Forum migration / New Open OBC Forum

Hi everyone,
I am not sure if everyone knows this, but the forum admin team is about to move this forum. From what I understand, they will not be doing a full database export and migration of the posts and threads of this forum. Instead, Lise and her fellow admins will be handpicking a few posts that they personally feel are relevant and active that will be carried over.

The user registrations from this forum will be inevitably lost, so you would have to actually reregister to use this new forum of hers. I do not know if Lise or anyone in her admin team is interested in preserving the posts and threads that exist here as a static archive. For all I know the entire forum may disappear completely and all of your posts could be theoretically deleted.

I suggest that anyone who is worried about this either write to Lise (as I have done without receiving any kind of response) and ask her to reconsider this highhanded adminstration decision. At the very least I suggest backing up your own longer and more significant threads in case you want to make sure you still have it.

I will not be participating in a new forum of Lise's at a new location if she does carry on with this. Some of us were using a private forum last year, which is actually the reason this forum here ever came into existence. I have now set up a new public forum at the same place (the private forum is not visible anymore):

http://obcdialog.2.forumer.com/

Anyone can sign up there and post anything they feel like without having to worry about censorship, an exclusive admin team or having anything they write be deleted or moved. All forum decisions will be on a strictly consensus basis. I don't expect anyone from here will be much active on the new forum until this forum
gets "moved", i.e. wrecked. But if this happens I'll post the link again on my own website, http://northcascadesbuddhism.org and you can find it.

Hello forumers,

Amalia's statement is false. Please disregard it. When the forum's moved all threads will go to the new spot and the history of all will be preserved; no hand-picking going on. And I know Lise is trying to avoid having everyone re-register, but if that's the biggest hassle we face in getting to a better platform, I think most of us can deal.

I'm answering this post because Lise's offline today and I know she would want this clarified.

thanks,
Sarah

Quote :

We finally settled on vBulletin and I have been working on the new site a little at a time, copying threads over and learning the admin functions.

This is what Lise posted a couple of days ago which made me understand that she was actually attempting to hand copy over data. This is not a technically acceptable way to preserve the integrity of forum data, as any database expert will quickly confirm., even if you were actually planning on creating all of the users again 'and recreating each post and thread manually.

Quote :

Amalia's statement is false. Please disregard it.

I am glad to hear that I was mistaken about what Lise wrote above, and am reassured to hear that your team has a viable plan for carrying out this complex database operation. I look forward to hearing exactly how the proposed database migration will be carried out to make sure that no data is lost and that the integrity of all data will be maintained. In particular I would welcome a post from the technical expert who will be writing and carrying out the migration scripts to hear how he or she wants to safeguard the loss of data.

I am especially interested in how you propose to maintain the data integrity during the time between starting out the new one and the formal closing off of the old forum.
And more specifically:
-How will individual post and their replies be carried over if no user registration data can be migrated?
-How will the original posting date/edit date be preserved if they were created before the new forum exists?

I also look forward to hearing how you plan to remap the thread URIs so that the Google indexing and ranking are not lost.

And finally, I would like to point out that I do not believe you have the legal permission of anyone posting here to copy user's posts to another location.

Sorry but I just can't let this go today. It actually turns out that Forumotion makes it illegal for you to copy over any texts from this site. Notice the copyright at the bottom of this page?

Quote :

Forumotion.com is a site entirely free. We strive to offer quality service. We ask that you do not remove the copyright information and footer set up on your forums because they prove you belong to the Forumotion.com family. Every forum that has edited or removed these links will receive a warning.

let's see how it is enforced:

Quote :

The whole of the elements that you see, or read on this website is protected by the legislation about copyright. In any case, you cannot use, distribute, copy, reproduce, modify, alter or transmit the site or elements of the site, such as texts, images without having previously gotten a written permission of the company. The brands and logos which appear on the site, are owned by the company and all rights reserved. None right or license could be allotted on any of these elements without any written permission from the company or the third party who holds rights on the brand or logo which appear on the site. The company reserves the right to prosecute any patent infringement of his ownership, in front of a law court.

The full legalese is here https://www.forumotion.com/en/create-forum/terms-of-service.htm
Hmm....

Too bad no one in the admin group is interested in what anyone else has to say about this "move" technically. But perhaps the legal aspect will wake a few slumbering admins up. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I have been trying for a couple of weeks to contact Lise about this privately, without success. I guess it is too much to expect a thank you for my efforts here, but you could at least lay off the unfriendly tone, Sarah. And answer my PMs, Lise. I am only writing about this because I am worried that you guys don't know what you are doing and will wreck the forum.
Or get sued.

Amalia,

I think that Sarah's unfriendly tone is a direct result of your own. Your frequent attacks have a tendency to put people on the defensive. Perhaps if you were to stop attacking...things would be a whole lot friendlier.

Hmmm... here we all are, participating in something that is obviously meaningful to many of us. This forum, this thing we are participating in, is maintained by a group of people with one leader. They alone make all decisions, great and small. Again and again they have proved they are uninterested in what any of the active participants have to say, and react aggressively and/or condescendingly to any criticism. And when we try to approach them directly through thle acceptable channels (PM) we are ignored, despite our best intentions.

Does this sound familiar to anyone???

It makes me furious that the admins would make as important a decision as actually migrating this forum to another platform without asking us or even informing us how it will be technically done and clearly outlining all of the possible repercussions and risks. Sarah's answer above is absolutely absurd considering how much is at stake here and how complicated a forum migration is. I guess she and most people aren't worried because they don't get the technical stuff (perhaps the legal will make more of an impact?) but I do get it.

But they should be worried, which is why I have tried first in a friendly, informative to warn Lise. And so now I am frustrated and very worried. Sorry if you think I sound unfriendly now too, Laura, but I react very emotionally when confronted with highhanded, authoritarian behavior. Gee I wonder why?

@Admins

I look forward to a useful, technically informed answer to my questions.
And I request that you turn the whole question over to the registered members here once you have given us a technically informed answer in order for everyone here to be part of a consensus decision.

Thanks for posting this Amalia!

To our forum members,

As Lise is traveling today I would like to offer this information:

The forum move will occur only after the new site is ready. We know this forum is important to a number of people and we will move carefully with each stage. However, it is not a group project and no step-by-step will be given.

Thank you.

Watson

Thanks for the update Watson.

I choose to not have my words moved around, though. Are you you saying that we don't have a choice?

"...it is not a group project?" could you translate that please? What exactly are you saying? Are you saying "this is what we are doing and if you don't like it, [banned term] off?" What will happen to this forum? Will all the contents be deleted? I would appreciate that you or someone else respond to Amalia's questions as well.

~Diana

I have found the administrators to be open, helpful, attentive, and able to disagree respectfully and even have some fun. I can see no reason to have any opinion whatsoever about the proposed forum site move. The administrators will be doing all work, I am confident they will do it with integrity and accuracy. They deserve our thanks.

There is no threat to you here, Amalia. Everybody recognizes the level of suffering you have experienced. I imagine that your story makes just about every reader shudder with horror as it did me. I hate that you had to go through it but what I really am sad about is that it seems to have made you suspicious of everybody, even those who would stand behind you. It's understandable but do you see that this forum could actually be a way to release some of that burden and explore a sense of safety? This isn't the OBC. Just look at all the sympathetic posts that mention you and what a tough time you had. We're all behind you.

Polly

Lise, et. al. are totally responsibe for this forum and I thank them for their efforts.
Anyone at anytime may just "drop out" if this is not of interested to them or if it is not giving any comfort or support. There is no committment here to anything. I am always surprised how many people get overly involved in an activity or belief to the point of loosing their obvious option....walk away!

To Lise and the moderators of this forum:

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not give you my permission to copy any text that I have written to another site or to anywhere.

Thank you,
Diana

Hello Admin,

Okay, so it's taken me a couple of months to figure out how to move around here (I'm old), but I'm getting the hang of it. Can you explain again why the site is moving? Is it for ease of use?

Also, I'm not an attorney, but I do have a modicum of familiarity with laws in my current profession, and it might be wise just to double check with the owners of this site to see if in moving this site you're in compliance with your agreement to their copyright regulations. If there is any ambiguity, I wouldn't cross them. More than once I've sat there shaking my head in disbelief at what's being litigated -- I'm a court reporter now -- and in the litigations that I've been a reporter for regarding copyright laws, it's very serious business.

So just a heads up. And before I forget, Thank you for this site.

mokuan

Thank you Mokuan.

Yes, the new platform's features are easier to use and give more security protections.

We do recognize the need to comply with the laws as you and others have mentioned. We have a solicitor and other helpers for this and will proceed under their guidance, with caution.

The change-over date is some time away, but when it comes we will let everyone know what to expect and anything that may be required from a user's point of view.

Thank you.

Watson

Just had a look at Amalia's new site. At present she only has tumbleweeds for company and, sorry to say, I'm not 100% surprised. I haven't read every single thread on this forum but it seems to me that she has been treated for the most part with great kindness and patience, something that she is not always willing to reciprocate. To get so angry over threads on an internet forum being rearranged (something that happens on nearly every forum - such are the duties of mods) is sad, especially when far worse things happening in this world let's face it. For my part I don't think Lise, Watson et al have deserved any of the vitriol hurled in their direction.