Hunting for a new home for the Fellowship

[tinidril]

I've always just copied and pasted each comment, one by one, into a single document to preserve a line of conversation. Anyone know of something better out there?

Yes, there is a faster way: right-click on the page background, choose "Save as" from the menu, find a folder in your hard drive (or make one) to keep the pages. The images will be packaged up and downloaded along with the page code. The downside is I think each page will have to have its own corresponding folder of images, but if you don't mind the duplicates, it's fast

I was going to suggest changing the filenames to make them more intuitive, but I'll have to do some testing to see if changes in the page file name cause the images to stop loading into the page.

You could create a very rudimentary index.htm with a list of headings for each forum and sub headings for each thread each with a list of page links. That would be quite a lot of work, but much less work than the kind of copy/pasting job you've tried before

Edit: experimented with changing the file name... IF YOU MAKE THE CHANGE AT DOWNLOAD, the corresponding folder of images will be similarly changed. So if you forget and just download the page, you can still change the filename, but you MUST also change the image folder name to match.

So, when you right-click the background of a page, it automatically names the page and image folder according the the Forum and Thread titles. Add a page number to the end and you'll be able to more easily assemble an index page to pull it all together. I'll do a thread sample with index and post a link to it so you can see what it would look like.

[tinidril]

I'm still waiting for my real website to get straightened out, But here is an example of an archive page for one of the forum threads:

Archive of The Fellowship of Middle-earth Forums

If you click on the first page of the thread (in bullet list) the links between the pages still work, but anything linked to internal areas contained only on the actual database (like FAQ, Search, Memberlist, View more Emoticons, Reply etc) will not work. This is strictly a read-only mode.

[daughter_of_kings]

Hello again Everyone,

I do apologize most heartily to everyone. I'm letting you down. I should have found us a temporary home by now and strong-armed Firiel into helping to fix the issues here. I haven't done that, not because I don't want to, but because my RW life hasn't left me any time for it. Due to lack of funding, my "home" lab can only afford to pay me half-time now, so another lab has picked up the other half... but what that really means is that I'm working 2 full-time jobs for 1 full-time paycheck. On top of that, our ISP has been sold to another company, and lately our ability to connect to the internet at all - formerly pretty reliable - has become sporadic.

I may have told you that before. I know that I meant to tell you. I don't know, because although I'm able to log in, I can't open most of the threads here. Even this thread, I can open the current page, but not any of the previous pages. I did get one previous page to open, but when I navigated away, I couldn't get back. I did see that someone posted they can't get to their profile... I can't either (get to my own profile or, as admin, see yours).

Anyway, I still intend (but we know where good intentions lead, don't we?) to live up to my responsibilities here. I may have mentioned before that I've been trying to talk Firiel into taking over the technical end of things, and I thin I was pretty close to succeeding, but she just changed jobs and moved from Texas to Oregon, so she's been almost as busy as me, and... well, we haven't talked about it in a while.

When I last had a moment, I was looking into either Dreamwidth or one of the freebie forum hosts as a temporary measure. We had discussed a permanent move, but when it comes down to it, everyone seems to like it here, so having a temporary shelter while we (and by "we", I mean someone better at the technical stuff than me) rebuild the boards here.

Several folks have stepped forward - Yar, I know, and others - to say they would continue to pay the rent on this place if we stay here... and all our things are here... so I think it's a good idea, if indeed, we can get the functionality going again. (Not that I'm sure we can trust my judgement at this point.)

I'm going to do my best, however poor that may be, to fix this (unless Prim fires me for incompetence and hires a new Steward). At least, I will find my notes to myself on temporary housing and set up a shelter where folks can at least check in and chat.

In the meantime, I saved a list a while back of user email addresses of everyone who has been active here in the past couple years, from your user profiles, so that I would have a way to contact everyone in case the boards failed completely. If you have changed email addresses recently, or think the email in your profile is one that isn't good anymore, please email me at kelli@kochan-us.net, and tell me your screen name, so I can update the list.

[tinidril]

I did get access to my personal website and tested some ideas. This shows how my method would work But since the internal links are still set to access this website it would take some editing to change those links to be internal to the host account.

I have a plugin for my browser which allows me to find the code for any part of a page. In this way, each page can have updated navigational links/buttons without me having to wade through miles of complicated php code.

[Tari]

Thanks to Prim for financing the next two years. I would be more than happy to contribute something for the future.

[Bregalad]

I have also not been around for a very long time, as work and personal situations got in the way, but just retired a couple of weeks ago and will start visiting more often. I'm glad this site is still around. I am also not on FB or any of the other social media. Definitely have not heard good things (on balance) about FB from those I know that are on it.

I will contribute whatever is needed and would love for this forum to stay, but if that is not possible, I vote for Dreamwidth as that seems to include the best options.

[Strange Elf]

Yay, Bregalad! Good to see an old friend visiting.

[Primula]

Well folks, with this abode being as outdated as it currently is, it is looking like the wiser choice may be to go ahead with Dreamwidth or similar, as it would still allow us to have a moderated, dedicated community but would remove the need for maintaining things on the tech side.

It also means we are not leaning on any one member or their family, so all are free to come and go as they prefer without worries, if something goes wrong with the tech it will not be our headache. We would (of course) leave many markers to show anyone looking for us where we are - even if these forums are eventually down, bookloaf.net will continue to display a pointer to the new digs.

I'll put up a poll so we can be sure we're together before we move anywhere, ultimately this has to be a community decision.

[AnnaEstel]

I'm on board with anything. I know not much happens here but it's nice to know it's still around. And even if we become a smaller community, it will be comforting to know that a version of us is still in this world. Point the way, we will follow!

[Strange Elf]

I will also go where you go, and follow you, even to Mount Doom. HA!

I check the board everyday, its part of my life.

[Tari]

I will go to wherever you decide to move to and will try to log on more often. There are a lot of stories for me to read.

[Linaewen]

I'm with you! I do really want to stay in touch with this community, and I wil try to actually do that by logging in more often and also being present and available in the new place!

[Bregalad]

Good to see you too, Strange Elf. I retired a little over a month ago, so have more free time and plan to spend some of it reacquainting with old friends. Cheers!!!

[Primula]

I'm going to start posting this link here and there - this post can also be found on its own at Shire News but here it is:

http://lotrfellowship.dreamwidth.org

This is our new community there - it is set up so you have to join to post, and at the moment I'm the only "working mod" but I'll get y'all approved as quickly as I can. Basic DWth accounts are FREE, go to "create account". You can get a paid account for yourself if you would like to play with more icons.

Please be aware at this point the appearance, coloration and such may still change a bit; we will be tweaking as we are able, I'd like to find a way to keep us from having to scroll so much to see the stickies and below them for instance. We'll see how it goes!

Also, "Eru Iluvatar" isn't a person, it is a god-mod account so even if we have people come and go, it can function as a generic admin. Eru will not speak to us much, but he is useful for creation.