admin
18-06-2011, 23:48
Good evening everyone.
You may or may not be aware that all the moderators and administrators of the Tenerife Forum met on Sunday 5th June to discuss the current situation and the plans for the future. I am now reporting that back to you, the membership, to inform you of our resolutions and to invite your comments.
1. TenerifeForum.com/TenerifeForum.org
Despite many attempts, Zarion has still not replied to any contact (this is still true another week after the meeting), so we discussed what will happen over the next month if there is still no return.
As you all know, Doreen paid 2 months outstanding hosting fees for approximately 350$ in order for us to try and recover the old database and posts. The database will remain there until we cease to pay for the old hosting account, however this can not continue indefinitely and we are still awaiting a reply from the host to see if we can gain access to the database, as they are examining the legalities involved.
We still have access to the old forum admin area, but unfortunately not to the FTP or Database admin, which is needed to download the actual SQL files to restore the forum here. As the hosting is in Zarion's name, unless the host deems it legal to do so, we may not be possible to gain access to this and therefore the only way to recover the data would be by cut & paste, which is not really a viable solution for over 500,000 posts. This would also not help with recovery of accounts and private messages.
We therefore decided that as 2 months have already passed without contact from zarion (2 months outstanding hosting), we will allow until the end of month for his return, but will be informing the host that we will not be renewing.
So, this basically means that if zarion does not contact us in the next 2 weeks, we will not be renewing the hosting and all PMs and posts will be lost if we are not given access to the old forum database.
The mods will be trying to recover the most important information during this next couple of weeks by cut and paste, but this will only be relevant information posts that are still in-date. We will be contacting the original poster on each occasion to request their permission to repost information here, and if at all possible, we will assign the information to the original poster.
If, after a month there is still no reply from zarion, the old forum and all the data will disappear and we will be left to rebuild this one.
To be honest, a lot of the old information could well be out of date now, so this may not be all bad. We do not want to start up the old forum installation again, as it has many bugs that we simply cannot fix if zarion does not return.
***UPDATE : The information above was correct at the time of writing, however Zarion HAS now contacted us. He sent Kirsty an email last Monday asking for her to call him with a phone number. She has since tried the number no less than 5 times, but is met with a 'number does not exist' message every time.
The number has been given to Doreen to see if she can get any result, but up to now she has not, so the jury is still out on what will happen.
Zarion HAS redirected the .com name to google and the old database has disappeared as far as we can see, so we assume the hosting has been cancelled, however the email was of a friendly nature and we believe good intentions were being made with an end to sort out some sort of agreement, however without an answer to numerous phone calls to the one number we have, we cannot elaborate on it at present.
2. Association of Members
We decided to investigate the possibility of setting up the forum as an 'association'. This will mean that we will be a not-for-profit entity that is governed by its' members. This will be discussed further and announced in the future, should a need for it actually arise.
3. Donations
We have added a donate button to the forum. At present, donations are being collected in Kirsty's paypal account until our official account is set up.
Discussions will be held at a later date as to how these donations will be used - Either for forum running costs, or donated on members' behalf to a charity of our choosing. Until such time the donations will not be touched.
All donations are logged on the forum database, as well as on Paypal.
4. Regular Meetings
We aim to hold regular meetings in the future. As with other types of communities in Tenerife, such as complexes, we would like to have at least one open meeting a year which any members can attend. This will be discussed on thread and arranged at a later date. We also welcome any suggestions for discussion for future meetings.
Minutes from meetings will be made public on the forum for all members to see and comment on.
5. Moderation
We think we have a good group of moderators that are not overly-zealous, and keep the forum in good order most of the time, however we are aware that there have been situations where moderator comments have been considered over the top or not in the context of moderation.
Whilst moderators are expected to act as neutral moderate parties in discussions, there are also times when they should be allowed to post as themselves and express their own personal opinions too, and these opinions may not be neutral or may not be considered in the role of a moderator.
With this in mind, we decided that in future, if a moderator is to enter a discussion in a non-moderatory role, they will prefix their post with 'in my personal opinion...' in order for members to distinguish between their moderation posts and personal opinions, which may differ in tone.
We would also ask that members realise that although moderators work the majority of time on the forum as peace-keepers, they are people too, so they have their own opinions that they are entitled to.
If a moderator enters into a discussion in a non-moderation role, other moderators will act as moderators on that thread. As we have several moderators, we do not envisage there to be many problems with this. If any arise, then we have a full team to make judgements so that outcomes are fair. :)
6. Administrators
There will be 2 technical administrators, and the super moderators all now have user administrative powers, so from now on there should always be someone available to deal with your query, rather than unanswered help tickets and contact emails.
We will aim to answer any query with at least an acknowledgement within 48 hours.
That's it :)
You may or may not be aware that all the moderators and administrators of the Tenerife Forum met on Sunday 5th June to discuss the current situation and the plans for the future. I am now reporting that back to you, the membership, to inform you of our resolutions and to invite your comments.
1. TenerifeForum.com/TenerifeForum.org
Despite many attempts, Zarion has still not replied to any contact (this is still true another week after the meeting), so we discussed what will happen over the next month if there is still no return.
As you all know, Doreen paid 2 months outstanding hosting fees for approximately 350$ in order for us to try and recover the old database and posts. The database will remain there until we cease to pay for the old hosting account, however this can not continue indefinitely and we are still awaiting a reply from the host to see if we can gain access to the database, as they are examining the legalities involved.
We still have access to the old forum admin area, but unfortunately not to the FTP or Database admin, which is needed to download the actual SQL files to restore the forum here. As the hosting is in Zarion's name, unless the host deems it legal to do so, we may not be possible to gain access to this and therefore the only way to recover the data would be by cut & paste, which is not really a viable solution for over 500,000 posts. This would also not help with recovery of accounts and private messages.
We therefore decided that as 2 months have already passed without contact from zarion (2 months outstanding hosting), we will allow until the end of month for his return, but will be informing the host that we will not be renewing.
So, this basically means that if zarion does not contact us in the next 2 weeks, we will not be renewing the hosting and all PMs and posts will be lost if we are not given access to the old forum database.
The mods will be trying to recover the most important information during this next couple of weeks by cut and paste, but this will only be relevant information posts that are still in-date. We will be contacting the original poster on each occasion to request their permission to repost information here, and if at all possible, we will assign the information to the original poster.
If, after a month there is still no reply from zarion, the old forum and all the data will disappear and we will be left to rebuild this one.
To be honest, a lot of the old information could well be out of date now, so this may not be all bad. We do not want to start up the old forum installation again, as it has many bugs that we simply cannot fix if zarion does not return.
***UPDATE : The information above was correct at the time of writing, however Zarion HAS now contacted us. He sent Kirsty an email last Monday asking for her to call him with a phone number. She has since tried the number no less than 5 times, but is met with a 'number does not exist' message every time.
The number has been given to Doreen to see if she can get any result, but up to now she has not, so the jury is still out on what will happen.
Zarion HAS redirected the .com name to google and the old database has disappeared as far as we can see, so we assume the hosting has been cancelled, however the email was of a friendly nature and we believe good intentions were being made with an end to sort out some sort of agreement, however without an answer to numerous phone calls to the one number we have, we cannot elaborate on it at present.
2. Association of Members
We decided to investigate the possibility of setting up the forum as an 'association'. This will mean that we will be a not-for-profit entity that is governed by its' members. This will be discussed further and announced in the future, should a need for it actually arise.
3. Donations
We have added a donate button to the forum. At present, donations are being collected in Kirsty's paypal account until our official account is set up.
Discussions will be held at a later date as to how these donations will be used - Either for forum running costs, or donated on members' behalf to a charity of our choosing. Until such time the donations will not be touched.
All donations are logged on the forum database, as well as on Paypal.
4. Regular Meetings
We aim to hold regular meetings in the future. As with other types of communities in Tenerife, such as complexes, we would like to have at least one open meeting a year which any members can attend. This will be discussed on thread and arranged at a later date. We also welcome any suggestions for discussion for future meetings.
Minutes from meetings will be made public on the forum for all members to see and comment on.
5. Moderation
We think we have a good group of moderators that are not overly-zealous, and keep the forum in good order most of the time, however we are aware that there have been situations where moderator comments have been considered over the top or not in the context of moderation.
Whilst moderators are expected to act as neutral moderate parties in discussions, there are also times when they should be allowed to post as themselves and express their own personal opinions too, and these opinions may not be neutral or may not be considered in the role of a moderator.
With this in mind, we decided that in future, if a moderator is to enter a discussion in a non-moderatory role, they will prefix their post with 'in my personal opinion...' in order for members to distinguish between their moderation posts and personal opinions, which may differ in tone.
We would also ask that members realise that although moderators work the majority of time on the forum as peace-keepers, they are people too, so they have their own opinions that they are entitled to.
If a moderator enters into a discussion in a non-moderation role, other moderators will act as moderators on that thread. As we have several moderators, we do not envisage there to be many problems with this. If any arise, then we have a full team to make judgements so that outcomes are fair. :)
6. Administrators
There will be 2 technical administrators, and the super moderators all now have user administrative powers, so from now on there should always be someone available to deal with your query, rather than unanswered help tickets and contact emails.
We will aim to answer any query with at least an acknowledgement within 48 hours.
That's it :)