PDA

View Full Version : Tenerife Forum - .org / .com and the future as we currently see it.



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 :)

atlantico
19-06-2011, 10:40
a quick mention regarding mods personal postings - why not give them separate account/user names for when they are in the moderating role, then no one knows who they are ie Mod1, Mod2 etc - just like you do by using ADMIN . . . . . . . I suggest that many people haven't a clue who YOU really are ?

MrsTT
19-06-2011, 11:14
We discussed that idea but we decided that we did not want to do that at that moment. I think that part of our credence comes from forum members recognising our style and personalities. Itīs part of the transparent nature of the forum. Even if I know real names of some people, I donīt actually know them or what they look like, and I form my opinion from the content of their forum posts. I have never chosen to remain anonymous, which has put me at a disadvantage at times when I have felt threatened by personal posts, but I wouldnīt want to hide behind an anonymous label. Other mods have remained anonymous because it is their choice.
I still think they should be entitiled to their own opinions when threads engage their interest or ire, and there are enough other mods to work on any threads they wish to join in with.

tonypub
19-06-2011, 11:47
all agreed say aye......aye .keep up the good work,your a great team.

bonitatime
20-06-2011, 09:58
I hope it works out with Zarion but hope much more that this keeps going as it seems to be a great forum for the island and everyone whpo visits.

Thanks eeryone for all your hard work.

Malteser Monkey
20-06-2011, 10:06
Yeap thanks from me

PS it is the dungeon's birthday on Thursday ! Can't remember whether it's the first year or not think it is ??

Slodgie take note !

COL NIL SATIS
06-07-2011, 22:16
all agreed say aye......aye .keep up the good work,your a great team.


Spot on,the team here are superb and all do a great job,absolute credit to themselves and the community,massively appreciated

admin
07-07-2011, 21:07
Just to inform everyone, as I know some people have been wondering, we now have recovered the database and the old forum and domain. .com is currently pointing here, and we will be recovering your old posts and PMs in the next couple of months. Hopefully all will be back to normal by Christmas. :)

In the meantime, we will be setting up the old forum in a sub folder on this new server which you will have read-only access to your posts and PMs, but will not be able to reply to them. Once the old forum is fixed and updated, then we will have to go offline for a few hours while we merge the two forums and then everything will be back to normal again. :)

Please bear with us. It's a huge job, so it will take some time. Please bear in mind that all the people working to do this are donating their time freely and have full time jobs of their own, so do not badger and pressure them, or you might not like the replies ;)

Thanks! :D

onelegnofeet
07-07-2011, 21:12
Thats Great ........................a christmas present from the forum !

CIM
07-07-2011, 21:18
Sounds good!
Would have been a terrible shame to have lost all of that information. Best of luck with it.

Ian_N
07-07-2011, 21:21
More good news...well done !!

Leam_Lin
07-07-2011, 21:21
What a nightmare, many thanks for this forum.

gary d
07-07-2011, 21:21
glad youve got everything sorted out with the old forum.was a bit confusing when the old one shut down,didnt get back on new forum for over a week,anyway keep up the good work,your time and efforts are appreciated by everyone on here

atlantico
07-07-2011, 21:25
so, has someone managed to contact Zarion then ?

asking, to see if he is well and healthy.

admin
07-07-2011, 21:49
so, has someone managed to contact Zarion then ?

asking, to see if he is well and healthy.Yes thanks. I have had continual contact with him for about 2-3 weeks now and met with him two days ago. :)

He is well. It was personal, not health problems that were the issue, that I am not going to get into on here.

Ian_N
15-07-2011, 20:10
In the meantime, we will be setting up the old forum in a sub folder on this new server which you will have read-only access to your posts and PMs, but will not be able to reply to them. Once the old forum is fixed and updated, then we will have to go offline for a few hours while we merge the two forums and then everything will be back to normal again. :)

Thanks! :D

Is the folder with the old posts available yet and if so can someone point me there ?

Thanks,

Ian

slodgedad
15-07-2011, 20:20
Is the folder with the old posts available yet and if so can someone point me there ?

Thanks,

Ian

Not yet. There is still a lot of work going on behind the scenes preparing everything for the eventual merge.

Ian_N
15-07-2011, 22:14
Thanks, when it does come online will it be a direct link within the forum or will it be a separate url to book mark?

slodgedad
15-07-2011, 22:17
Thanks, when it does come online will it be a direct link within the forum or will it be a separate url to book mark?

Whichever address you log into will redirect to here

KirstyJay
16-07-2011, 03:01
Thanks, when it does come online will it be a direct link within the forum or will it be a separate url to book mark?

I will add it as a direct link at the top of the forum.

At present Pooh is working on getting it online while I am away. I will be returning to Tenerife at the beginning of August. Until then, I have limited time and access to the net. We all need holidays some time ;)

9PLUS
16-07-2011, 08:35
Is it worth bothering with all the hassle?

doreen
16-07-2011, 08:39
Is it worth bothering with all the hassle?

Yes, we think it is: over 500,000 posts with lots of good information, reviews ... and odd bits n bobs :)

9PLUS
16-07-2011, 09:23
A lots of rubbish and out of date stuff as well Doreen


It sounds like you're banging your head against the wall with this Zarion dude.


This one will prosper with good information also hopefully up to date.

doreen
16-07-2011, 09:29
A lots of rubbish and out of date stuff as well Doreen


It sounds like you're banging your head against the wall with this Zarion dude.


This one will prosper with good information also hopefully up to date.

No - all sorted with Z - now it is just up to our amazing techie people to merge it all :) Later we can work on sorting out the non-relevant, out of date stuff.

9PLUS
16-07-2011, 09:56
As long as you save all of my informative stuff you're safe............................love



x