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a.s.
Valinor
Sep 5 2016, 8:48pm
Post #1 of 28
(2272 views)
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THE PRECIOUS IS BROKE!! re: Squire's magnificent footerama links to previous LOTR discussions
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All right, there is too much precious in that footer (as well as the one linked FROM the sticky posted at the top of the RR from Altaira http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=113274#113274 which links to the post from NEB which also has the squire footerama links to previous discussions in it.)
Did anyone actually follow that??
However, not having checked all the links (heavens, a girl has a life), it appears that some if not all of the Book VI links to the 2006 discussion (at the least, and there may be more) don't actually do anything but take you back to the main index page of the current board.
They certainly do not take you back in time.
I randomly checked some from previous discussions, and they do actually take you back in time. However, I didn't do enough of a systematic check to know if this problem is only the 2006 discussion or is more widespread.
Anyway, in all seriousness, that is a very precious index, and some thought ought to go into publishing it somehow, so it is not lost to time.
Or at least looking at the links.
How can I assist? I like wasting time, I mean researching links. Just need an assignment.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." JRR Tolkien, Letters.
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a.s.
Valinor
Sep 5 2016, 9:45pm
Post #3 of 28
(2146 views)
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'swat I get for not paying attention
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...or for being away too much.
I should've known you were on the case.
Thanks. In all seriousness, I would be terribly sad to lose those links, squire.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." JRR Tolkien, Letters.
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Earl
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Sep 7 2016, 8:02am
Post #4 of 28
(2101 views)
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Without looking too deeply into this...
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Are you aware that Magpie has been curating a lot of TORn stuff in the TORn Mathom-house?
If you feel there's something worth archiving for posterity's sake, definitely talk to Magpie and see what she thinks.
The Hobbit Soundtracks - Being an online archive of information concerning Howard Shore's score for The Hobbit films.
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Altaira
Superuser
Sep 8 2016, 9:20pm
Post #5 of 28
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I'm afraid the news isn't good.
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In researching the cause of the server crashing from time-to-time, Corvar finally isolated the problem to the old boards, specifically, people accessing posts on the old boards. It turns out even in their current 'read only' state, our good old boards insist on being glitchy. 
I've been discussing some possible solutions with Corvar and Calisuri, including:
- migrating the data to a platform where it can be accessed
- extracting the data and saving it as text
- formally archiving them
- de-bugging what's causing the problem
Regarding archiving, with a quick Google search I discovered tons of old archived RPG boards. We can look into how that's done and whether it's different than what I did long ago which was just making them read-only.
Corvar has already somewhat explored de-bugging without success. However, he has a life outside of TORn and can't devote a ton of time to it. Further de-bugging would probably require some expense, which I'm also happy to look into.
Migrating and/or extracting the data, while possible, looks like it would be a nightmare. I recall that Corvar extracted some data from the Reading Room when Reverend passed away so I could put together some of his threads for his family. The data comes out as a flat file (example below), making it almost impossible to covert into fields that could exist on another database platform. It reminded me that it took me hours to delete the excess data to turn it into something Reverend's family could make sense out of.
Corvar, Calisuri and I still have our thinking caps on. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, we're certainly open to them!
Example of data extract from old RPG boards:
MessageID: 158743
Date: 1175022337
In-Reply-To: 45F334B4.00026C15.readingroom
Time Zone: -0700D
Name: Altaira
E-Mail: altaira@theonering.net
User Level: 5
Language: en.ISO-8859-1
IP Name: ???
Link URL: http://www.theonering.net/...ewsview/8/1175016604
Link Title: Message Board Drawing
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1;
.NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Root MessageID: 158741
Root Date: 1173566644
Tag: N
Spoiler Text: href="http://www.theonering.net/...ewsview/8/1175016604">Link
Inside
Font: 9pt
Text Alignment: left
Subject: **Register on the New Boards by April 5th and win a PF Frodo
by Sideshow Collectibles!
Footer: ************
src='http://img.villagephotos.com/...3-7/297861/Bday4.jpg' width=165
height=235 >
Koru: Maori symbol
representing a fern frond as it opens. The koru reaches towards
the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new, positive
beginnings.
"I take a moment to fervently hope
that the camaradarie and just plain old fun I found at TORn will never
end" -- LOTR_nutcase
************
href="http://julieotpe.tripod.com/">TORN 101
href="http://calendar.yahoo.com/...ds/?v=2&t=1157097600">TORN
Calendar
**Register on the New Boards by April 5th and win a PF Frodo by
Sideshow Collectibles!
Koru: Maori symbol representing a fern frond as it opens. The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new, positive beginnings.
"Life can't be all work and no TORn" -- jflower
"I take a moment to fervently hope that the camaradarie and just plain old fun I found at TORn will never end" -- LOTR_nutcase
(This post was edited by Altaira on Mar 20 2018, 5:43pm)
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a.s.
Valinor
Sep 8 2016, 10:04pm
Post #6 of 28
(2056 views)
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well, darn us for being so articulate AND so
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nostalgic, since looking back on those old interesting discussions caused the glitches!
I for one would buy a printed book of them, but ahem, I realize that is a limited income possibility with slim (ok, nonexistant) marketing potential.
But I would be happy to donate if donations would assist with the de-bugging expense!
Because I know we got complacent about the depth of discussions at time, not that EVERY discussion was so extraordinary, but honestly, many were. And I would love them to be preserved, unless I'm the only one interested.
And then I will just have to let it go with the rest of the sands of time.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." JRR Tolkien, Letters.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Sep 9 2016, 1:34am
Post #8 of 28
(2050 views)
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If you can extract the data . . .
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. . . then I am up for the manual work of cleaning it into at least readable text, and sending it back to you for hosting as you will. Despite my infrequent participation of late, saving this history means very much to me. I would start with the Reading Room. I have probably about 5% of the old Reading Room already copied to Word files (work done years ago). I know that squire has copied some portion of the "official" discussions to his site, more than 5% certainly, but he wasn't done yet, and there were quite a few other threads well worth saving. (I would really like to preserve such things as NZ Strider's "Bombadilion".) And as Earl mentions, we should see what Magpie collected.
After that, I think I would try to clean up as many Movie threads as possible, too. Even though I am not a fan of the films, I think some of those discussions are of great historical interest. As I wrote in Tolkien Studies a couple years ago, much of the best writing about Jackson's films happened on the internet--and of course I was thinking of TORN--and it too should be preserved where possible.
Then I would try to clean up the best of Main.
(It's too bad the old forums were set up in such a way that prevented the Internet Archive from preservign them.)
Obviously if there is an easier way, I'm all for it! Please count me in to help in any way I can.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Discuss Tolkien's life and works in the Reading Room!
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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a.s.
Valinor
Sep 9 2016, 2:32am
Post #9 of 28
(2038 views)
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If this could be done and it would help
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and it involves something like cutting extraneous headers and filenames for absent pictures, etc--
--and pasting them to a Word document (keeping to your format or one that the PTB decide)--
I would gladly assist. Given an assignment and a chunk of text to clean up, I could spend some time on it.
However, I don't know if that just makes things more confusing.
But if helpful, let me know.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." JRR Tolkien, Letters.
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Sep 9 2016, 5:46am
Post #10 of 28
(2023 views)
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I would be willing to help with this too
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If there was a way that multiple people could work on it, I bet we could assemble a team to take on the task. I'd dearly love to be able to revisit Old TORN again in some form.
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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Starling
Half-elven
Sep 9 2016, 6:23am
Post #11 of 28
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There is life outside of TORn?
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Quote:
However, he has a life outside of TORn and can't devote a ton of time to it.
Now you are just being silly. 
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NottaSackville
Valinor
Sep 9 2016, 12:51pm
Post #12 of 28
(2025 views)
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As it turns out, I write nerdy scripts for a living
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Converting flat file information like what you've shown into some other format in an automated fashion is something that shouldn't be too difficult.
We'd just have to define what the other format was - simple Word document(s), text files formatted properly to read into a new database/web server, a new database itself, or even potentially a whole series of linked web pages and indexes similar to the actual boards (which would then either be hosted somwhere, or users could download them and access them locally on their own computers).
Any of those seem totally possible based on the flat file info you showed, and there's certainly other options I didn't think of right off the top of my head.
Sadly (or not), it's the sort of thing I find fun and I'd be more than happy to do for TORN (for free of course).
Maybe in the process, we could compute everyone's actual stats, too ;)
Notta
Happiness: money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important and so are friends, while envy is toxic -- and so is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. - The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner as summarized by Lily Fairbairn. And a bit of the Hobbit reading thrown in never hurts. - NottaSackville
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Sep 9 2016, 8:11pm
Post #13 of 28
(1986 views)
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Compute accurate TORN stats? I think I just saw a whole flock of pigs swoop by. 
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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NottaSackville
Valinor
Sep 9 2016, 8:47pm
Post #14 of 28
(1978 views)
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It's easy enough to throw random noise in there, too.
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And if I accidentally mod up all my old posts, well...
Happiness: money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important and so are friends, while envy is toxic -- and so is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. - The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner as summarized by Lily Fairbairn. And a bit of the Hobbit reading thrown in never hurts. - NottaSackville
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Darkstone
Immortal
Sep 9 2016, 9:06pm
Post #15 of 28
(1973 views)
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...during the night would cut and paste huge blocks of random text, post them, delete them, then rinse and repeat to up his word count stat.
So the stats are already, er, compromised.
******************************************
The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Sep 9 2016, 10:07pm
Post #16 of 28
(1968 views)
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were more or less conceded after he posted the bulk of the Faerie Queene one day. I can't quite recall who he was trying to trump with that - likely Aelric. The Steward held the word count title for a long time.
Silverlode
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
Valinor
Sep 9 2016, 11:10pm
Post #17 of 28
(1969 views)
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I thought some of the old posts were dumped for ever. Not the ones we might have wished to disappear, most likely, though. ;)
**********************************
NABOUF
Not a TORns*b!
Certified Curmudgeon
Knitting Knerd
NARF: NWtS Chapter Member since June 17,2011
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Altaira
Superuser
Sep 10 2016, 12:27am
Post #18 of 28
(1980 views)
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This makes me think things are looking up a tiny tadge.
Corvar has given me the contact info for the person who designed the old boards. I'm going to do an initial 're-introduce TORn' contact and pick their brains about initial possibilities. He may have a simple solution (hahaha), or at least more insight and suggestions. Corvar has also said that he's willing to give a trusted person some access to the old boards to 'poke around.' Notta - I can't think of a more trusted person than you.  Once I make initial contact with the author, it may end up that we can put him, you and Corvar together to find a solution. I also don't think I'd be speaking out of turn to say that there's enough space on the server to host whatever format it ends up in.
Thank you to everyone who's volunteered so far (including NEB's suggestion that we *gasp* save movie-board posts )! There definitely may still be a need for many of us to roll up our sleeves.
The TORn message board community is amazing. 
I'll report back as soon as I hear from the author - hopefully soon.
Edited to add: in the meantime, are there thoughts as to the 'preferred' new format? As Notta said... Word files, text files, some kind of database? I don't know what's possible, but since some of you have gathered bits and bobs from the forums, you may have some recommendations.
Koru: Maori symbol representing a fern frond as it opens. The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new, positive beginnings.
"Life can't be all work and no TORn" -- jflower
"I take a moment to fervently hope that the camaradarie and just plain old fun I found at TORn will never end" -- LOTR_nutcase
(This post was edited by Altaira on Sep 10 2016, 12:30am)
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Loresilme
Valinor
Sep 10 2016, 2:22am
Post #19 of 28
(1950 views)
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If I can help, add me to the list !
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Sep 10 2016, 2:32am
Post #20 of 28
(1953 views)
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Don't forget Magpie's Mathom House
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She and I worked on cleaning up and organizing the articles there for a time a couple of years ago, but had to abandon that part of the project after a while. But a lot of good work was done, and I really think it would be worth contacting her.
I only lurked on the old boards, but it would mean a lot to me to be able to read some of the old discussions, especially if it could be arranged in a format that made it easier to find specific topics.
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Sep 10 2016, 2:38am
Post #21 of 28
(1943 views)
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I once had a dream that there were
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houses and trees and roads and funny looking carriages with no horses where all sorts of people lived and worked and played, outside of the descriptions on the board and of course the real life existing inside Tolkien's books and Jackson's movies about them. It was very disconcerting, so I was glad I could wake up and find myself once again safely inside my nice flat Computer screen.
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Altaira
Superuser
Sep 10 2016, 3:13am
Post #22 of 28
(1949 views)
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Magpie let me know recently that Google Picasa is no more. The bad news is that many of the things she linked to both from the Mathom-house and her music site were hosted there.
I'm looking into hosting it on TORn - which actually may be another project in need of volunteers. There were boundless riches on both of those sites that shouldn't be lost.
Koru: Maori symbol representing a fern frond as it opens. The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new, positive beginnings.
"Life can't be all work and no TORn" -- jflower
"I take a moment to fervently hope that the camaradarie and just plain old fun I found at TORn will never end" -- LOTR_nutcase
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Sep 10 2016, 4:55am
Post #23 of 28
(1935 views)
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Mathom-house.net is archived at the Wayback Machine.
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See here.
I haven't searched that archive in depth (often those records only go so deep), but if all else fails, at least a little bit of history will be preserved there, like Niggle's leaf. (Although as I recall, even that perished when the museum burned down.)
It was fascinating to learn from visiting that page that someone else had used the same URL back in 2003 for the purposes of setting up a reference to Tolkien information, apparently along the lines of the Encyclopedia of Arda. It seems to have lasted less than a year.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Discuss Tolkien's life and works in the Reading Room!
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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Inferno
Superuser
/ Moderator
Sep 15 2016, 5:38pm
Post #24 of 28
(1830 views)
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I think the ideal would be a series of linked web pages
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Cause that should be fairly easy to host on tOR.N and the static pages wouldn't take up much space or bandwidth.
Altaira, do you know what db is being used behind RPGBoards? I would assume mysql, but I don't actually know. I know a lot of dbas, and I expect that between Notta and I (and others) we could cobble together some decent SQL queries to extract the useful bits plus some scripting that would dump it all into static html files with the proper linking.
I'm willing to help as much as I can, but my time for such projects is sadly limited these days.
Inferno.
======================
Good night, tOR.Nados. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely delete you in the morning.
======================
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NottaSackville
Valinor
Sep 15 2016, 8:27pm
Post #25 of 28
(1824 views)
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Linked web pages also seem like the easiest way to preserve the threaded nature of the conversations, which I think is important.
Happiness: money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important and so are friends, while envy is toxic -- and so is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. - The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner as summarized by Lily Fairbairn. And a bit of the Hobbit reading thrown in never hurts. - NottaSackville
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= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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