Outages
I would like to thank you all for your patience during the recent outages. Something is causing a problem with the database itself. It appears to be running out of room and thus having problems when creating backups. This is not a new phenomenon - NCommander observed that the database was corrupted in Nov/Dec 2022, and he fixed the corruptions that were present at that time. I know that others have done similar 'repairs' over the years. Those of you who have been with us a while will know that we have had various site outages since the site's inception in 2014. We try to get the site up as quickly as possible but we currently have a single active sys-admin who has to find the time to fix the site in between running his own business and having a decent work/life balance. The cause of these corruptions has not been identified despite speculation by some individuals.
New Site
The administration associated with creating a business continues and we think that we are now at the final stage. The paperwork has to be signed by several people and this means sending mail around the USA in order to get real signatures from specific individuals. However, we think that this should only take a week or two.
Deleting Spam
For the last month or so we have been deleting Spam from the Polls and journals. Deleting content is not new. Spam, doxxing, abusive material, CEOS, inappropriate ASCII art etc has often been deleted in the last 10 years. In fact, most of our registered community have the ability to delete some material (their own journals for example), and this has happened from time to time in the past. We also delete outdated submissions on a daily basis. The site software provides a means of making such deletions and it can cope with them. The software that is being used is not new - it has been in Rehash since the site became active. We have received some positive feedback regarding this measure - the Polls and journals are looking much tidier as a result. Unfortunately, we are going to temporarily suspend this measure to simplify the investigations into the database corruption problems. So, as unsightly as they are, we will be returning to the use of Spam moderations on a hopefully temporary basis. We have, of course, also received some negative feedback but it only seems to have come from a couple of Anonymous Cowards, one of whom is our most prolific spammer.
Participation
Finally, I would like to thank the staff for their continued efforts in keeping the site online and active. The participating user count continues to climb, as does the number of pages served each day. Many usernames that have existed for a long time but appear to have been inactive for a while are reappearing and participating in the discussions. I hope that we will soon be able to restructure our site in an affordable yet more robust structure in the very near future.
Jan
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Thursday March 28, @11:35AM
Thanks for all the hard work you put in to keep the site going.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28, @02:11PM (4 children)
I, for one, will miss our spam-deleting overlords.
Well, thanks for all the work, and keep it up.
I would urge spammers to practice moderation lest any bridges to sanity here get knocked over.
--
-Don McLean, American Pie
--
-Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28, @02:16PM (2 children)
Whoops. Forgot this...
--
-Rolling Stones
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 28, @03:02PM
-Rolling Stones
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday March 28, @07:38PM
You make a groan man crah.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday March 28, @02:32PM
You can of course restrict access to your journals, but I understand that is not what you want to do.
Selecting access restrictions can only be done on the very first page of journal creation - after that the permissions are fixed. The setting that you would probably benefit from would be logged-in users only. Logged in members can still post as Anonymous Coward and I don't think that you will lose many genuine comments.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Freeman on Thursday March 28, @02:52PM
Well, you know at least one person who will be happy. Assuming happiness is obtainable by them.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"