Advice for the admin and staff.

[the.fatman.cometh]

ADMIN: I understand things can happen when you begin to make changes, and sometimes you have to take the site offline to make those changes.
BUT, please do two things for your DEDICATED members:

1. Please make more regular backups! I'm sick of losing posts (I lost close to 50 this time) because this isn't done. It's just good practice. If you need someone to be dedicated to doing that, I am MORE than happy to help out, so we don't deal with this again in the future.

2. As a courtesy, please forewarn us when you take the site offline. Schedule a time and make an announcement, that way the members don't try to log on to be surprised by the site being down. This is also good practice.

Also, do not take this thread the wrong way, I wouldn't post it unless it was necessary, and believe me, it's necessary.

Very well said....

[ClosetDWC]

i am going to have to say i agree on this as i have alot of tutorials on here and great stuff that we dont want to lose lol

[the.fatman.cometh]

Originally Posted by ClosetDWC

i am going to have to say i agree on this as i have alot of tutorials on here and great stuff that we dont want to lose lol

Amen to that!

[The HSIC]

Quite honestly, you have no idea how bad I feel when the shit hits the fan, and we loose even one post. That hurts alot.

So far as upgrades are concerned, once I have ver 7 gold running smoothly, we will not be upgrading again, this version has everything I need/want.

You have no idea how difficult backups are to perform. Backing up this site, is not like doing a backup of your home PC, not at all.

A remote backup makes it even harder, just our database is almost 4 gigs! Not mb's but gigabites! To back that up remotely, would require closing the site down for about 24 hours to perform that function.

You all have been very patient with me, both with donatioins and patience. I've been pouring alot of my own money into the site, no regrets.

When we are running ver 7 and a couple other upgrades that I need installed, we will be starting an aggressive ad campaign. Most likely utilizing high times.
Peace

[the.fatman.cometh]

Originally Posted by videoman

Quite honestly, you have no idea how bad I feel when the shit hits the fan, and we loose even one post. That hurts alot.

So far as upgrades are concerned, once I have ver 7 gold running smoothly, we will not be upgrading again, this version has everything I need/want.

You have no idea how difficult backups are to perform. Backing up this site, is not like doing a backup of your home PC, not at all.

A remote backup makes it even harder, just our database is almost 4 gigs! Not mb's but gigabites! To back that up remotely, would require closing the site down for about 24 hours to perform that function.

You all have been very patient with me, both with donatioins and patience. I've been pouring alot of my own money into the site, no regrets.

When we are running ver 7 and a couple other upgrades that I need installed, we will be starting an aggressive ad campaign. Most likely utilizing high times.
Peace

Vman, I have alot of respect for you, and did not in any way mean to be negative. At all. I am truly grateful for the work and funds that you put into GP, and it will pay off one day, you'll see. Does vBulletin offer a backup service or option? I have one external 500GB HDD that has 283 free GB, I am more than able to accommodate the backup, which would only require the 4GB you mentioned. Each backup, being more recent would overwrite the previous one. Even if you restrict the backup schedule to the times you upgrade or modify the site, it shouldn't be a problem, bro. I am more than happy to help in any way I can.

Also, please consider scheduling and announcing the shut down next go around, bro.

Peace and Goodwill,
theFATMAN

[The HSIC]

Hey fatman, I never took what you said as an insult, nor did it rub me the wrong way. This site is not about making money, it was never intended to make money.
This is my way of giving back to the community, by doing the right thing and spreading the word, marijuana is harmless!

Marijuana laws are what is harmful! We are filling our prisons with respectable citizens, we need to legalize!

So far as your doing the backups, I appreciate the offer, but again, the reality of doing a remote backup, is pointless. It has to be done at the point of the server.
Peace

[ClosetDWC]

i also have a cold fusion server on a external 500 gb seagate with 187gb avail still and both myself and fatman can read up on vb and help you out if you ever need ! but you are doing great job and if it goes down unexpectedly no big deal just if your going to take it down for updating or your doing a big upgrade with a long stand by time could we mabey even set up an auto e-mail or pm to members because i get even my pm's in my regular e-mail. and can check it there .... but you know that we all appreciate how hard we already got you working here and this is just a suggestion of something for the futur like after your done with all the tweaks and upgrades you got going on then mabey take a look at it

[Kieahtoka]

Hey videoman, I know out entire database is very big.. but what about backing up a certain portion? like say only data that has been created in the last week? I don't know which posts are disappearing, but doing small backups would help a little. Also, I think letting everyone know what part of the day the site will be offline would be good too. It would let everyone, even you vidman plan time to take care of things. Although hoping that we'll know everytime the database goes down is a stretch.