• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Future of the Forum

Another thing: while vmstat is good for immediate problem solving, it's useful to setup permanent monitoring, which gives you a picture of your system over time. An example is http://munin-monitoring.org/ (there are many others). This will help correlating system changes with performance changes and doesn't cost you many resources. Most systems will out of the box monitor things like CPU, memory and I/O on Linux, and many will offer plugins for specific applications like vBulletin and MySQL, offering you a complete picture.

I can't work anymore without something like that...
 
Klimax said:
You missed at least one other problem caused by Sucuri: Missing avatars.
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I was not saying that I had listed all current problems caused by Sucuri, Klimax. The problem you mention (avatars not showing) seems to occur only with Internet Explorer, and not with Chrome, Firefox or Opera (my OS is Windows, not checked any other). Still, the problem is real, and should be fixed ;)
 
Michel H said:
Sharon (idoubtit), I hope Mr. Adams, who is perhaps the person who's been installing the Sucuri website firewall (see here for an explanation) for the forum in recent days, is fully aware of the problems mentioned by Lisa Simpson and Wolfman above. The number of active users is currently rather low (about 325 now, usually about 700 [?]), this may explain why the forum is fast. It would be nice if you could convince this person (or whoever is currently in charge of the hardware) to post in the Forum Help & Member Support sub-forum. In this way, he could explain what he's doing, interact with, and receive advice from the experts of this forum.
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Wolfman said:
I've got a problem...I can view the forum no problem, but every time I try to make a post, I'm taken to the Sucuri Website Firewall, with the following information:
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Yes, it's highly possible RA blocked China. It's also likely that many of the "guests" in the active user listing were hackbots and that blocking China has improved performance. You may be stuck with a VPN until other decisions on forum (and hardware) management are finalised.

Regarding hardware and performance, the current specs should be more than enough to run the forum well enough, however there are two issues to consider -

(1) studies indicate the median life of a HDD is about 6 years. The current database drive was installed in February 2009 so has been in operation at least 5.5 years. There is currently no redundancy and I'm told backups have been .... problematic.

(2) newer, better, hardware can be had for less $$$

So no matter what other decisions are made, the site will be moving to new hardware, if it doesn't expire first.
 
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SezMe said:
I'd be a bit leery of such an approach. What happens after year one if a revenue model is not found? Is there some way to estimate revenue streams from various business models before starting down one road? Surely, yes, because we can't be the first non-profit to fact this situation.
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It would certainly be far from the optimal approach in my view as well, but given the expressed lack of interest in the forum on JREF's part I think it only prudent to consider the feasibility of "going it alone". Of course, the status quo (with improved hardware/software) would be ideal, but whether that is in the cards is yet to be determined.
 
Michel H said:
I was not saying that I had listed all current problems caused by Sucuri, Klimax. The problem you mention (avatars not showing) seems to occur only with Internet Explorer, and not with Chrome, Firefox or Opera (my OS is Windows, not checked any other). Still, the problem is real, and should be fixed ;)
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I know, just wanted to keep it visible. Just note: The only reason other browsers are not affected is, that they don't have a way to disable file type sniffing (security feature), otherwise you'd get same result. (Core cause is, forum serving PNG and JPG as GIFs...)
 
I've just managed to log in for the first time in 3 days. Every other time resulted in a failure supposedly due to having used up my attempts. I've cleared history, cookies, temp files, reloaded multiple times, same result. I'm now using IE instead of Chrome and managed to log in. Not sure what's going on with that, but it's an issue I've never had before.
 
Sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

There is no planned support for the Forum from the JREF. It will be detached from the org. I understand this may be confusing but the Forum is very much its own thing seperate from the org and currently does not fit into the narrowed mission. More will be clear when we formulate that new roll out and announce it. That the forum expanded into all sorts of other areas is normal, not anything bad. But it simply has outgrown the support of the org - like a child that has grown up and needs to go out on his own, if you will.

The current server situation will not work so it must be moved.

The proxy was allowing the site to run quickly. But then, for some unknown reason, refused logins. You could get through by bypassing the proxy server as noted above. I was able to login normally now to post this.
 
I still can't log in to do registrations (now up to 22) and Locknar can't log in at all. How are we supposed to fix this?
 
idoubtit said:
Sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

There is no planned support for the Forum from the JREF. It will be detached from the org. I understand this may be confusing but the Forum is very much its own thing seperate from the org and currently does not fit into the narrowed mission. More will be clear when we formulate that new roll out and announce it. That the forum expanded into all sorts of other areas is normal, not anything bad. But it simply has outgrown the support of the org - like a child that has grown up and needs to go out on his own, if you will.

The current server situation will not work so it must be moved.

The proxy was allowing the site to run quickly. But then, for some unknown reason, refused logins. You could get through by bypassing the proxy server as noted above. I was able to login normally now to post this.
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Well isn't that a great big steaming pile of **** right there. The donate to JREF button can now presumably be removed?

Thank you to al the forumites who have offered help. All I can offer is a donation.
 
The number of people who cannot log in is growing. Yesterday, I got 3 emails from people who couldn't. This morning 5. And those are only the people who know my email address and thought to use it.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
I still can't log in to do registrations (now up to 22) and Locknar can't log in at all. How are we supposed to fix this?
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I gather the sucuri caching is caching the 2nd login page for mod login and that's causing problems. At present I think only RA has access to fix those issues. You may have some luck (probably not) trying another browser (or completely clearing all your cookies and cache)
 
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I tried clearing all of my cache and I've tried Safari (regular browser), Firefox and Chrome. None work.
 
icerat said:
Yes, it's highly possible RA blocked China. It's also likely that many of the "guests" in the active user listing were hackbots and that blocking China has improved performance. You may be stuck with a VPN until other decisions on forum (and hardware) management are finalised.
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Well, that sucks. Understand the reason for it, but my VPN service is not that great (the Great Firewall is in a constant battle to block VPNs), so my access here will be spotty at best.

But...given the following announcement...that may essentially be moot, anyway:

idoubtit said:
Sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

There is no planned support for the Forum from the JREF. It will be detached from the org.
Click to expand...
While I'm fairly confident that the site itself could migrate elsewhere, and we could raise the funds to cover that...

...I'm rather doubtful about the long-term survival of the forum under those conditions. Who would then be in charge of the forum? Who would decide how it's run, etc.? If the forum splits off into its own independent entity, I can see the battle-to-end-all-forum-battles, as we face huge disagreements over who should run it, how it should be run/changed, etc. No matter what the outcome, I predict that we'd lose quite a few members during that process; and lacking the direct link with the JREF, we'd likely be attracting a much lower number of new members.

I dunno...not sure how this bodes for the forum overall.
 
idoubtit said:
Sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

There is no planned support for the Forum from the JREF. It will be detached from the org. I understand this may be confusing but the Forum is very much its own thing seperate from the org and currently does not fit into the narrowed mission.
Click to expand...

Very narrowed, I guess.
 
Wolfman said:
Well, that sucks. Understand the reason for it, but my VPN service is not that great (the Great Firewall is in a constant battle to block VPNs), so my access here will be spotty at best.
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Rick says he hasn't blocked China, so that's not it. Some other complication between the firewall and vbulletin.

While I'm fairly confident that the site itself could migrate elsewhere, and we could raise the funds to cover that...

...I'm rather doubtful about the long-term survival of the forum under those conditions. Who would then be in charge of the forum? Who would decide how it's run, etc.? If the forum splits off into its own independent entity, I can see the battle-to-end-all-forum-battles, as we face huge disagreements over who should run it, how it should be run/changed, etc. No matter what the outcome, I predict that we'd lose quite a few members during that process; and lacking the direct link with the JREF, we'd likely be attracting a much lower number of new members.

I dunno...not sure how this bodes for the forum overall.
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Yes, it will be a challenge. Technically - and to my great surprise - the buck will stop with me. I made an offer to take over management of the forum and they've accepted. Personally I'd like to keep the forum site pretty much as is with the same mods and admins, I'll just be more available to harass for technical problems if things break and responsible for paying the bills. JREF and the "new" forum will continue to cross-promote each other.

Quite frankly I personally find the forum of such value if I end up having to fund the whole thing myself I will. As I told my wife the other day I enjoy a place where I regularly feel intellectually intimidated! Good for the soul :) There's a lot of people who know a lot about a lot of subjects on this site, and it's not a resource I want to see disappear and that's been a very real possibility. IMO none of the other skeptics sites seem to have come close to matching what is available here.

On a positive note, for the first time in apparently quite a while, as of today there is actually a full backup of the site so if the hardware fails all is not lost!

Might be worth starting a new thread to talk about options, just not sure what category is appropriate!
 
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