Oolite Bulletins

maik wrote:

I remember reading something about DB locks with mysqldump. Do you know if that means that during the dump writing is disabled?

Yes. Scheduling the backup for a relatively quiet time is necessary. It only takes a few minutes even on a huge database, though, and select queries will still work.

SandJ wrote:

When we get to 50 concurrent logged-in users daily, with advertising generating income revenue, then I would suggest those times need to be shorter.

Oolite sites have advertising generating revenue?
I know there is a very small one on Smivs' sites, but apart from that?
Personally I would not have a problem with any of the sites being down for up to 48 or even 72 hours, possibly more. A nuisance, yes, but no big deal.

Gimi wrote:

Oolite sites have advertising generating revenue?
I know there is a very small one on Smivs' sites, but apart from that?

Just to put the record straight, none of my personal sites have any revenue-generating advertising.
The small link on some of them relates to a hit counter. I have hit counters on several pages (some hidden), most notably the download pages for my OXPs.
These are supplied by Amazing Counters and it's a sponsorship arrangement. They supply the hit counter and metrics and this is sponsored by the company who's link is shown.
I personally disapprove of the amount of commercialisation on websites these days, but this is a small compromise I am prepared to make as the data is so useful to me, and the 'intrusion' is minimal.

maik wrote:

Aegidian was asking for ideas to improveway access to servers, not only to oolite.org. I find your style of discussion quite destructive. It more and more sounds like you are taking it personally that my ideas of sharing access to a server are more restrictive than yours. You are wrong in that I should not offer help or resources. If they are not wanted on my terms then nobody has to take them. I made an effort to take your goals for access into account. You only seem to be happy if not only your goals are met but it is also by your way.

I had a feeling you would begin to react like this eventually.

Let me be very clear here. I'm being objective about what the community NEEDS as opposed to what COULD be done. You say that no-one has to take on your ideas, but you have thus far relentlessly pursued your ideas and haven't seemed very willing to listen to other points of view (OK, so those are mostly mine, but I can't help that others don't seem to be as concerned about this as us). What we have is a discussion that, due to our prolific posting rates, has become more-or-less a two-way conversation. Which WILL begin to be taken personally if we're not careful. To be very clear, I AM NOT TAKING THIS PERSONALLY. I only care about what is best for the community that has been a valuable, albeit small, part of my life for the past 7 years. I started this debate only with the suggestion that the media section of oolite.org needed to be easier to update, and it has ballooned into a monster of a project involving database backups and mirroring. Although all good ideas, I don't see that there is a need for things to be done to that level. If Giles has PMd you to resolve some situations with the BB then that should be a conversation between you and Giles and not used as a hammer to beat me with.

maik wrote:

You also seem to take complexity personally and become destructive, reiterating that you want things simple and that the original attempt was updating oolite.org. IIRC, there was a BB outage that resulted in message loss. My proposal reduces this risk to a minimum. It is a proposal.

I believe that complexity is the enemy of ANY project (even an "unofficial" one like this) and what you are proposing is overly complex. As I said above, the BB issue is a separate one, and was influenced by bad timing of a relatively small outage. That's no reason to roll it into an already overly complicated suggestion.

maik wrote:

I heard your wish for simplicity but unfortunately do not know a simple solution for everything. Maybe you could come forward with a solution of your own instead of aggressively going against mine. Then we can discuss this.

I believe I came up with solutions at the beginning of this debate that you shot down because they, among other stated problems, were only partly implemented. As I said then, I believe in a structured approach to any change BEFORE implementing it, and I believe in consultation with the community that your changes will affect BEFORE implementation. I'm sorry you don't agree with that, but I've learned this from 15 years of software development. Given sufficient time I am confident I could implement simple solutions to most of the problems that gave rise to this debate. However, as I don't, I would rely on assistance from the generous members of this forum who regularly step up to help with these things. At the end of the day, although the current situation is not perfect, it would NOT be affected adversely if those solutions took more time to set up! I have also repeatedly posted OBJECTIVE and CONSTRUCTIVE comment and alternatives to your proposal and have not degenerated into mud flinging.

maik wrote:

I'm looking forward to your constructive comments. Please do not share further frustration as long as it is only destructive.

SPeaking subjectively, what would you call the above comment? I have a sister-in-law who often resorts to this kind of comment to "end" an argument. The sort of thing that essentially says "please don't speak to me again, this conversation is over". It leaves too many things unresolved. I have always been keen to avoid offence and to maintain an objective point of view. As I've said before we have the opposite view on how to approach the problems discussed here, and I don't think we'll agree. However, I will continue to maintain my opinion on keeping the solution as simple as possible as I feel it is based on years of commercial software and web development experience. I'm sorry if you don't like that, but I can't help it. I don't think my opinion is any more "perfect" than yours, but I do feel that it is a more workable approach.

I have to go to a meeting, more to come.

Read my posts. I'm make proposals. I'm not demanding how someone should offer help, which I feel is what you are doing. Giles' post is in this same thread further up. I even quoted it in my post. What makes you think you know what is best for the community?

Let's take the rest to PM.

Gimi wrote:

SandJ wrote:

When we get to 50 concurrent logged-in users daily, with advertising generating income revenue, then I would suggest those times need to be shorter.

Oolite sites have advertising generating revenue?

Sorry I should have been more clear:

SandJ wrote:

In the future, when Oolite takes off, and when we get to 50 concurrent logged-in users daily, with advertising generating income revenue to subsidise the hosting, then I would suggest...

Smivs wrote:

Gimi wrote:

Oolite sites have advertising generating revenue?
I know there is a very small one on Smivs' sites, but apart from that?

Just to put the record straight, none of my personal sites have any revenue-generating advertising.
The small link on some of them relates to a hit counter. I have hit counters on several pages (some hidden), most notably the download pages for my OXPs.
These are supplied by Amazing Counters and it's a sponsorship arrangement. They supply the hit counter and metrics and this is sponsored by the company who's link is shown.
I personally disapprove of the amount of commercialisation on websites these days, but this is a small compromise I am prepared to make as the data is so useful to me, and the 'intrusion' is minimal.

My sincere apologies Smivs. I suspected as much, but it was the only one I could find on any of the sites.
Given the service you provide to the community I try to remember to click on these links for the benefit of whoever benefits when I visit. Costs me about 2 seconds.

Selezen wrote:

What we have is a discussion that, due to our prolific posting rates, has become more-or-less a two-way conversation.

Time to make it a three-way conversation then!
My first point is that this issue is not worth stressing-out over. There is always a danger when two people debate a subject from oposite viewpoints that things will get heated. Both arguements are valid, and sometimes there is not a 'right' answer. Compromise and give-and-take is the right path to follow.
It is probable that no-one else is getting involved because this concerns stuff they know nothing about. Although I have a few websites I don't know anything about server admin etc. Hence I can't speak authoritatively on these matters.
There have been issues raised about all three Oolite sites recently, and reading through the various threads it seems that some of these (wiki access for one) seem to have been resolved. The BB outage was unfortunate but generally the BB runs reliably and will probably continue to do so. The main 'issue' at the moment seems to be updating oolite.org.
Any changes made in the future should be done with the agreement of the majority of the users, and obviously must involve the 'management' (Giles and Jens) who have (wisely?) mostly kept out of this so far.
Rather than just two people publicly fighting for their causes, is there not a case here for maybe forming a team to look at this matter over a period of time. Some things do need fixing, but there is no hurry, and if a small group would be willing to consider all the options and formulate a plan to move things forward this would eventually lead to an improved and more reliable web presence for the community.
The obvious problems with this suggestion is that firstly at least one member of the 'management' should be involved and so far they have not had much input. Secondly, the team would have to go into this as a longer term project where co-operation and compromise would have to prevail, and with such different views being held this might not be easy.
Maik and Selezen are obviously both keen to move this issue forward, and I am happy to help where I can. If Jens or Giles are interested in becoming involved as well we can move things along.
I think before there is too much debate on technicallities, what should be done is some sort of mission statement. We should be agreeing on what the end result of all this debate is before we get all wrapped up in the details of how we are going to do things.
I've been following this quite closely, but as the subject is now spread over three threads it is hard to see what is what. Perhaps a good starting point is to pin down where we actually are right now.
Has the 'access to the wiki' problem been resolved satisfactorily?
Has there been any movement regarding updating and maintaining oolite.org?
Is the current thinking to continue with the various sites being independent in terms of admin/hosting?
Are there any 'real' problems with the BB?
To summarise, I feel we should take a step back and look at the big picture here, and firstly get a consensus on where we want this to go. Once a firm goal has been established, then we can decide how best to achieve that goal and implement any changes needed.

(off topic) @ Gimi - no apology necessary

SandJ wrote:

But how much risk of data loss is there?

Answering my own question:

On one occasion when I moved house, Demon made a mess of the transfer and closed my account with no notice. I had no internet presence for 8 to 12 days and all my email in that time bounced. I had to recreate my web site from my locally-stored backup.

When I had 123-reg hosting a site, twice they did a restore on all their clients' sites resulting in loss of email and, for those with dynamic content, data loss to their web sites / fora / shopping sites. (No apology was forthcoming from them.) A number of hours of data was lost, up to about 36 hours.

HostRoute do not warn you when it is time to renew your hosting, you find out because you email stops coming in. Then you discover your web site is down. When you pay the bill, it comes back. They have been like that for over two years; when it happened the second time I switched to another hosting company.

So, uncontrollable downtime does occur, and supposedly reputable hosting companies do cause data loss.

Downtime is unavoidable and there is no way to say "Please go here instead" on the home page of a down server. Our existing arrangement of a variety of different hosting solutions across different providers and fantastic 1st page cover in Google provides great resilience to downtime. I suggest we continue to spread the hosting across multiple domains and hosting companies, thereby continuing to divide the admin workload too.

Changing the domain name now to one common domain would trash countless existing links on people's own web pages as well as Google's existing database. I suggest we do not move the wiki or the forum away from their existing domain names. We don't need a single corporate brand, this is a community of volunteers and being spread out on the internet is appropriate.

Regarding data loss, whoever owns the hosting of the forum or wiki or other service should take the responsibility for occasional full backups to be held anywhere other than the server so that the configuration settings are saved, if nothing else, should the hosting company screw up.

I have not participated in this debate so far. I have posted once before, because I found it increasingly weird that it has been mostly a two-way discussion. Let me state my opinion on the subject in a couple of points, in oder to make clear why I also won't participate in this debate in the future. The short version: I don't see the problems being addressed.

1. The debate began when a problem was perceived with the look and content of oolite.org. I don't perceive a problem. I think oolite.org is fine as it is. It's basically an entry-link collection with a nice graphical front end. That's exactly what it needs to be, and when it was last discussed a while back (can't find the threads now) and the neat graphical front end was designed, everybody seemed to be happy with it.
   
   Yes, there could be some more recent screen shots on it, but this would be easily fixed by sending some appropriate screen shots to Ahruman. Can be done in five minutes. No need for a months-long debate. End of discussion.
   
   (By the way: what disturbs me most in this ever-growing debate is the complete absence of Ahruman in it. If something about oolite.org—which is Ahruman's responsibility—is perceived as needing to be discussed in-depth, I think it would be common courtesy to wait until the responsible party says something about the issue.)
2. Then another problem was perceived with the Elite wiki. I don't perceive a problem. I think the Elite wiki is fine as it is.
   
   Yes, there was a particular issue with people not getting log-ins. I understand this particular issue is fixed now. End of discussion.
3. Then another problem was perceived with this BB. I don't perceive a problem. I think the BB is fine as it is.
   
   Yes, there was the small outage over the weekend. When I got the "account was cancelled" message, I did what probably many people did. I went to other known sites in order to get more information. First I went to Oolite's twitter feed, and indeed, there was a tweet about the BB being down and more information being available on Smivs' site. So I went over there and was redirected to the IRC-channel. So I went there and had some very interesting conversations, until the BB was up again. What's the big deal? The community handled the BB-outage well and gracefully. Is there any more one could ask for? End of discussion.

So for me the case is closed at this point. There is nothing we need to address. At least not as urgently and as fundamentally as the sheer size of this discussion over various threads would suggest. And everything that contains words like "MySQL", "mirror", or even "Linux" is well over my head anyway. I couldn't contribute anything useful to it anyway.

maik wrote:

Let's take the rest to PM.

I would be reluctant to do that, as this is a public discussion about something related to the community and there are a lot of opinions and proposals even in the heated section of this debate that may be useful to the community to read if a decision is ever going to be made about it.

maik wrote:

Read my posts. I'm make proposals.

I never said you weren't. My problem is that you are implementing those proposals and putting a lot of work into them before the community as a whole has actually given their blessing. This seems heavy handed to me, as does the majority of your approach.

maik wrote:

I'm not demanding how someone should offer help, which I feel is what you are doing.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's not the case. I'm not demanding anything. I just have an opinion, and what WE have is a "difference of opinion". I have tried to accept your point of view and I feel that I have embraced compromise but you seem unreceptive.

maik wrote:

Giles' post is in this same thread further up. I even quoted it in my post.

If you mean this one (Apologies to Aegidian for involving his quote in this discussion):

Aegidian wrote:

The aim of securing access to Oolite, oxps, and the bulletin board is a noble one.

However, since the threats to these mostly arise out of the fact that the main sites are maintained by fallible individuals, putting all these sites under one roof would crystallise those threats into a single point of possible failure.

However I'm not sure what to suggest in terms of decentralisation that could help with ensuring access. There are many better brains here - let's open the search for solutions to the whole community and see how many ideas we can genereate.

...then I fail to see where "Aegidian was asking for ideas to improve access to servers" relates to that message. He suggests "open[ing] the seach for solutions to the whole community", but again you seem to have suggested your solution and, whilst criticising me for defending my point of view, are doing exactly the same. I have no issue with differences of opinion, and am open to compromise, but (at the risk of simply repeating your statements again) you seem locked onto the first solution you come up with and unwilling to bend.

maik wrote:

What makes you think you know what is best for the community?

Ego trip time for Selezen.

As I said, commercially I have 15 years experience in IT and software development (including developing the front end for a staff management system for a call centre), 3 years experience as a web development manager (designing, consulting on and maintaining 7 NHS websites using a variety of PHP, ASP and ASP.NET CMSs and the server setups they were hosted on) and 6 years experience as a software project manager (including setup and maintenance of PHP and ASP.NET-based issue management CMS applications and related software as well as the hardware they are located on). I have qualifications in MSSQL Setup and Administration and Software Development in Visual Basic.NET 2010 as well as some out of date MCPs.

Non-commercially I have maintained two PHPBB forums (including administration and server-side setup and management) one MediaWiki site, four CMS sites using various ASP, PHP and ASP.NET sites (phpNuke, NukeEdit, WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke off the top of my head), MySQL, sqLite and MSSQL databases as well as associated SSL and backup options. Personally I have experience of several CMS applications (gpEasy, WordPress, Drupal, several versions of Joomla, Nukedit, FrogCMS, MODx, Concrete5 and others I can't remember, mostly when researching "simple" solutions) and other applications (MediaWiki, pmWiki, tiddlyWiki, phpBB, SMF, Snitz Forums, YaBB and so on). to use in my webspace and others. I wrote a custom CMS to manage my webcomic after finding that none of the available solutions did the job I wanted.

I freelance design small web sites occasionally, including this one using gpEasy. I designed, maintain and occasionally update the website for a "charity" my wife and I run, which uses WordPress. I don't object to complexity ALL the time, just when I feel it isn't necessary.

That's largely the experience I'm trying to rely on to bring an objective opinion to this discussion. It's not that I "know what's best for the community" because every community is different. I don't know what's best for the community. If my knowledge and experience is useful to the community then if they want to follow any of the advice I present then that's up to them. If not, then fine. I'm not going to cry into my coffee about it. I have no desire for power here, I'm happy just contributing to discussions for the most part. I honestly wouldn't want the responsibility at the moment as I still have several issues at home that need my attention.

maik wrote:

I also suggested that I would test that first with other servers by installing the BB to gain experience with DB replication in this particular case.

I quote this to ask a question - you stated that this would give YOU experience with database replication. That's all fine and good for you personally, but how would you share this knowledge with the other people who would be responsible for the upkeep if/when you stop doing it?

That's the main crux of my drive to keep it simple. It's all fine and well us "technical experts" talking up a storm about data replication and incremental backups when the reality is that the people who become responsible for it MAY NOT HAVE THE SAME KNOWLEDGE as those who set it up. If it was just you and I, maik, who were going to be handling it, then I'd say MySQL it up and implement as much complexity into the solution as you like. That ISN'T the case, though I am confident that every member of this community is more than capable of carrying out the majority of the work, and I strongly feel that the community needs to be able to resolve situations quickly and easily.

As I keep saying, I apologise profusely if this is being perceived as becoming a personal attack. That is NOT the intent and is NOT the spirit in which I am typing these posts (I will say that when I type I tend to follow the "train of thought" pattern of typing and thus use several "colloquialisms" that could be misunderstood).

The fact is that I do feel strongly that the community deserves a solution that is easily maintainable. I don't want this to become some sort of contest in the process.

P.S. As regards McLane's comments (added as I typed this) I agree with his assessments of most of it. The issues here have, as I stated before, gone WAY out of the original scope of the discussion. The BB should be left alone. The Wiki, now that Winston has provided access, should be left alone (in contradiction to my standpoint before Winston made an appearance). Oolite.org, however, I still feel should be given a simple CMS front end to make editing easier and adding content easier. Although I personally would advocate a databaseless solution, Maik's implementation of textpattern is very good although I found the back end relatively unintuitive. But hey, that's just me!

Selezen wrote:

maik wrote:

Let's take the rest to PM.

I would be reluctant to do that

I was talking about the personal bits. But if you like...

Selezen wrote:

My problem is that you are implementing those proposals and putting a lot of work into them before the community as a whole has actually given their blessing. This seems heavy handed to me, as does the majority of your approach.

Heavy handed? Care to elaborate? I'm implementing to show what I'm talking about. Do I need somebody's blessing to implement something on my server?

Selezen wrote:

I have tried to accept your point of view and I feel that I have embraced compromise but you seem unreceptive.

I must have missed that. On the contrary, I feel I have tried to reconcile our goals and offered a solution (server access) which you criticized without offering ideas for improvement (except that it should be done your way).

Selezen wrote:

If you mean this one (Apologies to Aegidian for involving his quote in this discussion):

Aegidian wrote:

The aim of securing access to Oolite, oxps, and the bulletin board is a noble one. [...] let's open the search for solutions to the whole community and see how many ideas we can genereate.

...then I fail to see where "Aegidian was asking for ideas to improve access to servers" relates to that message. He suggests "open[ing] the seach for solutions to the whole community", but again you seem to have suggested your solution and, whilst criticising me for defending my point of view, are doing exactly the same. I have no issue with differences of opinion, and am open to compromise, but (at the risk of simply repeating your statements again) you seem locked onto the first solution you come up with and unwilling to bend.

See his first sentence. Regarding opening the search: it is open. We just don't get many proposals. Which solution are you talking about at the moment that I am locked into? BB backup? The one cim and I manage to discuss in a civilized, matter-of-fact way in this thread? "Unwilling to bend" doesn't quite nail it and is just another insult.

Selezen wrote:

That's the main crux of my drive to keep it simple. [...] I am confident that every member of this community is more than capable of carrying out the majority of the work, and I strongly feel that the community needs to be able to resolve situations quickly and easily.

Sorry, but I do not get your base assumption for this. We do not need everyone to be able to be an administrator. We need enough people. We do have enough people at the moment, already more than just a week or two ago. There will always be the odd person who has the required knowledge. After all, we are not talking about exotic products here, but mainstream from an admin point of view. And what happens if the backup server (the slave) is not available anymore and no one is able to set up a new one? Nothing. Just someone needs to find a new backup procedure that is compatible with the available knowledge and implement it. But this is beside the point. As Gimi suggested earlier, we should discuss requirements first: What are your requirements regarding data loss and restore time for the BB?

Selezen wrote:

Maik's implementation of textpattern

was moved to http://maikschulz.de/oolite-txp as it was just a demonstration.

Commander McLane wrote:

>.... Constructive thoughts.....<

What he said!

For me the majority of the solutions I do not understand and find it difficult to really see what issues are left that needs to be sorted. I'm just a dumb Test Pilot!
What I'm looking for is...
1) For a place to go to share ideas (and that is what we have here with the BB). Ok it went down for a few hours while Giles paid his electric bill but does that mean there is an issue. I just made myself a cup of tea and joined the happy bunch on IRC and I really enjoyed the company of commanders who only turn up there once in a while.
2) A place where ALL the oxp's that are released are available. Which is what we have with the Wiki.
3) A place to find out how to learn how the games coding works so that I can contribute to the community. Which is also what we have with the Wiki.
4) A place to chat in real time. That is covered with the IRC
Is it good to have a back up for all of these? Probably. Am I knowledgeable enough to provide a solution? No. But the last thing I would like to see is people who have clearly given a lot to the community lose respect for each other over it.

Anyway it is glorious sunshine here in Scotland! Time to go back to work.

maik wrote:

Heavy handed? Care to elaborate? I'm implementing to show what I'm talking about. Do I need somebody's blessing to implement something on my server?

Implementing a proposed solution then pushing it as an acceptable solution without any feedback from others on the forum (not including PMs) is what I would describe as heavy handed. Several posts (which I am not going to troll across the bb to find at this stage) implied that you felt that your solution was acceptable and the act of forging ahead with the download and implementation of content from the Wiki AFTER proving the point that it could be easily copied over is one example off the top of my head.

maik wrote:

On the contrary, I feel I have tried to reconcile our goals and offered a solution (server access) which you criticized without offering ideas for improvement (except that it should be done your way).

This particular "my way is better than your way" is a circular argument now. I feel that my simpler methodology is better than your (in my opinion) more complex solution, mostly in regards to ease of maintenance. Your server access is determined on people (apologies for the heavy handed nature of this phrase) jumping through hoops to get authorisation from you. You want people to send you copies of their passports or other photo ID before granting them access. None of their credentials related to technical know how have, to my knowledge, been vetted. In addition, these people who have sent their information to you have done so without Oolite Management being involved in the decision making process, which is another issue related to your perceived "heavy handedness". If you have involved Giles and/or Ahruman in this process then I apologise, but no evidence of this has been seen to my knowledge.

I applaud your efforts in making server space available in whatever way YOU feel is fit. I, however have a DIFFERENT OPINION. I did, however, offer an idea for improvement, which is that the security of it should not be dependent on you receiving copies of driving licenses, passports or whatever and that it should be based on forum standing and merit as well as the objective opinions of the Oolite Management. If you want to call that "doing it my way" then fine, do so. I feel you are battering me from both ends here, as in one breath you ask me to offer suggestions or alternatives and when I do you say that I am criticising or that I am "locked into my way of doing things".

maik wrote:

Aegidian wrote:

The aim of securing access to Oolite, oxps, and the bulletin board is a noble one. [...] let's open the search for solutions to the whole community and see how many ideas we can genereate.

See his first sentence. Regarding opening the search: it is open. We just don't get many proposals. Which solution are you talking about at the moment that I am locked into? BB backup? The one cim and I manage to discuss in a civilized, matter-of-fact way in this thread? "Unwilling to bend" doesn't quite nail it and is just another insult.

I find it interesting that you edited out the part of Aegidian's quote that highlights the contradiction you have introduced.

Aegidian wrote:

...However, since the threats to these mostly arise out of the fact that the main sites are maintained by fallible individuals, putting all these sites under one roof would crystallise those threats into a single point of possible failure.

However I'm not sure what to suggest in terms of decentralisation that could help with ensuring access...

maik wrote:

Sorry, but I do not get your base assumption for this. We do not need everyone to be able to be an administrator. We need enough people. We do have enough people at the moment, already more than just a week or two ago. There will always be the odd person who has the required knowledge. After all, we are not talking about exotic products here, but mainstream from an admin point of view. And what happens if the backup server (the slave) is not available anymore and no one is able to set up a new one? Nothing. Just someone needs to find a new backup procedure that is compatible with the available knowledge and implement it. But this is beside the point. As Gimi suggested earlier, we should discuss requirements first: What are your requirements regarding data loss and restore time for the BB?

Were Ahruman and/or Giles involved in selecting those who are "able to be an administrator"? If so, then your whole argument on that point is moot, and would have been rendered moot long ago if that had been made public. Apologies if I missed a message. To be honest, I haven't had a strong opinion on WHO should be made an administrator or even how many there should be. That's Oolite Management's decision to make, not yours or mine. If it makes any difference to your interpretation of what I am saying, then change the phrase "the community needs to be able to resolve" to "the selected members of the community..."
I disagree strongly with your opinion that there will always be someone around with the required knowledge. The more disparate technologies that are used, then the less likely it is that someone on the forum will have all the required knowledge.

You ask what my requirements are for the data loss and restore time. Do you want to hear/read my opinion or will this just be taken as another criticism of your choices if I have a different opinion? To be honest, as I (and others) have said, I don't feel that the BB requirements are relevant as part of this discussion other than as a knee-jerk reaction to the relatively inconsequential downtime that was experienced over the weekend. If Giles wants to task you with implementing a backup strategy then that's between you and him. Since he has asked you to poll the forum then you need to be willing to take other opinions on board, and from our conversation so far I see no evidence of you doing that, or maybe that's just your reaction to me personally.

I have no experience of backing up phpBB installations. The phpBB admin panel has a backup option there that allows the database to be backed up and restored quickly and easily. Maybe that would be a good option? If that doesn't back up the site content, then there are several lightweight site backup utilities that can be installed and run from within a site.

Now you'll probably feel like throwing the whole complexity thing back at me. Well, go ahead. As I said before there are complex things that need doing that need complex solutions. Backing up a DB-based website is fairly complex and will need tools to do it, so there's no choice.

I find it interesting that after you asked for some reason why I think I know what the community needs you had no comment to make on the response to that. Again, this reinforces my opinion that no matter what I say, you will disagree with me as a matter of principle, which saddens me. Contrary to maik's opinion, I have no emotional baggage related to this conversation. It has neither made me angrier or more frustrated than my usual background levels of irritation at the world in general. I have no responsibility to the community and no power to change anything. I just made a suggestion and wanted to share my experience if it would be useful.

Apologies to the community for again being the one to apparently cause an argument.

Just to recap. In my opinion the website needs a simple CMS (textpattern, gpEasy or whatever other options someone likes) in order to be easier to update. The Wiki should stay where it is, unless there is a continued drive to make cim's (I think) idea of using the wiki as oolite.org the accepted one. I have no opinion on the BB backup strategy as this was not something raised in the initial "updated media" discussion. I feel that the disparate file hosting needs to be consolidated somewhere. And I feel that access to the back end servers needs to be opened up to whoever Oolite Management feel would be appropriate. That's it. If others have other opinions then I have absolutely NO objection to them but WILL respond if I think something is a bad idea. Likewise I have no issue dealing with someone thinking that my ideas are bad ones but, as noted, will defend them if I feel my personal experience differs from someone else's.

Shall I propose to sleep over the discussed topic for a while, I do not see any point this discussion is going to have a solution at the end by the way it is going.