Faol site migration 2024

Missing Emails.
Sorry about that… I pruned unused accounts and migrated things over.
Script took about 10 hours to complete - ick
Unfortunately about 6000 emails got queued up and I missed it.
That flooded the mail server and it rate limited me. GRRR

I could NOT migrate the passwords - the one way encryption of the old bb is not compatible with the new bb. So… youll have to tell login you forgot your password and hopefully it will work next time.

If not I’ll go enroll in a more robust mail server and cut that part over.

As to the Web Site…

Like the phoenix - it will rise from it’s ashes :slight_smile:
It may take a bit to get to it though.
I want to get this into the bb so we get comments etc.

I am going to ask senior level members that desire to step up.
I’ll let this group ack the new members. Bots emails are pretty easy to spot.
and the group will get the ability to take down bad actor posts or vote for it at least.

The old stuff was over a decade old, and was woefully insecure.
thanks all…

Thanks, Ron. Your work is appreciated and hopefully it will lead to a resurgence of interest in the board.

its been a frustrating week for sure.

am going to be looking for a bunch of senior moderators so we can let new people in and deal with bad behavior.

might reach out to you and others if you are interested

I’ll help if I can, but you should know that my computer skills have not evolved much since I took a programming course fifty years ago. I don’t know how much help mostly forgotten FORTRAN will be.

I completely understand why the update was needed (and thanks for the work) but pruning emails that haven’t been used in just 30 days seems a bit drastic. Some of us are gone from home for longer periods than that, and some of us simply have nothing new to, but will reply to interesting topics.

You misunderstood…

300 accounts had no activity AND NO POSTS and no email. How then do you suggest I validate who they are? Or even contact them? How would they validate themselves and set up a new password?

That did not even include the thousands of logins with valid emails and no activity and no posts for a year that i removed.

There is a reason everything was burned to the ground and restored.

Note to all new members …
If you register be engaged and post SOMETHING.
I WILL PRUNE UNUSED ACCOUNTS WITH NO POSTS IN THE FUTURE
If you want the advantages of the site maintaining status etc… that comes with membership : PARTICIPATE (or risk removal)

The old system was insecure.
The BB would not allow me to update PHP and that is not good.
Well… It would if I spent a grand on upgrading the BB software I suppose.
We had way too many spammers trying to get in, a bit of data corruption…
And no income to hire someone to maintain it. Just costs.
My choice was either take drastic action and get something a bit more self regulating or shut down FAOL.

I hope to revitalize this site to the point the Google ad at least pays for FAOL hosting.
Most people over the last decade or so have found other homes. Ill be putting a resources category up for people to list their favorites. FAOL will be a resource for its members… Active members. or the plug gets pulled. There is no money to be made, and any other course of action requires more maintenance than I am able to provide.

Love the artwork .
Just what the site needs to carry the past
into this new beginning. Honoring those great
people that started this site and all that kept it running
until this day.
Ron you done good! Stay safe.
Peace

Steve Molcsan