Old forum entries

[wulfheart]

I saw a thread regarding a redesign of the platform on the old forum. Is there any way to get the entries of the old forum?

[jmo1121109]

http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php

[kestasjk]

Huh.. I didn't realize you could still post to it

[JECE]

Can we have the old threads from before 2013 back? Historical preservation is good. The old Forum can't overload the site anymore if virtually no one uses it, right?

[Tasnica]

It'd be really neat to have ready access to a lot of the old content! I remember there especially being a lot of good EoGs scattered around there.

[kestasjk]

Definitely something worth considering .. it'd be good to have forum posts going back to 0.72 in the main forum

[brainbomb]

its not dead, as long as we remember it

[JECE]

Thanks, Kestas!

I have to say, by the way, that the old Forum looks really awesome in dark mode!

[wulfheart]

Any way to search the old forum?

[wulfheart]

There once was a thread about a possible redesign with some graphics and I can't find it. Does anybody remember it?

[JECE]

For old threads from the old Forum, you may have luck by checking to see if these subpages of your profile page were ever recorded on the Internet Archive or elsewhere:
https://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?de ... erID=84364
https://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?de ... erID=84364

Otherwise, just prefix an internet search (on DuckDuckGo or Google or something) with "site:http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php". I don't think that search engines handle all the pages in the old Forum very well, but you may be able to find what you are looking for.

[wulfheart]

I tried the site: part but it didn't work out.

[Jamiet99uk]

Brainbomb (over on the old Forum) has raised a sensible question:

"If this (old) forum was eating up data and slowing down the server and destroying the community, why does it still exist and still function?"

[jmo1121109]

The problem is when it's used, so 1 or 2 people checking it to post in last person to win doesn't really slow the site. Hundreds of profiles having it auto populated on the home page...very different story. If a ton of people started using it again we'd have issues again, in which case we'd just block access to it for non mods.

[JECE]

If that's the case, then it sounds like re-uploading the older old Forum threads wouldn't cause issues? Or did that cause a different problem?

[Tasnica]

Found this gem while browsing the old forum:

---Typical Gunboat EoGs---

Austria - "Why is it that being paranoid and insane is the only strategy that feels marginally effective?"

England - "Why do people keep on building bloody fleets? Tell them to stop!"

France - "That was fun. Let's play again!"

Germany - "One of these days, I'm totally going to get Belgium and keep it."

Italy - "No matter how crazy the openings I try, they never seem to work!"

Russia - "What I would give for an army in St. Petersburg..."

Turkey - "At least I didn't die first."

[Tasnica]

I've also rediscovered the EoGs from the 2013 Around The World Gunboat Tournament and... well that sure was an event! Reading through my old EoGs is pretty amusing, though there's a lot more cursing than I remember. Seems I had... passionate... opinions about a lot of those matches.

They start around Page 44 (April 2013) if anyone wants a blast from the past or is still interested in the World Diplomacy IX variant.

[wulfheart]

@kestasjk @jmo is possible to get a database dump of the old forum data? Just the thread ID and the content. In that case I could search it and it would really help me.

[kestasjk]

Hi, thanks for the reminder I forgot that we had to clear the forum messages. I've restored the forum messages going back to post 1:
https://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?viewthread=1#1

The old forum isn't searchable I'm afraid, I'll try to insert the old forum messages into phpBB

[JECE]

Amazing, Kestas! You're my hero!

As for searching, if we manage to fix these two pages for every profile, it's almost as good as a search:
https://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?de ... &userID=10
https://webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?de ... &userID=10

Users would then be able to use [Ctrl] + [F] to at least search through the messages of a given user.