Okay. So. The whole database was wiped. There do not appear to be any backups.
So everything that was on the forums is gone (including the styles, hacks, and so on). Everything that was in the guestbook is gone. Now, it will take a bit of time to get the forums back into shape, seeing as I need a fresh install of vBulletin, and it is further delayed by the fact that my vBulletin license expired a few days ago and my dad is away - he'll be back on Saturday, and then we can renew the license and start working on that. Hopefully. I'll have to remake all the styles, though, as well as installing all the hacks again and remaking a couple of my own little hacks created specifically for the forum. So that could take a while. Just please be patient and rest assured that I'm getting an automatic database backup program to prevent this from happening again.
On the other hand, the guestbook, being far simpler and my own script, was relatively simple to bring back - without all the posts, of course, but I just had to recreate the database to get it working again. So the guestbook and guestbook-powered update commenting are back (as well, as, incidentally, the forum and comment system on the Quest for the Legends minipage, which were a bit more complicated to bring back but I did anyway since it's the fic's sixth birthday today, and I really wish I could have spent it posting a Laughing Cupboard thread at the forums and finishing chapter 42 instead of messing around with MySQL).
To look on the bright side of the forum loss: this will provide some nice cleanup, hopefully fix some bugs, and get me to actually get all the hacks working properly in 3.7 (not to mention that if I need to recreate all the other styles, it's a perfect opportunity to remake Hellfire style and adapt Torkoal style to the forums).
I'm sorry about this.
Oh well. As Nick Frost would have said - it's not the end of the world.
I mean, I'm sure we can all imagine something worse than a forum wipe.
And hey. It's like being away on a long vacation and returning to find lots of new threads and the old ones buried.
Oh, okay. By the way:
1) Will banned members be allowed to rejoin?
2) Will all members with infractions keep them or lose them?
3) Will people banned from a certain board be re-allowed to post there? And yes, I'm banned from one of the boards.
I suppose you could put it that way, yes. It's like when you older members moved from the really old forums, to the new vBulletin ones.
So… it's as if the forums have moved?
Yes rock-ground, we all have to re-register. S'all wiped clean.
So… does this mean I'll have to re-register?
Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. This is very bad… And, uh, forgive the epxpression, but Christ. All the threads have gone? Wow. I suppose the active RP threads could just be continued from where they left off, but as for the others?
Again, Christ. It's going to take a long time to get all the necessary threads up, like the rules, all the ASB and Mafia stuff, Forum Guidelines, and so on, no?
That's what Google has already indexed. You can use Google's cache to locate a few relatively up-to-date pages. Nothing too recent, though.
Okay, it might be stupid, but could we get the old, old forums up?
This one,Here?
Of course, it probably won't let you post of register, but it's an idea (that probably doesn't work).
On another note, the thing Kratos said, about getting stuff from google, I just typed up my fic name along with Cave of dragonfly's in google, and it shows some pages, along with tidbits from them, there. Either Google has this stuff in memory, or maybe there's still some of the info left. Just another stupid idea…
I'll stop trying to be helpful now…
Anyway, now that half my Internet life has been lobotomized, I guess I'll just have to go to serebii… ug…
I'm working to recover what I can of ASB right now. (Negrek would kill me if I didn't). That might not include Sam's sig move, but as long as you have a backup of the approved version it shouldn't take long to get it approved again.
*has not read the other comments here*
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
The Mightyena is not happy.
Please forgive my childish outburst; I think I've calmed down now. That was seriously my first reaction, though, after things sank in. After that, I was pacing around, eyes wide and saying in a sort of partial whisper, "All gone. Every last shred of data gone. I'll have to re-register. My roleplay gone, my battling team gone right after my glameow's sig move was approved. All of it, gone."
But, so is life, I guess. There are worse things that could have happened, which I will not mention for fear of giving the cyberspace deities bad ideas. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to the new forums, but if it takes a while it takes a while.
I do have a life besides forum roleplaying, afterall.
Sort of.
Kinda.
I know, I find myself clicking my Cave of Dragonflies bookmark out of habit.
I'm gonna wait around for the forums to come back. Man, lol, I feel like a chunk of daily routine just flew away.
Yeah, Arylett, you'd just joined my RP hadn't you? And the forum went just as Vendetta was reunited with his son too!
Sucks more than you know. And this on top of my computer… It'll get better, I hope. This'll give us a chance to rebuild. She probably will restart it; it was such a strong, popular RP that it'd be stupid not to. And all the others can be remade too! We can restore everything! Renew it, make it better!
And I'll be hanging out here as well 'till the forums come back. I feel so bad for all you people in a lot of RPs and in ASB, it must really suck.
I hope that Kindling Queen will restart the RSP too, Zora. And that she'll be accepting new people, because I really wanted to join and was going to, but then the forums got wiped out before I could.
I knoooow… I was really getting to like playing as Sheila too… She was an awesome Ninetales. But hey, maybe Kindling Queen will start it over! We can start this stuff over! It'll be OK! :DDD
Get used to it. I'm hanging here till the forums are back up. >>
And I guess we'll have to restart all the Mafia games, too. Which isn't all that bad, really, because I really hate always getting second bannana.
Darnit, to think of all the RPGs that have been lost, the Rack Shackle Pack, the Eight Regions, After the End. *sniffle*
Y'all is no one in particular. I wasn't thinking when I typed it. Ah well, I'll stick to my plan of training my ass off and pwning you all after all. Oh well. :/
I still wanna know how this keeps happening to me this week, but it could be a good thing. All the drama-llama threads are gone so.
