Forum Topic Pruning: SOS needs your help

[Forum Admin]

Whilst I understand the need for the pruning, do we need to do that on the User Reviews forum? I would have thought that this was an area with almost no duplication and worthy of saving for posterity..

Yes, I had already pegged User Reviews as a "keep all" scenario.

[Cool4music]

I'm interested to sign up.

However, is it not easier to delete any records prior to the said date from the database itself? I have worked as a dba and can assist on that activity (once the backup has been done.

[Forum Admin]

However, is it not easier to delete any records prior to the said date from the database itself?

Thanks for your kind offer, and that is precisely how our tech team will prune the database.

[cyrano.mac]

Hi Desmond,

We plan to take a full database backup prior to pruning and store it offline.

As to a text-dump, I've been told it's not a simple task since phpBB pulls in who posted, etc from our CMS user base, and it'll require our web team to spend expensive time to achieve this. That's time we don't have at present with all our other pressing projects and we urgently need to lighten the server load or we may find ourselves with patches of 'dark time', temporary Forum suspension, or any other undesirable scenario -- and commercially, that simply can't happen.

So the proposed solution is the optimal one.

I use Site Sucker...

https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/

Makes a copy of the threads you want to remove, so you can post those as static html.

Takes some time, of course. I once downloaded an entire forum like this one, but a little bigger. Took about a week. Site Sucker can adjust links to fit the new root of the site.

Some forum software has a built-in archival function. PhpBB still doesn't have that?

[Studio Support Gnome]

Just to note.....

I am (not really) mildly offended that not every single word I have ever written on this site was considered sacrosanct and of inestimable value and preserved for eternity.....

not to mention the disappearance of several thousand posts from my total count......

and then there's the whole, previous editions of forum, and legendary threads like "the Xytar affair"

I mean. server space is infinite and free isn't it ???

***** distant sound of jingles as legs with bells on are pulled , then fed through a 2.8 second reverb with a 1.3 second pre-delay with the mix on 100% *******

[Forum Admin]

Leg duly pulled Max.

Due to overloaded Web team workload, the Forum Pruning we planned has slipped back and will begin some time in the future, so everyone's got longer to report their "must save" topics to Mods. Can't say exactly when it'll start.

[Sam Spoons]

I was reminded by a question today that my "generator for a small rig" thread from a few years ago might still be valid. I flagged it up as a possible for moving to the useful information forum but left the final decision to the mods? Will flag it again as I do think it contains useful information.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Done.

[Sam Spoons]

Thanks Hugh, though it was this earlier thread I reported with a view to preserving it https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=36681#p335876

[Hugh Robjohns]

Too many Generator for a ... topics... But they are all preserved now!

...and I'm going for a lie down in a dark room. I may be some time....

[Sam Spoons]

[Ghostjax]

What do people say? You've said exactly what I was wondering. I might be new to this site but man, data this huge shouldn't be wasted.

Is there any way to export a pre-pruned text dump of the forums, which can then be hosted online?

It's a shame in the age of big data that online history might be deleted, but I understand the performance and business needs to do this. But if some kind of text archive could be exported and hosted, then at least the data would be retained and be searchable just in case, rather than have a bunch of text gone forever.

Admittedly, how much value is in those posts is probably questionable, but even so...

Or is it all just a big conspiracy to stop me reaching my 10K post count..? (Again!)

[Sounillph]

Does SOS still need help now?

[Forum Admin]

We have had to put this intended prune on the back-burner -- too many higher priorities for the WebDev team to focus on -- and will probably re-visit ways to improve Forum page-load times in early 2021.