie@brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:25:07 +0000 Laurie Brown <laurie@brownowl.com> allegedly wrote:
I'm willing to host a mirror and/or provide off-site backup facilities. Just so long as you're happy to hold your noses and use a gentoo server!
I have a DIA 2meg pipe and lots of kit/space.
If two or three of us did that, we'd be safe again...
OK I'll pitch in to that. I have a VPS at bytemark with some spare capacity. Happy to offer some of that (even if all you want is some disk space) if it helps for the future. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah I'll thrown in some support, I two have a VPS with a decent amount of storage and a fast connection, you can backup the site to there as well if you wish? -- Regards, James ;) Mike Ditka - "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 02:22:34PM +0000, samwise wrote:
My question is purely and simply - what's the plan if he's abducted by aliens?
If something were arranged, such as the details of an alternative contact at the ISP in question (that could arrange access if the machine was switched off) were shared with at least two or three other ALUGers that would probably suffice.
The machine is actually owned by me and there are a bunch of people who would be much more inconvenienced by it being switched off than you lot - in the event of my ascension to our glorious alien overlords anyone with an @earth.li address should hopefully be able to point you at someone who can help. In particular various LUG members already know Simon Huggins and hang out on IRC channels with him, so I'd suggest that he's a good first port of call if I go AWOL and there's a problem. Also I've setup a daily cron job to drop the Moin pages/ data directory into /backup/pages.tar.gz on the website (full URL deliberately not posted) which means anyone can take a backup. It's not a complete dump, but I think it covers all of the content without leaking things like email addresses or wiki passwords. J. -- Web [ Have you been having any immoral thoughts lately? I know I ] site: http:// [ sure have. ] Made by www.earth.li/~noodles/ [ ] HuggieTag 0.0.24
On 22 February 2010 21:52, Jonathan McDowell <noodles@earth.li> wrote:
The machine is actually owned by me and there are a bunch of people who would be much more inconvenienced by it being switched off than you lot - in the event of my ascension to our glorious alien overlords anyone with an @earth.li address should hopefully be able to point you at someone who can help. In particular various LUG members already know Simon Huggins and hang out on IRC channels with him, so I'd suggest that he's a good first port of call if I go AWOL and there's a problem.
Also I've setup a daily cron job to drop the Moin pages/ data directory into /backup/pages.tar.gz on the website (full URL deliberately not posted) which means anyone can take a backup. It's not a complete dump, but I think it covers all of the content without leaking things like email addresses or wiki passwords.
J.
Thanks for the info Jonathan, I have set up a crontab on my vps which downloads that every night so we can a rotation of backups. -- Regards, James ;) Samuel Goldwyn - "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/samuel_goldwyn.html
samwise wrote:
It is not an unfortunate accident that the hosting company has pulled the hosting - it was almost inevitable they would do so eventually when someone less favourable to our group noticed they were providing it for free. The unfortunate part is that they gave no notice, and seemingly won't allow access to the data but it's hard to hold that against them. To be fair to said individual we don't actually *know* that is the case at the moment.
It has been a week since the site went down and five days since we noticed and I sent the initial mail to them asking for help. The mail was sent to their personal email address. Now they could be on holiday, working away from home, unwell. The mail could have gone into a black hole or junk mail. I have dealt with this person and even after the unfortunate argument on list that prompted them to leave, they have been nothing but helpful and seemed happy to continue to host the site. At the moment I am finding it difficult to believe that this person would just pull the hosting without contacting someone and warning them. For all we know this is an honest mistake, the site was compromised and hit a traffic allowance, some automated site suspension was triggered for whatever reason or they have closed their reseller account this was provided under and forgot that we were hosted there.
On 21 February 2010 14:34, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
It has been a week since the site went down and five days since we noticed and I sent the initial mail to them asking for help. The mail was sent to their personal email address.
Now they could be on holiday, working away from home, unwell.
Five days isn't very long at all. Hopefully there's still a good chance you'll get a reply ... Peter.
samwise wrote:
Jonathan,
It's unusual that someone replies-to-all when they meant to reply to one person, so I'm assuming this wasn't only for Noodles. [...]
I also fully appreciate that you were the only one willing to step up and do /anything/ at all to my pleas for something we could all get involved with at the time.
Or rather, the first one who did what samwise wanted? Look back to http://lists.alug.org.uk/pipermail/main/2007-February/020224.html and we can see that all offers to help with the website were conditional on it being done the way samwise wanted, on pain of ALUG having a lump carved out of its east coast, demanding things we didn't have like root access. As far as I can tell, as a result of that pressure, ALUG moved from a conservative but working and recreatable website to a volatile wiki which might have all been lost now. Which was better? Slower updates or no data?
I also don't have any expectations that anyone with access to the site should necessarily have been taking regular backups.
I do. I was taking backups during my time caring for the site. But it's no use crying over spilt data.
My complaint is purely and simply about the choice of hosting provider. Companies don't do stuff for free. If an "arrangement" is made between an ALUGer and someone at the company, that's fine.
It used to be hosted with Darren Casey at PHP4Hosting - a company run by an ALUG member, like several are. Our companies often do what we tell them, even for free. [...]
Looking to the future, I would ask whether putting the new site on a member's server is really learning the lesson. If something were to happen to Jonathan (sincerely hope not), there is a danger I assume of the same thing happening again. Unlikely, but there it is. Why not sign up for something like lug.org.uk third party hosting, which isn't tied to one ALUG member?
Why not? Because lug.org.uk messed us about when we formed (hence the domain duality), their hosting has performed worse than ALUG hosting historically, and it's tied to one lug.org.uk member (check whois: Registrant type is UK Individual) who we have a lot less connection to than past ALUGgers like Martyn Drake. On the hosting side of things, I'd suggest someone takes over either hosting or DNS from Jonathan to avoid too many eggs in one basket. Not that I mean to suggest Noodles is a basket! ;-) Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster and LMS developer at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op
On 23 Feb 01:12, MJ Ray wrote:
On the hosting side of things, I'd suggest someone takes over either hosting or DNS from Jonathan to avoid too many eggs in one basket. Not that I mean to suggest Noodles is a basket! ;-)
Well, technically, he doesn't host the DNS... It's hosted at mythic... and for everything else, if the turd really starts flying, we have a lovely nominet set of hoops that can probably be jumped through... -- Brett Parker
samwise wrote:
Jonathan,
It's unusual that someone replies-to-all when they meant to reply to one person, so I'm assuming this wasn't only for Noodles.
It was indeed intentionally posted to the list. Whilst I haven't changed my mind, I was trying to make it absolutely clear that I was not picking on Noodles, who afaict has done more behind-the-scenes activity than anyone since I've been a member of ALUG and I'm happy to pass on thanks to him as much as anyone else.
But it's no use crying over spilt data.
Agreed. The new arrangements with anyone being able to obtain daily backups appear to be more than adequate for the purpose and given Wayne's input, I think there's still some hope the original content may be recovered. As you say it's futile to whinge about what's lost, all that can be done is look to safeguard future contributions to the website - which from what I've read here, should now have been covered off. Sincerely, best of luck to any willing to lead the rebuild effort - in whatever form, that website is the doorway for new members who aren't already aware of what this group has to offer. Peter.
On 23 February 2010 01:12, MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:
Why not? Because lug.org.uk messed us about when we formed (hence the domain duality), their hosting has performed worse than ALUG hosting historically, and it's tied to one lug.org.uk member (check whois: Registrant type is UK Individual) who we have a lot less connection to than past ALUGgers like Martyn Drake.
On the hosting side of things, I'd suggest someone takes over either hosting or DNS from Jonathan to avoid too many eggs in one basket. Not that I mean to suggest Noodles is a basket! ;-)
First thing I'd like to say is thank you to all the Aluggers who have given their time over the last 11 years keeping the website running and generating content for it. You know who you are and great kudos to you for that. I think it's best to leave the hosting with Noodles for both web and mailing list. DNS is with Mythic Beasts which also seems fair. The domain is registered to Martyn who is still contactable and is as far as I can tell is still a decent bloke with integrity who wouldn't compromise the domain. Those that wanted the wiki still have their wish, which on reflection is better for content. As has been said there is no use crying over spilt data we just have to refill the wiki, even though it must be rather irksome to those members who have spent their valuable time creating content. I reckon a clean slate is a good place to start so lets get on with it and get a useful site up and running and this time keep a backup. My 2p worth on this current situation. Cheers, BJ
On 23 February 2010 11:05, John Woodard <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote:
On the hosting side of things, I'd suggest someone takes over either hosting or DNS from Jonathan to avoid too many eggs in one basket. Not that I mean to suggest Noodles is a basket! ;-)
I think it's best to leave the hosting with Noodles for both web and mailing list. DNS is with Mythic Beasts which also seems fair. The domain is registered to Martyn who is still contactable and is as far as I can tell is still a decent bloke with integrity who wouldn't compromise the domain.
I do agree about the one basket stuff. DNS with one person/company, hosting with another and mailing list with another would be good. Although I see no reason why Jonathan can't host our mail and website as he mentioned in the event he is abducted we can contact other earth.li members to seek assistance. Also he has a good track record AND everything is up and running, so lets just get on with it. In terms of our DNS though if Martyn is the only person who has access to this we need to arrange at least one other person having the accounts details? Or if there were a file on the earth.li web server which Jonathan put somewhere not in the web root so if Martyn went awol we could retrieve that file via Jonathan or another earth.li member? Again, what ever the plan I offer my VPS if it can be used in some way. As I already said I have set up a nightly cron job to back up the data tar'd up on Jonathan's server which is already running. If I can be of further assistance just let me know. -- Regards, James ;) Ted Turner - "Sports is like a war without the killing." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/ted_turner.html
On 23 Feb 11:42, James Bensley wrote:
On 23 February 2010 11:05, John Woodard <mail@johnwoodard.co.uk> wrote:
On the hosting side of things, I'd suggest someone takes over either hosting or DNS from Jonathan to avoid too many eggs in one basket. Not that I mean to suggest Noodles is a basket! ;-)
I think it's best to leave the hosting with Noodles for both web and mailing list. DNS is with Mythic Beasts which also seems fair. The domain is registered to Martyn who is still contactable and is as far as I can tell is still a decent bloke with integrity who wouldn't compromise the domain.
I do agree about the one basket stuff. DNS with one person/company, hosting with another and mailing list with another would be good. Although I see no reason why Jonathan can't host our mail and website as he mentioned in the event he is abducted we can contact other earth.li members to seek assistance. Also he has a good track record AND everything is up and running, so lets just get on with it.
In terms of our DNS though if Martyn is the only person who has access to this we need to arrange at least one other person having the accounts details? Or if there were a file on the earth.li web server which Jonathan put somewhere not in the web root so if Martyn went awol we could retrieve that file via Jonathan or another earth.li member?
The DNS is managed via mythic's DNS management frontend (as far as I'm aware...) - It *might* be worth asking Noodles to ask mythic if it can be seperated in to it's own account though so that more than just him have easy access to updating it. (I don't believe that they can tie a domain name in to more than one account, but that might also be worth asking them...).
Again, what ever the plan I offer my VPS if it can be used in some way. As I already said I have set up a nightly cron job to back up the data tar'd up on Jonathan's server which is already running. If I can be of further assistance just let me know.
I've got a script running on my vps too, mine grabs the .tar.gz, unpacks it, and commits any changes in to a git repository. So I have a historical copy of the data - not knowing exactly when Noodles is generating the .tar.gz, though, I've made an assumption that it's part of cron.daily, so I've set my job to run at 6.45am (should be after the cron.daily!). If anyone wants a copy of my script, feel free to ask. Thanks, -- Brett Parker
James Bensley wrote:
I do agree about the one basket stuff. DNS with one person/company, hosting with another and mailing list with another would be good. Although I see no reason why Jonathan can't host our mail and website as he mentioned in the event he is abducted we can contact other earth.li members to seek assistance. Also he has a good track record AND everything is up and running, so lets just get on with it.
Well really assuming other members have a backup of the site and perhaps a list of subscribed members to the list, then really DNS *is* the one basket, as the rest could be recreated elsewhere. Hell I have a mostly complete archive of list posts going back to 2003 sitting in my maildir. The issue is that, as discussed on IRC we need free (as in beer) solutions because we lack the structure to start taking contributions from members and pay for a hosted service. IMO adding this structure properly would be a minefield in terms of appointing someone to hold the purse, submitting statements of where the money goes etc. I've seen this go wrong (very wrong) in other groups. Now the trouble with free (as in beer) services is that they tend to be donated by a single member and tagged on the back of services they already have which often makes them difficult to share access to. In this case Jonathan is kindly giving up some space on a dedicated server he already has. He can't give out access to all and sundry because this machine does other things and he can't put all the ALUG bits in a VM on their own because he lacks the resources to create another VM on that host. I see where you are going with separating responsibility for the various services and I'm sure Jonathan would thank anyone that could take some of this responsibility away. But frankly I think all that would happen is we would then be dependent on 3 or 4 people not one. There is literally nobody on this list I trust more than Jonathan to host these services. I think without major changes the best we can do is formulate a plan where we always have access to the DNS record and make sure we have recent'ish backups of things like the wiki, current list members and the list archives, the rest just then boils down to being "a bit of a pain" if we lost it.
On 23 February 2010 13:31, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> wrote:
I see where you are going with separating responsibility for the various services and I'm sure Jonathan would thank anyone that could take some of this responsibility away. But frankly I think all that would happen is we would then be dependent on 3 or 4 people not one. There is literally nobody on this list I trust more than Jonathan to host these services.
Yes I agree, it would more of a problem so perhaps we should just look to implement a black plan that everyone agrees on. So me and Brett are both making incremental backups of daily tar files from Jonathan. If others want to it can't hurt. Next is backing up the list data. Who has a backup of this? (Other than Jonathan if we assume he already does, as our problems would start if Jonathan went walkabout never to return). -- Regards, James ;) Jonathan Swift - "May you live every day of your life." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_swift.html
James Bensley wrote:
Yes I agree, it would more of a problem so perhaps we should just look to implement a black plan that everyone agrees on. So me and Brett are both making incremental backups of daily tar files from Jonathan. If others want to it can't hurt. Next is backing up the list data. Who has a backup of this? (Other than Jonathan if we assume he already does, as our problems would start if Jonathan went walkabout never to return).
Well any of the list admins (there are a few) could get a list of current subscribers manually. Archives are available to all as gzipped files and to be honest backup of these needn't be kept 100% up to date because recent messages will already exist in multiple mailboxes amongst the subscribers, as I say I have back to 2003 in a more or less complete state and I can't be the only one.
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:57:41 +0000 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
Well any of the list admins (there are a few) could get a list of current subscribers manually. Archives are available to all as gzipped files and to be honest backup of these needn't be kept 100% up to date because recent messages will already exist in multiple mailboxes amongst the subscribers, as I say I have back to 2003 in a more or less complete state and I can't be the only one.
How about adding the list to marc.info? Not only would be get an on-line archive, but also a potentially wider readership (=promotion). Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 24 February 2010 09:36, mick <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:57:41 +0000 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
Well any of the list admins (there are a few) could get a list of current subscribers manually. Archives are available to all as gzipped files and to be honest backup of these needn't be kept 100% up to date because recent messages will already exist in multiple mailboxes amongst the subscribers, as I say I have back to 2003 in a more or less complete state and I can't be the only one.
How about adding the list to marc.info? Not only would be get an on-line archive, but also a potentially wider readership (=promotion).
Mick
Both of your suggestions are valid suggestions but this means someone needs to write a script to scan through emails either in your inbox (in waynes case) or in a list archive (as per Mick's recommendation) and pull out senders addresses, compile them in a list and then remove any duplicates. This would give us a list of subscribed users apart from anyone that has unsubscribed would then be re-subscribed if we used this script output to recompile the list members. So you could either extend you script to remove and addresses that have sent an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject to the mailing list address (or what ever the criteria is) or a list admin could just once a month or one a quarter tar up the list subscribers which to me seems much more straight forward, quicker and accurate? -- Regards, James ;) Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach - "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marie_von_ebnereschenbac.html
On 24 Feb 11:26, James Bensley wrote:
On 24 February 2010 09:36, mick <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:57:41 +0000 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
Well any of the list admins (there are a few) could get a list of current subscribers manually. Archives are available to all as gzipped files and to be honest backup of these needn't be kept 100% up to date because recent messages will already exist in multiple mailboxes amongst the subscribers, as I say I have back to 2003 in a more or less complete state and I can't be the only one.
How about adding the list to marc.info? Not only would be get an on-line archive, but also a potentially wider readership (=promotion).
Mick
Both of your suggestions are valid suggestions but this means someone needs to write a script to scan through emails either in your inbox (in waynes case) or in a list archive (as per Mick's recommendation) and pull out senders addresses, compile them in a list and then remove any duplicates. This would give us a list of subscribed users apart from anyone that has unsubscribed would then be re-subscribed if we used this script output to recompile the list members. So you could either extend you script to remove and addresses that have sent an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject to the mailing list address (or what ever the criteria is) or a list admin could just once a month or one a quarter tar up the list subscribers which to me seems much more straight forward, quicker and accurate?
The list of subscribers is *not* the same as the list of people that have posted... We have some long time lurkers (I'm sure). So, using a scan through the archive would be a very bad way of deducing the subscriber list. Also, many addresses in there may no longer exist (e.g. iDunno@sommitrealweird.fsnet.co.uk - my address before I got a real domain name... when I was using freeserve dialup). We already have an online archive... it's, erm, at: http://lists.alug.org.uk/pipermail/main/ Ho hum, -- Brett Parker
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:36:49 +0000 Brett Parker <iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
We already have an online archive... it's, erm, at: http://lists.alug.org.uk/pipermail/main/
Ho hum,
Errm yes I know.... But the earlier discussion has all been about resilence in case of various people being captured by aliens/falling under buses/having hissy fits or whatever and us losing access to the past. lists.alug.org.uk and the archive are both on the same server (or at least at the same IP address in a block registered to Jonathan (noodles)), marc.info isn't. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On 24-Feb-10 11:36:49, Brett Parker wrote:
On 24 Feb 11:26, James Bensley wrote:
On 24 February 2010 09:36, mick <mbm@rlogin.net> wrote:
On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:57:41 +0000 Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk> allegedly wrote:
Well any of the list admins (there are a few) could get a list of current subscribers manually. Archives are available to all as gzipped files and to be honest backup of these needn't be kept 100% up to date because recent messages will already exist in multiple mailboxes amongst the subscribers, as I say I have back to 2003 in a more or less complete state and I can't be the only one.
How about adding the list to marc.info? Not only would be get an on-line archive, but also a potentially wider readership (=promotion).
Mick
Both of your suggestions are valid suggestions but this means someone needs to write a script to scan through emails either in your inbox (in waynes case) or in a list archive (as per Mick's recommendation) and pull out senders addresses, compile them in a list and then remove any duplicates. This would give us a list of subscribed users apart from anyone that has unsubscribed would then be re-subscribed if we used this script output to recompile the list members. So you could either extend you script to remove and addresses that have sent an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject to the mailing list address (or what ever the criteria is) or a list admin could just once a month or one a quarter tar up the list subscribers which to me seems much more straight forward, quicker and accurate?
The list of subscribers is *not* the same as the list of people that have posted... We have some long time lurkers (I'm sure). So, using a scan through the archive would be a very bad way of deducing the subscriber list. Also, many addresses in there may no longer exist (e.g. iDunno@sommitrealweird.fsnet.co.uk - my address before I got a real domain name... when I was using freeserve dialup).
We already have an online archive... it's, erm, at: http://lists.alug.org.uk/pipermail/main/
Ho hum, -- Brett Parker
Hmmm ... from: http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main main list run by mail at johnwoodard.co.uk, adam at thebowery.co.uk, page.rob at gmail.com So surely at least one of these woould be willing and able to login to the admin page, visit the list of subscribers, and extract it for future use? Or am I missing something? Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 24-Feb-10 Time: 12:10:24 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On 24 February 2010 11:36, Brett Parker <iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk> wrote:
The list of subscribers is *not* the same as the list of people that have posted... We have some long time lurkers (I'm sure). So, using a scan through the archive would be a very bad way of deducing the subscriber list. Also, many addresses in there may no longer exist (e.g. iDunno@sommitrealweird.fsnet.co.uk - my address before I got a real domain name... when I was using freeserve dialup).
This is my point. Although people are saying we have a list archive and many people have been long time list members who have everyones email address in emails they have received from the list over time; we need a list admin to make an actual backup of the list subscribers and any settings so that it can be backed up off of the server. On 24 February 2010 12:10, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
Hmmm ... from: http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main
main list run by mail at johnwoodard.co.uk, adam at thebowery.co.uk, page.rob at gmail.com
So surely at least one of these woould be willing and able to login to the admin page, visit the list of subscribers, and extract it for future use?
Or am I missing something? Ted.
Thats what I would hope for. Like my backups of the wiki data, I offer my VPS as a place to also backup the list data. Brett I am guessing will probably make the same offer? Others would also be great. -- Regards, James ;) Pablo Picasso - "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pablo_picasso.html
On 24/02/10 13:37, James Bensley wrote:
Thats what I would hope for. Like my backups of the wiki data, I offer my VPS as a place to also backup the list data. Brett I am guessing will probably make the same offer? Others would also be great.
There may be data protection issues for anyone storing the list? I'd suggest at least that once it has been decided that someone (or more than one person) will hold backups of the list membership, then a message should be sent to the list explaining what will be done and by whom so that anyone who wishes to can remove themselves from the list first. The policy should then be documented to new subscribers, either in the welcome email or on the list website (preferably the latter, or even better both). I, for one, and more than happy to trust any of the people who have suggested that they will hold this data, but then I'm not a lurker so my details are in the public domain anyway. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
On 24 February 2010 13:45, Mark Rogers <mark@quarella.co.uk> wrote:
On 24/02/10 13:37, James Bensley wrote:
Thats what I would hope for. Like my backups of the wiki data, I offer my VPS as a place to also backup the list data. Brett I am guessing will probably make the same offer? Others would also be great.
There may be data protection issues for anyone storing the list?
I'd suggest at least that once it has been decided that someone (or more than one person) will hold backups of the list membership, then a message should be sent to the list explaining what will be done and by whom so that anyone who wishes to can remove themselves from the list first. The policy should then be documented to new subscribers, either in the welcome email or on the list website (preferably the latter, or even better both).
I, for one, and more than happy to trust any of the people who have suggested that they will hold this data, but then I'm not a lurker so my details are in the public domain anyway.
--
There should be no data protection issues here. Just having your name and email address isn't enough. I believe the minimum requirements of stored personal data in order to make it applicable to The Data Protection Act 1998 is name, DOB and address. I'm not ever sure if email address falls under the scopre of the DPA. Also its arguable if people put in their real names! -- Regards, James ;) Samuel Goldwyn - "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/samuel_goldwyn.html
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 02:16:05PM +0000, James Bensley wrote:
There should be no data protection issues here. Just having your name and email address isn't enough. I believe the minimum requirements of stored personal data in order to make it applicable to The Data Protection Act 1998 is name, DOB and address. I'm not ever sure if email address falls under the scopre of the DPA. Also its arguable if people put in their real names!
Quite right, there is no data protection issue here. Anyhow, I've already got a backup of the list members although it is out of date so I should probably get a new copy tonight. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.
On 20 February 2010 17:02, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
Hi people,
Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server.
(thanks Noodles!)
A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding!
You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know.
Thanks Adam
Much thanks from the entire ALUG community to Noodles for this it is appreciated. Cheers, BJ
At Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:02:55 +0000, Adam Bower wrote:
Hi people,
Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server.
(thanks Noodles!)
A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding!
You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know.
I still have the code for the NextMeeting macro which I wrote for the ALUG wiki and which is attached to this message (I hope). You call it with one or two arguments. The first is the LOCATION of the meeting and should be either the string "norwich" or the string "ipswich". The second is SHOW_VENUE and should be either "yes" or "no" (or "y" or "n", or "1" or "0"; default: no). <<NextMeeting(location="norwich")>> <<NextMeeting("ipswich", "yes")>> It then inserts the date and (optionally) location of the next pub meeting. If it's felt that this macro is still useful, might someone be able to install it? MoinMoin 1.6 has introduced a new macro calling syntax: <<Macro(args)>> (as opposed to the old-style [[Macro(args)]] ). -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken@jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +----------------------------------------------+ | Support open access to scholarship | | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ | +----------------------------------------------+
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:01:30PM +0000, Richard Lewis wrote:
I still have the code for the NextMeeting macro which I wrote for the ALUG wiki and which is attached to this message (I hope).
You call it with one or two arguments. The first is the LOCATION of the meeting and should be either the string "norwich" or the string "ipswich". The second is SHOW_VENUE and should be either "yes" or "no" (or "y" or "n", or "1" or "0"; default: no).
It doesn't seem happy with 1.9.1? I couldn't easily find a guide to what might have changed in the macro format since 1.6... J. -- ] http://www.earth.li/~noodles/ [] Time is an illusion. Lunchtime [ ] PGP/GPG Key @ the.earth.li [] doubly so. [ ] via keyserver, web or email. [] [ ] RSA: 4096/2DA8B985 [] [
On 21 Feb 22:01, Richard Lewis wrote:
At Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:02:55 +0000, Adam Bower wrote:
Hi people,
Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server.
(thanks Noodles!)
A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding!
You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know.
I still have the code for the NextMeeting macro which I wrote for the ALUG wiki and which is attached to this message (I hope).
You call it with one or two arguments. The first is the LOCATION of the meeting and should be either the string "norwich" or the string "ipswich". The second is SHOW_VENUE and should be either "yes" or "no" (or "y" or "n", or "1" or "0"; default: no).
<<NextMeeting(location="norwich")>>
<<NextMeeting("ipswich", "yes")>>
It then inserts the date and (optionally) location of the next pub meeting.
If it's felt that this macro is still useful, might someone be able to install it?
Liar liar pants on fire! (As we couldn't see why it wasn't working, I've been playing, the examples you gived are broken...) So, for future notes: <<NextMeeting(location=norwich)>> <<NextMeeting(ipswich, yes)>> Yes, you really don't want the quotes. HTH HAND! -- Brett Parker
At Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:44:18 +0000, Brett Parker wrote:
On 21 Feb 22:01, Richard Lewis wrote:
At Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:02:55 +0000, Adam Bower wrote:
Hi people,
Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server.
(thanks Noodles!)
A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding!
You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know.
I still have the code for the NextMeeting macro which I wrote for the ALUG wiki and which is attached to this message (I hope).
You call it with one or two arguments. The first is the LOCATION of the meeting and should be either the string "norwich" or the string "ipswich". The second is SHOW_VENUE and should be either "yes" or "no" (or "y" or "n", or "1" or "0"; default: no).
<<NextMeeting(location="norwich")>>
<<NextMeeting("ipswich", "yes")>>
It then inserts the date and (optionally) location of the next pub meeting.
If it's felt that this macro is still useful, might someone be able to install it?
Liar liar pants on fire! (As we couldn't see why it wasn't working, I've been playing, the examples you gived are broken...)
So, for future notes: <<NextMeeting(location=norwich)>> <<NextMeeting(ipswich, yes)>>
Yes, you really don't want the quotes.
Uh oh. I'm sorry, I don't know why I thought it was supposed to be quoted. Thanks very much for taking the time to re-install and test this! Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken@jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +----------------------------------------------+ | Support open access to scholarship | | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ | +----------------------------------------------+
participants (18)
-
Adam Bower -
Brett Parker -
Chris G -
David Reynolds -
James Bensley -
James Elsey -
John Woodard -
Jonathan McDowell -
Laurie Brown -
Mark Rogers -
mick -
MJ Ray -
Peter Alcibiades -
Richard Lewis -
samwise -
simon.turner＠tesco.net -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood