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A mostly futile plea


Azrael Alexander

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Did you know in every house I have lived in, which would be 2 during my childhood with the recent addition of my student digs. I always made sure I kept my collection of family photos next to the front door. The reasoning behind the placement has always been that in the event of a fire and once ensuring there is no one is trapped inside the building I would be able to simple grab the boxes of photos and save them. Why would I want to save these photos is probably one of the first questions that pops into your head. The fact is after the people in the building they are in my mind the most important thing I own. Everything else could burn down and I would not give a flying fark (I say that but after a while the loss of my laptop and HD TV would piss me off) but the photos I would risk a moderate burning for (my self preservation instinct would kick in at some point). And the reason is that those photos for me are filled with memories. Sure I can easily think back event of the captured images, but nothing brings back the flood of remembrance like seeing the picture of me holding a local newspaper with my self on the front page. I grew a freaking big sunflower when I was in primary school in case your wondering. And when I say "I" I actually mean my class but it works better my way as an anecdote. Or seeing a small a5 sized photo of my grandfather as a smiling boy in his sepia toned world. They say a picture paints a thousands words and their right.

This brings me neatly to my point and reason for creating this thread. I know the MHA is not the most loved or liked of alliances. I know we don't play the game in the way most expect the #1 alliance to do. I know were not saints and we have made mistakes in the past. I personally have to apologise to Atlantis to put it frankly we were ****s. But in early 2009 our forums were taken from us by a rogue site admin DFD a fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy. We were able to easily relocate to our [url="http://www.mostlyharmlessalliance.com"]current forums[/url] and was able to rebuild the infrastructure thanks to our dedicated membership. Fast forward a bit to karma and the vox resistance and it turned out the MHA boards were reactivated and someone claiming not to be DFD had been given admin access to the boards. My assumption always was that it was Vox or possibly DFD messing about with us as it was unknown to us at the time that he was able to view member to member PMs. Anyhoo after threatening to release the most sensitive stuff the unknown person takes the boards down again with message that read similar to this.

"I did not know how much the boards were worth ;)"

Now it was recent nostalgia the made me try the way back machine to see if anything remained of the MHA boards. Alas there was nothing and it saddens me that a large period of the MHA's history is lost to our newer members. While it may seem MHA is new hat we are in fact one of the oldest alliances around but there are no photo's for our member to view. No "Should we join the initiative" topic to read. So my plea while mostly futile is simple. Does anyone know anything that would help me get the database and boards back. Because the answer I expect is to be a torrent of No's and I don't wish to waste a topic. How would you feel if all of your old forums/archives were made public? As the forums that were lost to the MHA are now two years out of date I can't say I would mind. The MHA then different to the one it is now.

Thank for your patience.

A humble old hitchhiker

http://mostlyharmlessalliance.org/forums/

Edited by Azrael Alexander
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There is only a moderate possibility that if it was an IPS hosted community you could contact them to see if they kept records of the forums. Otherwise the data is lost assuming DFD himself does not have a backup somewhere for his own collection or another former root admin. Those forums went offline about a year ago if I remember correctly, and they were IPB.

http://www.invisionpower.com/company/contact.php

Feel free to contact them and give them all the information you remember of the forums to see if they can help you.

My guess would be no, if I remember correctly they put [i]all[/i] the burden on the owner to store proper backups of their forums, but I think that would be a bit foolish from an owner's standpoint (of IPS) to not have backup databases somewhere collected automatically.

Hope this helps at all.

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[quote name='Azrael Alexander' date='16 July 2010 - 08:31 PM' timestamp='1279326673' post='2375251']
How would you feel if all of your old forums/archives were made public? As the forums that were lost to the MHA are now two years out of date I can't say I would mind. The MHA then different to the one it is now.
[/quote]

It would be pretty cool if a lot of alliances that have old forums decided to make them public.

CSN's old forums are interesting because during Gino's reign we were really big on writing "diplomatic reports" for every alliance or incident around. Some of them are pretty amusing.

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[quote name='Azrael Alexander' date='17 July 2010 - 03:31 AM' timestamp='1279326673' post='2375251']
Now it was recent nostalgia the made me try the way back machine to see if anything remained of the MHA boards. Alas there was nothing and it saddens me that a large period of the MHA's history is lost to our newer members.
[/quote]

Are you sure? I did find something after using the Way Back Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mostlyharmlessalliance.org/forums/
But from what I saw you'll only be able to recover a few public topics. Maybe you'll have more luck if you could ask any of the people that had administrator right on the forums if they have any kind of backups on their HDD or on a CD/DVD. That's how I found part of my old blog(on a dusty CD in my desk drawer).

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[quote name='Banksy' date='17 July 2010 - 12:21 PM' timestamp='1279365690' post='2375709']
It's sad that you lost your forums. If someone still has control of them it is disgusting that they wont give them back (or, in fact, that they removed them in the first place).
[/quote]

It has always been my suspicion that DFD our former admin gave some access to members of the CN community and even possibly sold the site/database to such a person. I'm hoping that person he sold it to will have been an active member or a player in CN who has been around for a while. While they may not wish to admit publicly they have the database I would love it if they were to contact me or even host it for all to see (hopefully omitting any personal info of coarse). But in the end if anything it a lesson for any alliance to keep backups and never have the control of a forum left to one individual in the community.


[quote name='lonewolfe2015' date='17 July 2010 - 06:00 PM' timestamp='1279385991' post='2375942']
There is only a moderate possibility that if it was an IPS hosted community you could contact them to see if they kept records of the forums. Otherwise the data is lost assuming DFD himself does not have a backup somewhere for his own collection or another former root admin. Those forums went offline about a year ago if I remember correctly, and they were IPB.

http://www.invisionpower.com/company/contact.php

Feel free to contact them and give them all the information you remember of the forums to see if they can help you.

My guess would be no, if I remember correctly they put [i]all[/i] the burden on the owner to store proper backups of their forums, but I think that would be a bit foolish from an owner's standpoint (of IPS) to not have backup databases somewhere collected automatically.

Hope this helps at all.
[/quote]

Thank you for the advice lonewolfe2015. I have contacted them and eagerly await a reply but as you predict the chances are going to be slim. But...well the topic title already alluded to that.


[quote name='Lord Brendan' date='17 July 2010 - 06:31 PM' timestamp='1279387853' post='2375979']
It would be pretty cool if a lot of alliances that have old forums decided to make them public.

CSN's old forums are interesting because during Gino's reign we were really big on writing "diplomatic reports" for every alliance or incident around. Some of them are pretty amusing.
[/quote]

It would really allow us to see the real characters of alliances in the past and see what they really thought about things. I for one would love to see the logs during the great patriotic war.


[quote name='Anu Drake' date='17 July 2010 - 06:35 PM' timestamp='1279388107' post='2375984']
And can we get the old tC forums back in the meantime :)
[/quote]

Old friend I have most of the big topics of discussion archived somewhere for posterity for you i'll dig them out. It might make for an interesting issue of Don't Panic.

[quote name='ratonbox' date='17 July 2010 - 06:47 PM' timestamp='1279388821' post='2376002']
Are you sure? I did find something after using the Way Back Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mostlyharmlessalliance.org/forums/
But from what I saw you'll only be able to recover a few public topics. Maybe you'll have more luck if you could ask any of the people that had administrator right on the forums if they have any kind of backups on their HDD or on a CD/DVD. That's how I found part of my old blog(on a dusty CD in my desk drawer).
[/quote]

Backups were limited and those are well the topics no one remembers (boring stuff).

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The old CN forums are disappearing post by post. I tried to go to some links in the wiki's of old events and alas the stuff has been deleted by the host. I talked to admin about losing CN history and he said there is nothing that can be done. Kinda sad that the most interesting period in the game is going to be lost eventually.

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I hope you find what you're looking for. It's a shame if you can't :(


[quote name='Lord Brendan' date='17 July 2010 - 06:31 PM' timestamp='1279387853' post='2375979']
It would be pretty cool if a lot of alliances that have old forums decided to make them public.

CSN's old forums are interesting because during Gino's reign we were really big on writing "diplomatic reports" for every alliance or incident around. Some of them are pretty amusing.
[/quote]

Imagine if GATO released some of the stuff on our old forums. Alot of history there.

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My heart goes out to you guys...take LW's advice though, and talk to bros2, that guys a genius. This really is injustice, especially for such a harmless alliance ;)

EDIT: I'm thinking topic of the year possibility here...

Edited by Caleb279
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