Preservation of ST Archives

[Dan Robinson]

I'm curious if any offsite backups exist of the ST forum database. If not, would it be possible for the DB to be exported and the file sent to several members for safekeeping?

I ran a HTTP backup of the site yesterday, but that would be very cumbersome to re-import into a DB in the event of a major crash. The site is larger than one might expect (83,000 files!). Given the size of the site and the value of those archives, I thought I'd bring it up.

 

[Rob H]

There's an idea for making hosting cash here: take the database, have a team of editors compile and organize the useful stuff, sell copies of it. I think a lot of people would be interested in that.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

The really big issue here is private information such as email addresses and passwords going out into the wild. There are also thousands of private conversations which are buried in the SQL tables, and I am pretty sure those are plaintext.

If the concern is over corruption of the live files, I do keep scheduled offsite backups here, which is one line of defense in case the site gets corrupted. Rob H's comment about another site getting started up, possibly by a disgruntled ST user, is a remote but not inconceivable possibility also. There are probably better ways to keep secondary offsite backups, such as sending them to someone like Tim Marshall to hold onto in an escrow capacity. I'll definitely consider doing that.

Tim

 

[Bill Hark]

I am glad there are some backups being done and I also like the idea of a secondary backup, ie Tim Marshall. There is too much history here to lose if Stormtrack becomes corrupted.

Bill Hark