Sorry for the delay in communicating with you all since this mess started. There has been a lot happening behind the scenes, and I wanted to make sure I had everything in order before proceeding with this post.As you more than likely know by now, the original copy of the second Administorum is gone. There was a catastrophic disk failure at our host, and they were not able to recover any data. I thought I had a backup, but unfortunately my backup did not include the SQL database, so all posts and user data were lost.
I initially announced that given the complete lack of recoverable data, the Administorum would be shut down. This ended up not being the case. First, Soul Reaver was able to recover the grand majority of our posts through some major digging through Google caches and other backups. And secondly, we discovered this copy of the Administorum (what you're seeing right now) that was left over from an aborted attempt by Nullav and myself to relocate the forums back in August. We have still lost any posts that were made after August, but it's at least not a complete loss as we originally feared.
During the aftermath of the server loss, before we realized we had this data, a few people were working behind the scenes to make a replacement for the Administorum. Because of this, we now have multiple options as to what direction we take to rebuild the site. Obviously, this copy will not work as a long term solution without extensive repairs, but we have some other alternatives on the table as well. I'm going to leave it up to all of you which direction we choose to take.
Option 1 is a complete restoration of what we had before. Either the old URL (nerdramblingz.com/starforums) or just sticking with the current URL (administorum.nullav.org), and remaining with Nullav as our server guy. The server we are on now is NOT the same host that just got done screwing us over, and is much more reliable (it's the host we tried to move to in August to prevent just this sort of thing from happening). Obvously some repairs would be needed, but this is also probably the quickest option since the forum is basically already here and no data would have to be transferred.
Option 2 is to use a host that Sepher and another IRL friend of mine have been working on. This option would still be using a traditional forum, re-built from the ground up. Sepher has actually obtained the
www.administorum.com domain, and that would be used for this option. Since the forum would have to be built from scratch and data would have to be moved, this would probably take some time to get set up.
Option 3 also involves Sepher's host but is a complete change of pace. Instead of using a traditional forum, we would be building a newer web interface that would be more blog like, allowing easier grouping of battle topics and streamlining the process. A preview of what this could look like can currently be found parked at
http://www.administorum.com. Choosing this method would take the longest, as this code is being written from scratch and would probably go through a few test iterations before being finalized.
Option 4 is an option recommended by Soul Reaver. When it looked like the Administorum was done for good, he began dredging as much of the archives up as he could and started restoring them to his own host at
http://www.warpstormstudios.com/archives/. This option also involves a new forum being built from scratch, but would again be a traditional forum, much like option 2. This option would not keep the Administorum name. Soul Reaver is interested in renaming the forum to something less 40K-based. His suggestion was "The Multiverse Forum" but this name could be subject to change. Soul Reaver's host is new, but seems to be reliable thus far.
Keep in mind that none of these choices will change the current staff, other than who is handling the server on the back end. Option 1 would leave the server in the hands of myself and Nullav. Option 2 and 3 involve Sepher and another friend of mine who I trust. Option 4 puts Soul Reaver in charge of the back end. Regardless, I will still be the Administrator and the remaining forum staff will not be changing at this time.
So please make your selection. Once we receive enough votes, we will set the chosen course of action in motion. If you have any other ideas or suggestions, post a reply to this thread. Battle Masters, please hold off on posting any updates to your battles until we get this sorted. I want to try and avoid any additional data loss.
Thanks for your time,
Cameron Alieron (Starblade|MKIV)
Administrator of the Administorum
Poll