Next week we will start the change over to our new forum structure.
Please note this is a complicated/lengthy procedure because almost 50,000 usernames/passwords and archive data for tens of thousands of posts needs to be converted to a completely different database format. However we are committed to ensuring all the years of useful archive data remains available - with a better search engine!
Therefore next week we will:
1) archive the existing active forums and backup the database. This will be the database data used for creating the new forum.
2) Create a new, temporary, forum for people to use here for a few days. This temporary data will not be immediately available in the new forum after the swap over (but will eventually be copied across in the future, when the new forum is up and running).
3) Transfer the data to the new database and then make the new forum active when swap over is complete.
All user passwords etc will remain unchanged in the new forum.
Thanks for your understanding whilst this process is being completed.
Please note this is a complicated/lengthy procedure because almost 50,000 usernames/passwords and archive data for tens of thousands of posts needs to be converted to a completely different database format. However we are committed to ensuring all the years of useful archive data remains available - with a better search engine!
Therefore next week we will:
1) archive the existing active forums and backup the database. This will be the database data used for creating the new forum.
2) Create a new, temporary, forum for people to use here for a few days. This temporary data will not be immediately available in the new forum after the swap over (but will eventually be copied across in the future, when the new forum is up and running).
3) Transfer the data to the new database and then make the new forum active when swap over is complete.
All user passwords etc will remain unchanged in the new forum.
Thanks for your understanding whilst this process is being completed.