Shutting down for a scheduled upgrade

Hi People

I’m shutting down the forums starting noontime ni Taiwan, Wednesday 24 May. I’ll be upgrading to the latest and most secure version of this software because of recent hack attempts on our server. We’re also long overdue for a makeover – I’ll be cleaning up the code, removing some features that we don’t use, and introducing some new ones, too.

It’s going to take some time to get us back to the forum you are familiar with – I am sorry about this. I plan to install some essential features right away are re-open the forum quickly. Then I’ll be making changes over the next week.

If we run into major complications, I’ll roll things back and schedule a new time – in the hopes of minimizing downtime. As the eternal (blind) optimist, I don’t anticipate major problems (uh oh).

Your feedback is critical – especially for some of the new things I want to put in place. If you encounter problems – speed, clutter, confusion – please post about it in the Feedback Forum. I’ll be relying on this area for guidance. Of course, you can always PM or e-mail Maoman and/or me directly – admin @ forumosa.com gets to both of us, or use our personal addresses (maoman@ and gus@)

Other parts of the website will still be open -

Come back to this page for updates and to comment

Excelsior!

gus.
aka Goose Egg

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Forums
17 Comments » for Shutting down for a scheduled upgrade
  1. Goose Egg says:

    JFYI, I’ve successfully backed up the database. Am now porting it over to the new one :)

  2. Goose Egg says:

    Now in new database – going to install the new forum files

  3. BeeBee says:

    Wish everything is fine. If there anything I can assist, let us know.

    BeeBee.

  4. Goose Egg says:

    Thank you, BeeBee. This is very nice of you. It would be very helpful for you to give us feedback now and then about what you like and don’t like about our websites. I can’t guarantee that we’ll act on all of your suggestions, but you can be sure that I’ll read them

    Regarding the upgrade process – I’ve successfully set up the basic structure of the new forums. Now, I’m modifying the forums to include some basic tools. If all goes well, we’ll relaunch the forums tonight and I’ll keep modifying things over the next week.

  5. Crony S. Chew says:

    Since the site is going through some structural changes, why not grant an amnesty to suspended users? In other words, cut off my sentence by a week..:)

  6. Linda says:

    I’m a stranger who has just passed by.I was trying to visit this website before reading the words above.
    Although I’m not sure what’s happening,I’ll come back next week.

  7. Hartzell says:

    In conformance with the new “Anti-Gender Discrimination Law” which recently was upgraded and went into effect here in Taiwan, I am wondering if the new version of the forumosa.com forums will have the “Women’s Only Forum” available for everyone to see …… ???

  8. Goose Egg says:

    No, there aren’t any plans to comply with the law w/r/t accessing the Private Women’s Forum. Richard, you are just going to have to become a woman first ;)

  9. ceevee369 says:

    Gosh, I found a temporary thread posting opportunity here! ;-)

    Hope everything goes as planned? We are 6 hours later, so maybe some update for all of us Gus?

  10. Goose Egg says:

    The new forum seems to be stable. I’m busy re-installing the tools and functions that we use to moderate the forums

    Don’t forget, when we unwrap this tonight, there is still going to be a lot of work ahead of us. So you will have to tolerate some instability over the next week :(

  11. Silverback says:

    “Richard, you are just going to have to become a woman first”

    Given Richard’s history, might we assume that he will instead make a case that all women ARE men, in an esoteric ‘de jure’ kind of way?

  12. mr_boogie says:

    Hope everything will be allright – I will do some check around after everything is done and keep you informed if I find anything wrong…

  13. Jake says:

    Hi Gus,

    Just wishing you a speedy return to normal operations.

    Cheers,

    J

  14. Holger says:

    Dear Gus,

    sounds like an awful lot of work – however the result is likely to be great.

    You must be king of PHP at the current stage.

    Looking forward to see the forums back – something is really missing.

    Holger

  15. Spanky-cakes says:

    Dear Forumosa,

    Please get well soon!

    Love,
    Spanky-cakes.

    PS — 加油 Gus!!! :)

  16. Wu Kong says:

    Do what you have to do but for heavens sake stop messing about with the classifieds

  17. Goose Egg says:

    The end of the beginning.

    OK, I’ve switched the forums back on. I added a few new features, like an integrated calendar (which will allow you to timestamp your posts), an updated Quick Reply box, plus a few admin/moderator tools.

    There are still a number of features to come: Ignore, Squeal, Sub-forums, Site Map, the banners, the plugs from the Forumosafieds, Resynching and Stats and a lot more

    I’ll be bringing these back over time. Thank you for all of your patience :)

    g.