Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable Downsizing ReaderRant

Nothing's getting chucked until the archiving efforts are complete and the next move is imminent.

The current host is too expensive and while we've kept the lights on for now we are not out of the woods. The monthly expense continues. At some point in the future, we can move a smaller, more nimble Rant to a cheaper home. Then Doug can apprise us of our new operating expenses and we can divide it among ourselves as we see fit.

I think all these years Doug paid our rent deserves enormous thanks and that we should pick up the tab from here on in. Ultimately, that will be the test of how long the Reader Rant community can stay alive.

Printing a copy off is great for the records but it isn't that data that makes the Rant what it is.

The Reader Rant archives pf the past are stored on hard drives I have and also in an offsite st of backups of the CHB that gp back to 1995. As memory serves, we lost some data in the late 119990 and early 2000 because of a hacker and some of RR was destroyed by a moderator who felt I had "betrayed the cause." She left and took some material with her. I never heard from her again.

The data is stored, primary, in MySQL database files I am trying to go back and did up what we have. We still have a storage room in Fairfax, VA, where a lot of this stuff is store.

Doug

Holy moly, first I ever heard about hackers and a rogue mod!!
Wow, I have to sit down for a moment. This is really serious. So sorry this happened.
I still stand ready to offer another large hard drive for you if you need it, happy to do whatever I can to help.

As I recall, we had to ditch a number of threads after the hack and because of a moderator who felt I betrayed the cause. She was a trusted administrator too, but then copied some material other to other discussion boards to list what she felt was my passage to the dark side. It was a sad time and I almost shut the board down over it, but others, like Phil Hoskins, stepped up and restored some order. Phil and I tangled more than a few times, but he came though, as several of you have in this latest crisis. Thank you. You have been more than I deserve.

I have some database experts who work at Virginia Tech, which is over in an adjoining county, who have volunteered to help examine the archive databases to see what may need to be done to make sure they are clean of any hacks and need any repairs. The three largest drives are up in Fairfax (a five-hour drive away) in Northern Virginia, and I will head up that way in the Spring to pick them up (and probably everything else still in that storage unit) to bring back to the mountains.

Jeff, your help could see how, and if, he archives can put in any form for reading or printing, along with whatever is deciding to do with what is currently on the forum.

We've got a lot or work ahead on this, and the help of all of you is both needed and appreciated. Thank you.

Doug

I found the oldest column of mine in the current RR listings. It was from January 2017 but had a lot of garbage in it:

[column]

January 20, 2017 | by DOUG THOMPSON - A CHB Opinion

In the four days leading up to Friday�s inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America, nearly 450,000 people chose to read a four-year-old story in Capitol Hill Blue about a number of Republicans who would not be attending the second inaugural of Barack Obama.

The article, written by Ken Thomas of The Associated Press, said Republicans, after losing the second straight Presidential election to Obama, weren�t in any mood to celebrate.

More than 100 Repubicans, including members of Congress, chose to attend an event in Las Vegas, called �Restore Our Future� or on vacation getaway or just �trips home� while Democrats flocked to Washington to celebrate another four years of Obama living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

�It�s a good time to lay low,� said John Feeheary, a former top Congressional aide and president of Quinn Gillespie Communications.

Someone found the article in the CHB archives and posted it on Twitter and Facebook as an answer to Republicans and Trump aides who claim Democrats who aren�t attending this year�s inauguration are somehow �unpatriotic.� [End of Clip}


A lof of posts lilke this were full of garbage characters, whmich usually suggests a change in the typeface filter that did ot work. Not sure, I will continuke digging and finding what I can and let everyone know what I find.

UBB changed a lot over the years and we had a lot of problems with MySQL and PhP with translateriongs of older posts updates. The changes could affect older archives as well. Let's hope not.

Doug

Cleaing-up old columns corrupted by software updates and making them look pretty again, will give the mods something to do.

wanna be a mod? I've got some files that need going through...about 17 THOUSAND of them.

Last year I moved from my home of 44 years in the swamp. I brought nothing with me.

That's my approach to memorabilia of all sorts.

Okay but that doesn't mean it has to be everyone else's approach, and all that's being asked is to preserve them, archive and make a plan
to have them accessible at least in read only mode in a separate location that is tailored to OCCASIONAL access.

That's not too much to ask, and hard drives are cheap and I will cheerfully help out with that cost.

I have 45 minutes of free time on the ferry twice a day.

I'm just a mod. I don't make any decisions.