NationStates Jolt Archive

Dear Generalites,

Jolt is making some forum performance improvements in an effort to be more responsive and have less downtime. Part of this involved recent software changes, along with purging several million inactive accounts. The net result should be an improved Jolt interface and faster response time.

One of the biggest remaining issues is a mass of dead posts, NSG being by far the largest repository of threads and posts. As such, Jolt plans to remove much of the deadwood from before 2007 ... and don't argue with me, we all know it's mostly deadwood.


Why are we telling you this? Because you have the opportunity to preserve some of the vital threads from the past. Take a moment to delve through your old Subscribed threads, or if you're really masochistic, go back page by page and review your General history.

Each player may nominate up to three General threads to be moved to the Archives.
The last post on each must be before 31 December 2006.
Your nomination post MUST include a link to each thread. Thread names or vague references ("that 2006 election thread" or "the Abortion debate") will not be acted on.
Include a reason why your thread deserves to be archived. We'll move anything with a decent reason, but you MUST tell us why.
Don't 'bump' the old threads. Bumped threads will be closed per the Gravedigging rules, and the bump posts will be removed. This means that instead of preserving it, you'll be condemning it to oblivion.
Don't second someone else's opinions. One mention is enough for archiving, and you only get three each.
No puppets, please. If you use multiple puppets to try to sneak around the "three from each player" limit, we'll disqualify ALL your nominations.
If you don't know anything worthy of the archives, don't post in this thread.
Any questions? No? Alrighty then - get Archiving!


Commentary moved to its own thread, so we can see the actual requests and not just random questions that really should go in Technical or Moderation.

Threads already in the NS archive are safe, correct?

Threads already in the NS archive are safe, correct?

How does one see threads in the archive? I'm too stupid to figure this out apparently.

Also, I can't seem to find the original Office Party thread. Many thanks for those who could.

How does one see threads in the archive? I'm too stupid to figure this out apparently.

Also, I can't seem to find the original Office Party thread. Many thanks for those who could.

go back out to the forum list...under nuts and bolts, it's the bottom one, conveniently titled "archive"


Edit: something tells me that wasn't so much what was confusing you...

K. Once you're at the archive, scroll down to display options. Click the drop down menu under "From the". I usually just go with "the beginning"

How does one see threads in the archive? I'm too stupid to figure this out apparently.

Also, I can't seem to find the original Office Party thread. Many thanks for those who could.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=423271

That one?

I'm curious, when they delete the threads will our post count go down?

EDIT: Sorry, just noticed rule 8 on your list. But I'm still curious.

I'm curious, when they delete the threads will our post count go down?

I have every expectation that post counts will go down as posts are removed.

Remember the wisdom of Edward Norton as you hyperventilate ...

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d27/busy_squirrel/hp/notyourpostcount.gif

Somehow you must force yourself to survive.

I have every expectation that post counts will go down as posts are removed.

Remember the wisdom of Edward Norton as you hyperventilate ...

Oh, I'm not concerned. I'm a 2006 nation, remember, so, relatively speaking, I'll probably catch up with others more than I'll lose. I shall no longer be a newbie. :p

I have every expectation that post counts will go down as posts are removed.

Remember the wisdom of Edward Norton as you hyperventilate ...

http://i32.phoobucket.com/albums/d27/busy_squirrel/hp/notyourpostcount.gif

Somehow you must force yourself to survive.

*hyperventilates*

Incidentally, if there's moreso a post in particular I want to save in a thread that qualifies, is that an acceptable nomination? i.e. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10851904#post10851904, for the sake of my bookmark and sourcing some knowledge of lightning.

P.S. Oh God Nov 2005 *hyperventilates mores*

Wow, there goes like 4 years of history/ and billions of posts, oh well. ;)

Threads already in the NS archive are safe, correct?

*pokes fris*




um....what the hell is up with the new smilies?

hmm....I guess you can have a :hail: ? It works. I guess.

Deadline?

Deadline?

Unknown (it's a Jolt thing). Maybe days, maybe a week or two. Better hurry.

Unknown (it's a Jolt thing). Maybe days, maybe a week or two. Better hurry.

Is there a way to store them? Let's say someone were to donate money for storage of some kind, is that possible? Do you have access to the database and the ability to extract it? Would that be more work than any of you are willing or able to do?

For clarification: The threads will be culled, not the individual posts? For example, if a thread is still active, yet was made before the deadline, the posts previous to December 31st won't be effected?

This apply to all boards or just General?

Threads already in the NS archive are safe, correct?
Yes.
Is there a way to store them? Let's say someone were to donate money for storage of some kind, is that possible? Do you have access to the database and the ability to extract it? Would that be more work than any of you are willing or able to do?
No. Not an option, as we don't have access. Yeah, that's a ton of work, and it's not going to happen.
For clarification: The threads will be culled, not the individual posts? For example, if a thread is still active, yet was made before the deadline, the posts previous to December 31st won't be effected?
At this point I won't make any promises. Jolt Admins are doing the deed, and I don't have their toolbox. It's my understanding that threads which haven't been active in a couple years are on the Purge list, but that's all I have.
This apply to all boards or just General?
Personally, I hope we stop here, but I'm speaking as a reader, not a site official on that one. We're not looking at other forums right now, but NS mods are making the case that most should be left alone. (NS2 may see some gratuitous purging, but who cares?)

Oh, I'm not concerned. I'm a 2006 nation, remember, so, relatively speaking, I'll probably catch up with others more than I'll lose. I shall no longer be a newbie. :p

I think of people as n00bs as per their join date, not their post count. So yeah, you'll still be a n00b.

At this point I won't make any promises. Jolt Admins are doing the deed, and I don't have their toolbox. It's my understanding that threads which haven't been active in a couple years are on the Purge list, but that's all I have.



I understand. It looks like you guys are just as much in the dark as we are! I guess I'll just hope for the best and pray that 2 years of posts in this (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=1227) thread don't get offed.

Yes.

Ah...thank you :)

friggin new smiles.:mad:

Honestly, I wasn't even sure if it was a good idea. But I'm rich and quite skilled with databases, so I was just spit-balling.

It seems a shame to just let it all disappear. Not that I've looked at any of that stuff for years... until now.

Thread stickied so people will maybe get the whole 'don't post non-requests in the requests thread'.

Bloody hell, the smilies are even worse than they used to be.

Both threads that my sig links to. I haven't decided on the other one.

Both threads that my sig links to. I haven't decided on the other one.
You got the wrong thread - thread suggestions go in the other one. Here's only for bitching and moaning and some such.

You got the wrong thread - thread suggestions go in the other one. Here's only for bitching and moaning and some such.

This post reminds me .... is there any good archive of certain hard-to-get pix?

The internet and the world is truyl coming to an end. Woe is us! We must repent for our sins!


What's the deadline for requests.

We don't know. That's why everyone may need to be hasty in their choosing of what threads to save.

Thread stickied so people will maybe get the whole 'don't post non-requests in the requests thread'.



OK, I'm moving the non-request post I made there, to here. Verbatim:

Firstly, this is terrible. There's no way I have the time to go back and read all the old threads. But removing the option of reading a particular poster's previous opinion on a subject ... removing whole threads that would be advisable reading when considering a new thread on the same subject ... It's like burning a reference library.

You will destroy good posts this way. Rubbish threads with a few good posts will go. Whole threads of good posts will go, even at three "saves" per poster, because almost no-one reads Technical, and people will probably discriminate in favour of threads they actually posted in. Great posters who come by only rarely nowdays are unlikely to notice this action until it's done.

Vast holes are going to appear in every poster's post record? Including mine? I'm appalled, seriously. Is there at least some way that all my posts can be emailed to me, since I may have kept some notes and unposted posts (ie my worst work) but I was rather relying on Jolt to archive for me everything I personally posted.

If this can't be done, I'm going to look up all my own posts, and copy-n-paste to my own computer. To find all of them, I may have to start deleting them from still-open threads, probably starting with the first ones from two years ago. This will be a huge effort, so having them all emailed to me would be preferable. Even then, the context they were written in will be destroyed.

Since the (Modly) OP specifies that no appeal will be heard on this action, I must resort to an ultimatum: destroy my work randomly like that, and I will find some other place to post. Against Modly decree I have only one individual power: to withdraw my services. I am prepared to do that if this arrant vandalism goes ahead.

=============

I'm really outraged at this. That it was apparently decreed by Jolt Admins, not our own Mods, is perhaps making it difficult to criticize (we all want the silly server to work better after all.)

OK, I'm moving the non-request post I made there, to here. Verbatim:

Firstly, this is terrible. There's no way I have the time to go back and read all the old threads. But removing the option of reading a particular poster's previous opinion on a subject ... removing whole threads that would be advisable reading when considering a new thread on the same subject ... It's like burning a reference library.

You will destroy good posts this way. Rubbish threads with a few good posts will go. Whole threads of good posts will go, even at three "saves" per poster, because almost no-one reads Technical, and people will probably discriminate in favour of threads they actually posted in. Great posters who come by only rarely nowdays are unlikely to notice this action until it's done.

Vast holes are going to appear in every poster's post record? Including mine? I'm appalled, seriously. Is there at least some way that all my posts can be emailed to me, since I may have kept some notes and unposted posts (ie my worst work) but I was rather relying on Jolt to archive for me everything I personally posted.

If this can't be done, I'm going to look up all my own posts, and copy-n-paste to my own computer. To find all of them, I may have to start deleting them from still-open threads, probably starting with the first ones from two years ago. This will be a huge effort, so having them all emailed to me would be preferable. Even then, the context they were written in will be destroyed.

Since the (Modly) OP specifies that no appeal will be heard on this action, I must resort to an ultimatum: destroy my work randomly like that, and I will find some other place to post. Against Modly decree I have only one individual power: to withdraw my services. I am prepared to do that if this arrant vandalism goes ahead.

=============

I'm really outraged at this. That it was apparently decreed by Jolt Admins, not our own Mods, is perhaps making it difficult to criticize (we all want the silly server to work better after all.)

You are aware that they have no say in this matter. They don't own jolt. This is a jolt decision, hence the reason they don't know when it will happen.

Now aware of all this, you still choose to threaten our mods? How is that prudent?

You are aware that they have no say in this matter. They don't own jolt. This is a jolt decision, hence the reason they don't know when it will happen.

"Our" mods designed the implementation of the archiving. Three threads per poster.

I'm not participating in that unless there really is no choice.

There is consultation going on. There are priorities being weighed by our mods and the NS/NS2 business team.

And we have found where we stand. We're not even in the room, we're out in the lobby.

Granted that our whining as ordinary users who don't pay a cent isn't going to change much, could you bring yourself to say if culling the old threads is a GOOD or BAD thing in your opinion?

Now aware of all this, you still choose to threaten our mods? How is that prudent?

Please quote where I "threaten a Mod." Does my "withdrawal of services" affect any Mod in their Modly role? Hell no, it's less stuff to read through when complaints are made. I understand the need for Mods, I co-operate and obey Mods ... but I certainly don't make life easy for them. It's probably fairly obvious, I consider good Modding to be essential to the health of the forum and wish to be a Mod myself some day, for love of this forum.

Whether I post here or not, indeed whether I choose to go back to the start of my posting history and delete every post which I can delete, is my business. I don't pretend that my posting contribution is a serious bargaining chip -- but as a non-Mod it's all I've got.

Jocabia, I can't believe you are comfortable with this rewriting of the unwritten rule (Posts remain unless the poster, the post or the thread breaks a rule) and I implore you to put your position instead of quibbling over the justice of my methods.

Come on, you can't tell me that the words "Jolt sucks" never passed your lips. Are we honestly going to suck in our guts and just take them deleting your posts, my posts, posts of Bottle and Lunatic Goofballs and AnarchyeL, because no-one pleaded with God to save the Sodom they posted in with their brilliance?

Don't quibble with me. It's vandalism, it's a cynical destruction of posts that are as good now as the day they were posted (better perhaps) in the name of "making the server work good" when the truth is probably more like "OMAC won't spend the money employing paralegals to read through all that to check we aren't hosting illegal content."

Or what the hell. Quibble with me. Let's bump this thread (though being stickied it doesn't show) because I saw the writing on the wall with the news item about Jolt being acquired by OMAC.

"Sucky server (low costs, low income) acquired by successful internet consortium. Expect server to suck less, but users to have to suck more."

"I must resort to an ultimatum: destroy my work randomly like that, and I will find some other place to post. Against Modly decree I have only one individual power: to withdraw my services."

Yeah, how could anyone consider that a threat. Ultimatums are just friendly requests.

"Hey, Jimmy, I must resort to an ultimatum. Either we're going to Red Robin and having burgers, or we're eating somewhere else."

I'm not mad at the mods. They're making an effort to address it. I don't get the impression they're particularly happy about it either. Whining about it isn't going to make it any more pleasant, and threatening our mods to withdraw your unpaid participation in this site isn't going to alter Jolt's plans.

There's never been a promise unwritten or otherwise that the posts would remain forever. To think it would be so is naive. I admit I never really thought about a time when they would be gone, but I certainly didn't expect them to remain available forever. It's literally billions of posts. The top 50 or so posters alone have in excess of 20 million posts. Their have been millions of posters in the last five and a half years.

You're talking about keeping available to search terabytes of data. Asking that it remain so for all time is irrational and isn't going to happen.

They also aren't going to email your posts to you or any of the other silly and unreasonable requests you made. So sop up the tears, take a breath, find your three threads and wave a respectful goodbye to the rest of your posts.

Find the courage to change the things you can, the serenity to accept the things you can't and the wisdom to know the difference.

Jocabia, I can't believe you are comfortable with this rewriting of the unwritten rule (Posts remain unless the poster, the post or the thread breaks a rule)
See, that's the problem with unwritten rules; they can be ignored.

Don't quibble with me. It's vandalism, it's a cynical destruction of posts that are as good now as the day they were posted.
Oh, calm down.

How much material on here is really worth archiving for subsequent viewing? We're hosting thousands upon thousands of pages of spam, repetitive debates and folk talking in virtual pubs.

It's hardly the Great Library of Alexandria we're losing here.

"I must resort to an ultimatum: destroy my work randomly like that, and I will find some other place to post. Against Modly decree I have only one individual power: to withdraw my services."

Yeah, how could anyone consider that a threat. Ultimatums are just friendly requests

The antithesis of a friendly request may be a threat. Consult your thesaurus.

Ultimatum:
1. the final terms of one of the parties in diplomatic relationship, the rejection of which by the other party may involve a rupture of relations or lead to a declaration of war.
2. a final proposal or statement of conditions.

I'll stand by it by either of those definitions. And assert that it is not a threat. I do not propose to break any rule, nor to harm the NSG community beyond what I claim as a right by tradition: that I may delete any post of mine, unless it is in a locked thread.

(I had trouble accepting that, until I considered that posters who had been "part of the problem" in a locked thread, should not be able to absolve themselves of implicit blame by deleting their own posts. I accept that I can't delete my posts to locked threads.)

"Hey, Jimmy, I must resort to an ultimatum. Either we're going to Red Robin and having burgers, or we're eating somewhere else."

You're talking turkey there. Mmmm. My face is cracking. Oh hell ... :fluffle:

I'm not mad at the mods. They're making an effort to address it. I don't get the impression they're particularly happy about it either.

No inside information here.

Let's bang on about it for a few days. I don't get my head around a subject until I've slept on it once. There's also a chance I'll just leave for a few days ... well anyway, I'll check this thread tomorrow morning. I'll reply if you do, but ideally I'd like a bunch of the big postcount posters to speak up here.

The longer your post history, the more of your posts are going to be deleted!
Please, anyone like me who joined and posted from before
Whining about it isn't going to make it any more pleasant, and threatening our mods to withdraw your unpaid participation in this site isn't going to alter Jolt's plans.

There's never been a promise unwritten or otherwise that the posts would remain forever. To think it would be so is naive.

So call me naive. This has never happened before, (except in the early days when the server was WORSE than Jolt and lost posts, and when they were moving servers), and I say that this change is against custom (unwritten rule) and you come back with "oh it's in the terms of service somewhere."

Pull your finger out and take a damn side already.

I admit I never really thought about a time when they would be gone, but I certainly didn't expect them to remain available forever. It's literally billions of posts. The top 50 or so posters alone have in excess of 20 million posts. Their have been millions of posters in the last five and a half years.

You're talking about keeping available to search terabytes of data. Asking that it remain so for all time is irrational and isn't going to happen.

Wow, you really are a surrender-monkey aren't you?

They also aren't going to email your posts to you or any of the other silly and unreasonable requests you made. So sop up the tears, take a breath, find your three threads and wave a respectful goodbye to the rest of your posts.

Nope. I'm archiving them myself. It's going to take ages. I will appear as "Online" and "Viewing some crap thread from 2006" but I won't be reading the current threads. I won't be posting and I won't be reading anything I might be replying to. I'll just be wasting time doing what I had always assumed would be done for me, at a miniscule fraction of the effort it will take me to recover a record of my own posts.

Unless someone who knows more about the Subscription feature or about Screen-Scrapers than I can quicken it up for me, I'm finding my posts, quoting them, copying the contents of the post box (so it has the Jolt post-number in it) and pasting that out into a text document.

So far, I've done fifty in an hour. When I made multiple posts to the same thread it goes a lot quicker, but still I think it will take me several working days to archive all my own posts up until December 2006.

AND, as I said before, those posts will be taken without the full context (tho I'm trying to record them with the post they replied to, and sometimes a pertinent reply. For instance, my third post got me a huggle!)

That really sucks. That I might someday have to do that for the last year-and-a-half's posting inclines me to find some forum that DOES explicitly offer to host the content forever.

And there might be a simpler way. Perhaps some more technically-savvy poster can tell me how to get posts emailed to me from the Jolt Search function or something. No mod effort required at all.

Find the courage to change the things you can, the serenity to accept the things you can't and the wisdom to know the difference.

NSG can change only itself. Serenity is deadly poison to NSG. And wisdom is cowardice: knowing what not to do.

Stuff your "aphorisms." I've heard it before, I reject it as a false dualism. You can explicitly renounce it, or answer for it as your own words.

I won't accept "I was being ironical." You just had a brain-fart, an involuntary regurgitation of some cynical child-abusing Poisonous Lesson which was slipped to you as "clever thing to say" ... ie aphorism ... before you had the intellect to fully decode it.

It's crap. It's the credo of a loser, and a petty, bullying loser at that ("the courage to change the things that I can" -- not should, not even want-to, just do it because you can).

Stinky retarded reactionary spells of disenchantment get my twenty-first century goat. Grrr.

See, that's the problem with unwritten rules; they can be ignored.

Great. Oh, just great. Shit yeah, I should adjust my expectations of justice to what is explicitly written down in Terms of Service and Commercial and Criminal Law.

After several lifetimes of study and practice of the Law, I might be qualified to protest the deletion of my own posts.

Oh, calm down.

Oh, go to hell. : )

How much material on here is really worth archiving for subsequent viewing? We're hosting thousands upon thousands of pages of spam, repetitive debates and folk talking in virtual pubs.


I'm talking people's posts. I'm talking my posts, and I'm guessing that "all my posts" is as important to the average user who has been around long enough to be affected by this "purge" as it is to me.

Until I hear from Jocabia I won't say for sure what his position is. But you certainly seem allied with it, a kinda "I for one welcome our new corporate overlords" because ... well gee ... we have no bargaining power whatsoever so let's just beg for mercy huh?

Screw that. Jocabia and yourself are heavy hitters. You're properly respected around NSG as strong posters who can be quite crushing when your blood is up.

Take a damn side already. Do you think that bashing NSG in the head until it effectively forgets everything but the "photo moments" from before 2007 is an inherently good thing? Do you accept that it is a necessary cost to us, to get better service from Jolt? Or do you oppose it as a poor management decision, as I do, which would destroy an inherent (tho implicit) quality of the forum so far, being a permanent record?

It's hardly the Great Library of Alexandria we're losing here.

Ha fucking ha. That fails as humour and fails as a serious point.

I also think that when they erase all the old data, everyone's post count should be recalculated to reflect the new database.

I also think that when they erase all the old data, everyone's post count should be recalculated to reflect the new database.

I disagree. Post counts are a status symbol here for a lot of people, especially those whose status > 10,000. It will annoy people when suddenly some newbie has a similar post count to theirs when they've been around since 2005.

I disagree. Post counts are a status symbol here for a lot of people, especially those whose status > 10,000. It will annoy people when suddenly some newbie has a similar post count to theirs when they've been around since 2005.

Yeah, right. That should be their first concern, the little number under their name saying how many times they hit the "Submit Reply" button. Not the actual words they wrote to get that number. :rolleyes:

Yeah, right. That should be their first concern, the little number under their name saying how many times they hit the "Submit Reply" button. Not the actual words they wrote to get that number. :rolleyes:

Doesn't have to be their first concern. Why go to the trouble of resetting it at all?

Doesn't have to be their first concern. Why go to the trouble of resetting it at all?

I don't know how it works. Could be as simple as issuing a command (pushing a button) to recalculate all the postcounts from the purged database.

This question of the effect on postcounts seems like putting lipstick on a corpse to me. But I incline to the "adjust postcount to actual verifiable posts" view. And screw the "old timers" (though I qualify as one myself, the purge being up to Dec 2006) ... if they won't stand up for their earlier posts, they can lose the postcount badge of honour.

"For justice to be done, justice must be seen to be done" applies to postcounts too. Why the hell should any newb accept that Gnarly Old Poster has posted 30,000+ posts, when only 10,000 of them can actually be found in a search?

I don't know how it works. Could be as simple as issuing a command (pushing a button) to recalculate all the postcounts from the purged database.

This question of the effect on postcounts seems like putting lipstick on a corpse to me. But I incline to the "adjust postcount to actual verifiable posts" view. And screw the "old timers" (though I qualify as one myself, the purge being up to Dec 2006) ... if they won't stand up for their earlier posts, they can lose the postcount badge of honour.

"For justice to be done, justice must be seen to be done" applies to postcounts too. Why the hell should any newb accept that Gnarly Old Poster has posted 30,000+ posts, when only 10,000 of them can actually be found in a search?

I dunno it just seems to me that this is an easy thing to suggest from someone with a low post count to begin with.

You seem to be under the impression that there is some mighty corporate infrastructure that is determined to destroy your 'pearls of wisdom' and deny your right to speech. Jolt is a little company. There's one overworked forum admin, some server managers that handle their paid gaming servers (which is their primary income stream, by the way), a few developers working on new and improved games, and a couple of administrative types.

They're doing what they can to improve performance. Huge databases are prone to failure, and it's worse when there are code snippets hung all over the place by former employees. Nobody there knows what half the stuff does (a common issue in IT orgs with high turnover), so they're muddling through.

Since the (Modly) OP specifies that no appeal will be heard on this action, I must resort to an ultimatum: destroy my work randomly like that, and I will find some other place to post. Against Modly decree I have only one individual power: to withdraw my services. I am prepared to do that if this arrant vandalism goes ahead.

I've bent over backwards to be as accommodating as possible. The "3 per person" rule was to keep people from asking for archiving on everything they'd ever written ... which of course would totally defeat the purpose. Nowhere in there was there anything about "no appeals possible". Given the fairly light level of requests lately, I'm sure we could have been more accommodating if circumstances demanded.

As for your ultimatum, feel free to take your marbles and go home. We're volunteers managing a service you don't pay for, and I think that as a rule NS Mods are as fair as anyone in the business. I've been looking over some of the complaints in some of the other communities, and I see multiple instances where threads are deleted by mod whim at any point, or where mod politics decides the fate of EVERY discussion. We have rules which we follow, logs proving our actions are just, and oversight from our fellow mods and admins to assure that the players are being treated fairly.

We are nonetheless fellow players on NationStates, and your attitude of entitlement doesn't endear me to bend over backwards to accommodate your ... let's call them what they are, demands. Had you asked politely for more threads to be archived, I'd have discussed it with one or two others and probably acceded. Given this exchange, though, I think I'll just let you do your own archiving. Your methodology sounds just fine. Hopefully you can get it all done before Jolt has to do the purge.

I also think that when they erase all the old data, everyone's post count should be recalculated to reflect the new database.

Post counts are automatically recalculated when posts are deleted. It's always been that way here.

Post counts are automatically recalculated when posts are deleted. It's always been that way here.

That's a bummer.

Ah well. Thanks for pointing that out.

Great. Oh, just great. Shit yeah, I should adjust my expectations of justice to what is explicitly written down in Terms of Service and Commercial and Criminal Law.
'Justice'? What breach of justice is being done here? You are losing posts, not your freedom.

Calm down dear, it's only a postcount.

Until I hear from Jocabia I won't say for sure what his position is. But you certainly seem allied with it, a kinda "I for one welcome our new corporate overlords" because ... well gee ... we have no bargaining power whatsoever so let's just beg for mercy huh?
Yeah, because not being overly bothered that posts on an internet forum are being deleted to improve performance is akin to bending over for 'corporate overlords'... Seriously, what data of worth is being destroyed here?

Do you think that bashing NSG in the head until it effectively forgets everything but the "photo moments" from before 2007 is an inherently good thing?
No, but I don't see it as an inherently bad thing either.

Do you accept that it is a necessary cost to us, to get better service from Jolt?
It's a price I'm willing to pay, yes.

Or do you oppose it as a poor management decision, as I do, which would destroy an inherent (tho implicit) quality of the forum so far, being a permanent record?
There's about fifty posters who've nominated three threads each to archive; that's 150 threads (and counting) archived; how much material is needed to be saved?

How much of the posts on here are anything more than spam or threads repeated ad nauseum?

Ha fucking ha. That fails as humour and fails as a serious point.
If you can show how the material on here is worth saving, then by all means go ahead; and I will fully support an effort to save worthy material. But, after those threads people genuinely like and want saved are saved, what's left that would be a shame to not archive?

*snip*

Reading this, why wouldn't you want to save everything you've ever written? I'm sure twenty years from now, you're going to want to have proof that you threw a temper tantrum because a free site you used to visit refused to keep your posts for eternity.

As far as looking for a site that promises to keep your little pearls forever, good luck on your impossible task.

And the reason you can't understand which 'side' I'm on is because in the real world, sometimes both sides are right and sometimes both sides are wrong. I know sometimes that gets lost on NSG, but real-world decisions are not just a 1 or 0.

Here, we're right to wish we weren't losing our history. As players and as people who've invested much into the site, the mods, some of them at least, have said they don't want to see this happen. They agree with us that it's a shame to lose all that happened here before 2006.

The admins at Jolt are also right to want to get rid of old stuff. Purging in common and was bound to happen eventually. NO SITE is going to keep your history forever. None. Ever.

I sympathize with both sides as often rational people do. As such, there will be no wild hand flailing rants by me today. Fortunately, you're running around screaming about the world being on fire enough for all of us.

There's a lot of true value that could potentially be lost. Straughn's dissertations on global warming, for example, or the classic evolution vs. creationism debates where everything was original for the first time.

But ultimately, does it really matter? The actual knowledge isn't going to be lost. We're not going to suddenly forget how global warming works, or why Young Earth Creationism is foolish. We're not going to lose the really important things.

So, I say, go right ahead and delete the database. Sure, I'll miss stuff from it, just like everyone else, but I also realize that it ultimately doesn't matter.

There's a lot of true value that could potentially be lost. Straughn's dissertations on global warming, for example, or the classic evolution vs. creationism debates where everything was original for the first time.

But ultimately, does it really matter? The actual knowledge isn't going to be lost. We're not going to suddenly forget how global warming works, or why Young Earth Creationism is foolish. We're not going to lose the really important things.

So, I say, go right ahead and delete the database. Sure, I'll miss stuff from it, just like everyone else, but I also realize that it ultimately doesn't matter.

Think about it.

We complain that we constantly rehash the same dull arguments about the same dull topics. God, creationism, abortion, Bush, guns, war, etc... it's actually a short list.

We could remove those from the database, and they would be back within a week, just as rusty as before.

Some of the more comical stuff - now that's rare treasure.

Why rehash the creationism debates when you can just go to talk.origins.faq and see every possible argument we could have about it?

Other topics have similar resources on line.

Take a damn side already. Do you think that bashing NSG in the head until it effectively forgets everything but the "photo moments" from before 2007 is an inherently good thing? Do you accept that it is a necessary cost to us, to get better service from Jolt? Or do you oppose it as a poor management decision, as I do, which would destroy an inherent (tho implicit) quality of the forum so far, being a permanent record?

Hah. You think this forum is a permanent record? The NationStates forums have barely any information before September 2003 that were lost due to the purges of 2004. Not just General, all of the forums. Some true classics such as the Amerigan Slave War and the first-ever moderator appointment threads have been lost forever, let alone some sentimental things like the debates on my UN resolution.

I'm not a fan of purges either. But at least this time we've gotten a warning and can save stuff. There's an awful lot of NationStates history that's gone forever.

Reading this, why wouldn't you want to save everything you've ever written? I'm sure twenty years from now, you're going to want to have proof that you threw a temper tantrum because a free site you used to visit refused to keep your posts for eternity.

That's just the point. I ONLY want my posts visible to the world if I chose which ones to delete. Unless they were ever deleted for breaking a rule, and I don't remember that ever happening. I don't want to be part of the Reader's Digest NSG.

As far as looking for a site that promises to keep your little pearls forever, good luck on your impossible task.

And the reason you can't understand which 'side' I'm on is because in the real world, sometimes both sides are right and sometimes both sides are wrong. I know sometimes that gets lost on NSG, but real-world decisions are not just a 1 or 0.

Here, we're right to wish we weren't losing our history. As players and as people who've invested much into the site, the mods, some of them at least, have said they don't want to see this happen. They agree with us that it's a shame to lose all that happened here before 2006.

The admins at Jolt are also right to want to get rid of old stuff. Purging in common and was bound to happen eventually. NO SITE is going to keep your history forever. None. Ever.

Hmm. Can anyone confirm this please?

I sympathize with both sides as often rational people do. As such, there will be no wild hand flailing rants by me today. Fortunately, you're running around screaming about the world being on fire enough for all of us.

Did you enjoy that? "Little pearls" kinda fails as "patronizing" since Kat used it first. But the running around burning thing was funny.

My asking you to "pick a side" was wrong, and your answer to that is persuasive. "Here, we're right to wish we weren't losing our history. As players and as people who've invested much into the site, the mods, some of them at least, have said they don't want to see this happen" seems entirely accurate now.

Look, this was a bad timing thing for me. I voluntarily ignored the forum for a week or so, it was getting me down so I did the sensible thing and went away instead of whining about how terrible the place had become. The day I came back I saw all the feature upgrades (only just noticed the SIX TIMES more frequent searches, once every 20 secs is DECENT) and that led me to read announcements in Technical (I think) and that led me here.

There's a page of terrific threads out there on General. Good new subjects, good posters -- there's been a huge lift in morale, and the place basically seems to be thriving. I've wred a few of the threads part-through, Soheran's thread on an ethical dilemma I hugely enjoyed and typed up some answers for. Hammurab played a nice game for my entertainment. But I'm stuck on this, it's in the back of my mind however I try to concentrate on anything else.

There's really only one answer, and that's for me to take another break. My HD is acting wheezy so the archiving will have to wait ... and hanging around here when this matter is making me angry is doing no good for anyone. Anger is really bad for me, I have a rather delicate mind which looses its balance easily to anger or fear. I can feel anger tensing up my arteries, I can feel it wounding me in my love of life.

Anger is a repulsive force, it's get-away-from-me. If being here is making me angry, then I just have to go. It's nothing personal with anyone.

=======================



Think about it.

We complain that we constantly rehash the same dull arguments about the same dull topics. God, creationism, abortion, Bush, guns, war, etc... it's actually a short list.

We could remove those from the database, and they would be back within a week, just as rusty as before.

Some of the more comical stuff - now that's rare treasure.

Why rehash the creationism debates when you can just go to talk.origins.faq and see every possible argument we could have about it?

Other topics have similar resources on line.

Interesting post hotwife.

Your recurrent theme of looking down apon the forum is muted somewhat, and I totally agree about the treasure. It's there in the most unlikely threads, pearls before swine perhaps. I'm thinking in particular of those infrequent posters who hit the nail right on the head, in only a few searchable words ...the thread keeps ambling along for a few pages until everyone is basically saying the same thing the shy instigator said, all think they've won and call it a day.

You don't even necessarily notice art like that at the time, it's when a good poster has a good day and wins a handful of threads with the lightest touch. It's a lot more noticable if you search for it by user rather than by thread-starter or subject.

Culling the database cuts right across those searches by user. It will affect every poster's history if they were posting back then, unless they only posted in one thread up until the cutoff date.

Finally, I note that you mention another forum. That's constructive, thanks. I really should be looking at some other forums, because I seem to have developed an overly rosy view of what NSG is.

I say we all pool a million pounds together and donate it to Jolt so they can hire slave-drone-IT people to make this better and not need to delete anything. :)

I wish I was a millionaire so I could save our forum. Hey maybe they can wait 20-25 years....

Also, folks, you can save the smaller threads manually and then petition for archive bigger ones.

I'm not done.

I will post a post or two a day, until I see the old posts gone, and the post-counts reduced.

I'm a young poster really. I stayed away from "Chat Rooms" when I heard of them, my consciousness was already formed by Post Ratios, a bitter apprehension of the consumerist rubbish that the Internet has since become. "Chat" was not content: Content was valuable (either as difficult-to-obtain information, or executable code) and the idea of "entertaining" the other board users with details of a private life was quite a ludicrous interpretation of "content." Back then, you honed the "I am so great" raves to three or four words, and then only in conjunction with a great deed, like outing some Adobe code.

The internet: a huge source of intellectual material, some sound, some speculative, some wrong. No wonder that we, children of the Scientific age, love to "play science," "play journalist" or even "play animal torturer." It should all be recorded, for History to judge, not because that is a great ideal (to feed future Historians) but because it is so piss-simple for us to do it. To not record our words is simple cowardice, before the judges of history.

How many terabytes is the NSG database? I offer to mail the necessary capacity in hard disks, and pay the return postage, to guarantee custody of the data. Without any claim apon it! I would not claim copyright upon it, nor dispute any claim to its accuracy. I would keep a copy just as it was when I got it. I seek only to do history's duty.

I say our age should not be reduced to the "Best Of." I say that Western Civilization is at its peak, that our faults should be as plainly visible as our great Triumphs. We have a great Tablet in our hands, a Tablet which will record our thoughs as easily as we type them (no mallet, no chisel required) and to grant custody exclusively to a "service provider" is simply handing them to Big Brother, censor and marketer in one.

"History is the propaganda of the victors." Let's break with History. No mallets, no chisels, no tablets are required. Just a few old hard-disks.

Data does not last forever. Hard disks die, paper is eaten by mold and bookworms. But. As servants of the future historians, let us make at least a minimal effort to preserve OUR OWN WORDS. The most casual of posters among you: even your 2-second posts speak volumes about the contemporary mores.

I totally obey our Moderators. If one of my posts infringes the rules according to Mod judgement, I'll delete it myself. I'll take punishment and I'll delete my own posts if I realize it breaks rules. I really am not disputing moderation, nor am I disputing the deletion of my own posts. Bugger 'em, if I don't know them I don't deserve to, these fingers typed them. It's the posts I never wred which I mourn.

If any one of my posts was deleted by Mods (never happened, AFAIK) I'd be happy with a simple and complete explanation of why.

It's just this: "Before one and a half years ago, it just doesn't matter."

Fuck a lesbian duck, this is crap.

Any post I make NOW is subject to the same rules. We aren't talking "oh, the old database wasn't compatible with the new server, there were losses as we moved over" ... we're talking "your posts aren't worth keeping a year and a half from now."

It's a deal-breaker. It's salt on the earth of our little forum. It's "I'm outa here."

So I threatened the Mods with my puny assertion of power. So what? "I'm taking my keyboard and going home" is piss-poor. But it's all I've got. And the dozens of good posters to NSG have the same.

Let's lift our eyes above the Mods, and talk to the Corporate Overlords. Let's talk to the Power in this case, the issuer of Decrees which our Mods are obliged to sell as attractively as possible.

Here, try to do what I did. I archived the first 100 posts of my posting career. Then I couldn't get the second 100 without deleting some of the first 100, and "Ascending order from the last two years" didn't move it much, since I've been here barely more than two years.

So I tried to delete some of my posts that I'd already archived.

Go, try to do that. Try to delete your own posts, and try to give a good reason. There isn't one. Just try to delete a dozen posts, and give the reason "they'll be deleted anyway." I hurts like hell.

So: can I have all my posts emailed to me .... please? I will pay ten cents US for each post emailed to me, and I will pay this to any party who does that without error, and in bulk (100+ without failure of order or exception, and starting from August 06 without repetition of archives already received.) Up until the end of Dec, 2006, approximately 1200 posts coming to a total payment of $120 US. For ten minutes work, less for subsequent claims. Fuck, admins, I know you pull some pay but $700 / hour? You won't bite?

I sit here day after day, whole working days dedicated to reading NSG, reading links I'm offered, reading sources to work up a counter-argument, reading sources I got distracted by, writing replies. NSG has been my "day job" for almost the entire two years since I got a nation. I'm obsessive, I admit it.

I won't cop this. I'm posting one or two a day, just to show I'm still hanging in, hoping that this liquidation of history doesn't happen. If it does, this Hobo walks.

Threats aside. This is a promise. I won't post again, not this IP, not these fingers, if the cull of old posts (other than those nominated for archiving) goes ahead.

And when I post no more, my spoor is carried by the name of Jabbus. Jabbus in his first incarnation will name my next stomping ground. Jabbus, whose sister is Jabba. The famous Hut.

Max: write my book. These dainty hands are not made for such mundane work. Take the money of fools who read because they have paid to read, and spend it wisely. These dainty hands do not touch such offal. Having written, I have done what I will ... and all else is vanity.

It reads as rather weird that I did not reply to this post. I wrote a reply, but a hard disk glitch (which was unsurprisingly my fault) seemed to justify a reboot and I threw away the first reply before posting it. Sorry Fris, I wasn't deliberately ignoring you.

You seem to be under the impression that there is some mighty corporate infrastructure that is determined to destroy your 'pearls of wisdom' and deny your right to speech. Jolt is a little company. There's one overworked forum admin, some server managers that handle their paid gaming servers (which is their primary income stream, by the way), a few developers working on new and improved games, and a couple of administrative types.

Jolt may be a little company, and understaffed. But do you deny that there is a "new broom," a more competent and (probably) better paid consultant on the beat of "forum admin" ?

The only other explanation of the recent changes is that the NS2 developers have given good ol' Jolt more money and so (being a forum not a game server) NS has attracted more attention from this one, overworked forum admin. I don't believe that for a second. The closest I'll come is: culling the server load of NSG is a compromise by the NS / NS2 team to make space for the new game. Even that I doubt, there's unmistakable technical intervention which, until the takeover by OMAC, was in very scant supply.

It's OMAC, isn't it. They have employed new staff, and this new more competent staff have accurately identified the big and much-modified NSG database as one of the factors in the instability of Jolt.

They're doing what they can to improve performance. Huge databases are prone to failure, and it's worse when there are code snippets hung all over the place by former employees. Nobody there knows what half the stuff does (a common issue in IT orgs with high turnover), so they're muddling through.

I'm going to make a compromise suggestion. I obviously don't know much about databases or VBulletin, so if it's nonsense just say so.

Isn't a read-only file less of a hazard to the servers, than the many many threads we keep effectively read-only with the policy of "don't gravedig" ?

How about locking the old threads (from the same date as the proposed cull) ... and perhaps compromising their availability (eg, penalizing searches of old threads with longer waits between searches) and reliability (give the viewer a "database error" if the thread is too mangled).

To sweeten that, why not lock all threads a few months after their last reply?

You ruled this out as "archiving everything defeats the purpose of reducing the database" ... and in a way, I'm questioning that. Surely displaying an archived thread is easier than allowing the viewer to interact with (edit, delete, reply to, report) a still-open thread?

If the "code snippets" are a problem, flag them by thread or post as they come up, and delete (or replace with a "thread removed for technical reasons" message) the offending parts of the database. This also isn't "admin work," a script would suffice.


I've bent over backwards to be as accommodating as possible. The "3 per person" rule was to keep people from asking for archiving on everything they'd ever written ... which of course would totally defeat the purpose. Nowhere in there was there anything about "no appeals possible". Given the fairly light level of requests lately, I'm sure we could have been more accommodating if circumstances demanded.

On behalf of those who have taken up your "3 per person rule" I lobby for TEN threads to archive, per applicant. The take-up rate is so low that the archive is never going to be even a tiny fraction of what is proposed for deletion.

But for me, you aren't the enemy. The very fact that you branched discussion of this into General shows that you are aware of the possible distress this could cause to forumites, and your openness to suggestions. AND your willingness to take on even more work (replying to this thread) than you have by the generous offer of "3 archives per poster."

Give 'em ten. I'm not taking any ... because as I said before, as I've considered for a few days, and as I will need more reasons to ever change my mind on: culling the database "to make the server work better" I simply cannot stomach. It's a Deal Breaker for me.

The Old Timers speak of the Move from the Old Server. It is myth and tragedy, it's a cross they bear ... willingly! Because their Old Posts were almost certainly weak, self-indulgent spam. Hear them boast of their 10,000 posts of prehistory ... it's pathetic, really it is. I don't want to be part of that, I want any newbie I slap down to be able to go back and see my first post, see how I was in their shoes.

So let's not lie about that. The posts weren't moved over, when NS came to Jolt. It wasn't a mistake, it wasn't "confusion" in the change of servers. It would have cost money, and NS (particularly NSG) wasn't worth the asking price. They threw away the old posts.

I don't really care about NS before Jolt. It was well before my time, and the further back in history I look, the more NSG looks like a sticky pile of chattin and spammin and trollin. But I'm not the one to judge ... I don't know what it meant to them, then.

So who is it to judge? As ever, who pays the piper. We pay nothing (volunteer mods included) so we get to dance to the tune.

As for your ultimatum, feel free to take your marbles and go home. We're volunteers managing a service you don't pay for, and I think that as a rule NS Mods are as fair as anyone in the business. I've been looking over some of the complaints in some of the other communities, and I see multiple instances where threads are deleted by mod whim at any point, or where mod politics decides the fate of EVERY discussion. We have rules which we follow, logs proving our actions are just, and oversight from our fellow mods and admins to assure that the players are being treated fairly.

Wha? The quality of modding here is a major asset of this forum.

You might have noticed that I have (EDIT: QUESTIONED) several of Katganistan's rulings ... but never did I want anything more than what the other Mods offer in their rulings. I don't think I ever disputed a ruling of Kat's. I only ever wanted to know why. "Doing without saying why" is NOT necessarily bad Modding ... but it can be seen that way. Missing words do the Devil's work.

On a semi-humorous note, I followed a link in Smunkeeville's sig "What would a forum moderated by Smunkeeville be like?" and discovered that being great poster does not make one a great mod. I made a major goose of myself there, but I'll link to it even if S won't: cssmafia.ipbfree.com

We are nonetheless fellow players on NationStates, and your attitude of entitlement doesn't endear me to bend over backwards to accommodate your ... let's call them what they are, demands. Had you asked politely for more threads to be archived, I'd have discussed it with one or two others and probably acceded. Given this exchange, though, I think I'll just let you do your own archiving.

Another lie. You are unaware that a database, though taken offline, may still be searched by third parties? For example, Max Barry, searching for ideas to supply his next idea-rich, incompetently plotted, farcically characterised and ultimately exploit-the-reader, piece of crap novel?

Look, I always accepted that I was compromising the copyright on anything I wrote, by posting it to this forum. A big smiley on that was that anyone with internet access could search and find my words. They could see who said them first. When my words are taken off-line (and note, I consider myself in the Top Ten of my own favourite posters, I unashamedly Get more than I Give here) ... what price my "personal archives"? Is some file off my hard disk going to be taken as authoritative, should a published author claim them as ter original work?

Should I also archive (see below) the writings of Soheran? Of Neu Leonstein? Of CTOAN, of Smunkeeville, of Bottle?

I'd thought this place my library of friend's opinions. A reference library. Now I find that the extended opening hours and improved facial expressions of the librarian come with a slight cost. The new managers burned all the old books.

Your methodology sounds just fine.

It sucks. It took hours to archive my first 100 posts (one month.) Five more months to go to the purge date. Days of really boring, cut and paste bullshit.

I'm burdening the server, dragging up these old ('06) threads and calling Quotes I don't ever post. That burden almost certainly exceeds the burden of "Call all posts of NH, zip, post to email address"

And that's before the burden of what I find I must do now, delete my oldest posts so that the search function can find my posts in the second half of '06, in order as I posted them. That's altering old data! As I said before, I don't know much about databases, but altering old files must be hitting someone at Jolt. I do have some knowledge of data backup, and long-ago files which change minimally (a deletion) are a huge hassle. They are a change to old progressive backup. Even one rule change since then makes restoring from a backup more difficult.

Think twice before endorsing my method. Not only does it suck for me, but it sucks for the server too. This day, I give thanks I am not an NS Mod. Grim days; you have my sympathy (which is worth nothing to you), or my time (if you would bizarrely trust me to help in this process.)

So let me re-put my case: it's not just me. It's every poster who posted before the "cull date" and it's every poster who wants a searchable record of their interlocutor's post history. It's every thread starter who was told "oh, we tried this years ago but it didn't work." It's every poster who wonders why Il Ruffino's posts aren't just treated as spam.

Hopefully you can get it all done before Jolt has to do the purge.

"Has to do" my fat arse. You mean "does."

If you accept the purge as a necessity, I think you have some further explanations to make. Speaking for us, to them ... and speaking for them, to us ... is a difficult role. Don't whine to me, and all ordinary users whose posts are being deleted, about what a terrible hard row you have to hoe.

Not when I grow in the row. And you hold the hoe.

Unknown (it's a Jolt thing). Maybe days, maybe a week or two. Better hurry.
shit... i got a bunch i can think of but can't put my finger to the urls yet. will try to get em by tomorrow or something (hopefully)



P.S. Oh God Nov 2005 *hyperventilates mores*

yeah, i'm gonna end up with a postcount around 500 or something :tongue:

edit: i will miss my postcount. i know its sad/pathetic, but i will... its 18,000 posts of history and good memories (well, some) to me

Hey, is it possible we could do a thread trade? Like we offer a thread that is after 2006 to be deleted and it lets us archive another?

If it helps, there's a guy (forget his name, but he was a friend of Douglas Adams) who crawls the web and saves EVERYTHING, periodically. He had a huge warehouse full of hard drives containing snap-shots of the Web practically from the beginning (of course he'll miss password-protected sites, and things that were put up and then deleted in between one of his saves, but it is a truly massive amount of information) in the Netherlands, and then gave somebody in the Bay Area permission to make backups of it all, and then got interest from the government of Egypt to put another copy in the new Library of Alexandria they are building. "So," Adams put it, "we had a record of all human knowledge on a site that is below sea level, and put another copy in a place that has been destroyed by a massive earthquake before and is bound to be destroyed again, and now we have a copy in a place where mankind once before made a record of all human knowledge, and deliberately destroyed it all."

Yeah I thought about archive.org or w/e it is. Actually if that's a joke it's pretty funny.

Hell, this is a wrench. I'm not going to emulate Nobel Hobos yard-long exposition, but it does hurt. It's hard to know that if I feel like going back to that thread where I pwned Keruvalia, or where Peech gave Sark a virtual makeover, I won't be able to.

Lets brainstorm for some good threads. In the vein of nostalgia, maybe the NS fossil thread?

Does anyone remember a thread that was basicaly about inventing the human? It was really funny and creative...the posts were as if creating what was happening in the celestial workroom to invent us. I know that sounds vague, but it was a great thread and I can't find it.

Can I take the recent unstickying of this thread as an implicit warning of the impending purge?

rut roh

Can I take the recent unstickying of this thread as an implicit warning of the impending purge?

As an armchair Stalinist, may I just say "yay for purges".

Thank you.

Can I take the recent unstickying of this thread as an implicit warning of the impending purge?

Actually, no. Nobody seemed to have anything more to archive, and nobody on the Jolt side was making motions to do any cleanup. I just un-stuck it to get it out of the way.

Actually, no. Nobody seemed to have anything more to archive, and nobody on the Jolt side was making motions to do any cleanup. I just un-stuck it to get it out of the way.

Oh okay. I was just curious. I set a sort of personal goal to hit 20k before the purge, and I was going to be a bit upset if I fell just short.