Forum Migration Thread

[Bri.8354]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:We are unable to retain the forum in an sort of "archive" form

This is really unfortunate. I occasionally find the need to use the forums to look up past statements and older information, but without an archive that won't be possible any longer. All that information and history, over 5 years worth, will be gone.

[Piogre.2164]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:~snip~I was very sad to learn that we would not be able to "mothball" the old forums indefinitely, but having talked with several folks on the tech side, I fully understand that we need to retire the server soon and that moving or in other ways trying to archive truly is not possible.

Upsetting but understandable that Arenanet cannot maintain the old server (even in a locked state) forever -- however, I'd like to make an impassioned plea to please make a downloadable archive available before the server gets shut down. The old forum contains far too much history of the game to allow it to simply vanish, and I'm sure many community members (myself included) would be eager to host a downloadable (text-only) archive of the forum, so that those so inclined can go digging, or download their own copy for preservation.

Please at least take this into consideration.

[Ellwynd.7480]

I have to say I am disappointed the old forums won't be around for much longer. Please consider migrating the old patch notes, when I have needed to look up what changed in a previous patch the official forums were where I went. The wiki is always just so much harder to find a specific releases notes in.

[SkyShroud.2865]

I don't believe it is impossible to migrate the forums as it is. Converting from one forums to another is always possible unless the previous forums doesn't use database?

[Chickenooble.5014]

@SkyShroud.2865 said:I don't believe it is impossible to migrate the forums as it is. Converting from one forums to another is always possible unless the previous forums doesn't use database?

Even if the old forum used some other storage technology it'd be possible. It would require an ETL process that turns whatever the old format was into the new format.

[Donari.5237]

Gaile replied to me in another thread, saying we can do our own archiving using archive.org -- see https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/114538/#Comment_114538

(helpful hint, I just figured out how to get a specific post link, you right click the time stamp in the post's upper right and copy link)

[bearshaman.3421]

Honestly I think a clean start is a good thing. From Gaile's posts, it sounds like the old system was rife with problems. I know I got those "infraction" messages on two occasions when I had done nothing wrong, and it is comforting to know that it was because of a hardwired system that they could do nothing about. Yeah, losing old information kinda sucks, but at the same time, most of those old posts are worthless now anyways because of so many updates that have occurred since they were made. Old builds, worthless. Old tactics or way of making things work, worthless. Meta builds change every 3 months or so, and even best practices sometimes change from some of the updates. And let's be honest... 75% of the threads were repeats of other threads or worthless trolling or complaint threads anyways, and no one has time to go through all that to see what's worth keeping and what isn't. If someone has something they feel is valuable, they'll port it over, but let's be honest, most of it is as obsolete as the forum software itself apparently was. A few sub forums, like the lore one, would have information that doesn't get old, but that's about it, and that one will be a loss, but that's life. To move forward, some things get left behind.

I do have one question though... Will this new system allow us to change our forum name?

[Piogre.2164]

@Torinor.9521 said:Can we please get the old release notes migrated?

I've uploaded the entire old release notes subforum to archive.org - https://web.archive.org/web/20170913023433/https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/

all the page-number links and thread links there should work correctly within the archive, and be up-to-date as of today

Gaile, will there be a period of time where the old forum can still be read, but where no new posts can be made? That would make it a lot easier to archive large portions of the old forum.

[OriOri.8724]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

@Torinor.9521 said:Can we please get the old release notes migrated?

You should be able to find every update note on the official wiki.

What about just migrating the release notes for the past 6 months or so? Telling players to go to a different website (even though it is still hosted by you guys) in order to get semi-recent patch notes is kind of silly in my opinion.

[shadow.6174]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:More information:

We are unable to retain the forum in an sort of "archive" form, because it lives on antiquated hardware that is, quite honestly, on it's last (technological) legs. From what I was told, the server should have had a few updates by now, but because we didn't want to risk the forums completely with taking that step, we held off on those updates until we could launch these forums.

Essentially, we have been operating on a wing and a prayer for a while now, knowing that at any time the forums could topple with no way of resurrecting them. Sure, we have backups, but the way the old forums were configured, the back-ups would not have been helpful in rebuilding the old forums.

Unless something completely unforeseen happens, the old forums should be in place at least until the end of October. After that, we must remove all content as we close down / retire the server on which the old forums are installed.

I was very sad to learn that we would not be able to "mothball" the old forums indefinitely, but having talked with several folks on the tech side, I fully understand that we need to retire the server soon and that moving or in other ways trying to archive truly is not possible.

Hmm, while I agree that a migration process would be a lot of work and risky, some things doesn't fit for me. Why can't the old forum be kept? How much "antiquated" is it? Is it in a Pentium II machine with Windows 98? :P Also, from my experience hardware has barely nothing to do with a web system, if it ran in an older system it can perfectly run in newer systems hardware-wise.

I just can't buy the idea the old forum cannot be kept. Why not just locking them in a read-only mode as an archived version? Yes, it's definitively possible. Look at what Google did with (R.I.P) Orkut. Based on the URL it seems this new forum is just in another subdomain, what leads me to think that both are hosted in the same server. (After a check, it seems the old one is hosted by Anet (forum-en.guildwars2.com [64.25.40.51]), the new one is at a third party server (en-forum.guildwars2.com resolves to vip.arenanet-san.cl412.vanillahosted.com [184.106.45.42]). In fact, I think now I see the reason for that... O.o

Anyway, why trash out 5 years of game history? It's not that hard to keep it hosted as a ready-only archived version.

Ohhhh... now that makes sense... Not keeping the old one... not allowing upload of images... (yeah, I didn't buy the idea it was due "security issues" but this is for another thread) they just seem to be limited regarding hosting (shutting down old server and now relying on a possibly limited third party server).

Please, it sounds like cheap excuse to say "it's not possible" because it is. It just seem they aren't willing to do that effort just to save resources. Gah, nowadays one can even setup a webserver in a Raspberry PI!

[shadow.6174]

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

@Torinor.9521 said:Can we please get the old release notes migrated?

You should be able to find every update note on the official wiki.

What about just migrating the release notes for the past 6 months or so? Telling players to go to a different website (even though it is still hosted by you guys) in order to get semi-recent patch notes is kind of silly in my opinion.

Agreed, in forums it was easier to find than in wiki. It definitively should be migrated to this one for completeness sake.

[Cronos.6532]

@Jonny.6013 said:It does seem a strange decision not to retain forum discussions relating to the first five years of the game's history. Has there been any kind of explanation for that decision?

What good are they anyway?

[Cronos.6532]

@Donari.5237 said:Gaile replied to me in another thread, saying we can do our own archiving using archive.org -- see https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/114538/#Comment_114538

(helpful hint, I just figured out how to get a specific post link, you right click the time stamp in the post's upper right and copy link)

Also check out /r/DataHoarder and maybe ask them for assistance

[Seth Moonshadow.2710]

WOW! new forum! =) New tools for emotes'n stuffz ;) Nice....but uh probably not gonna level up the profile much. I'd rather be leveling in gw2 =)

[Bloodstealer.5978]

Seems a shame to loose a lot of valuable info, but thanks for the explanation... at least we can still migrate some of what we deem important to us in some way, shape or form. Slow going maybe and not ideal for new players but I for one like the feel of the new look forums, a much more updated approach and with a community lead scoring it might help to stave off some of the salty posts that popped of previously and repeatedly at that (I may of been guilty of that from time to time :) )

Could use a little less clutter perhaps, but hey its a new toy, lets go play with it and maybe some of our concerns might simply disappear into the ether or jump start a small change here and there.

[Artemis Thuras.8795]

Functioning search.. :D

Only criticisms is the names disrupt reading the thread a bit, And the text on a 1080p monitor is a bit wide, and I find it hard to read.( newspapers use columns for this reason..) Setting a max width would make it much easier to read.

Formatting posts looks vastly easier though.

[Kevin Ardinez.8906]

you know the old forum was fine, it was simple and navigable, there is no really need for renovations. :sweat:

[bearshaman.3421]

@Kevin Ardinez.8906 said:you know the old forum was fine, it was simple and navigable, there is no really need for renovations. :sweat:

I'm guessing you missed the part where she said that it was barely still functioning, the server was falling apart, and it was gonna fall apart any day...

[Moyayuki.3619]

@Ellwynd.7480 said:I have to say I am disappointed the old forums won't be around for much longer. Please consider migrating the old patch notes, when I have needed to look up what changed in a previous patch the official forums were where I went. The wiki is always just so much harder to find a specific releases notes in.

Pretty sure you can find all that in the official GW2 wiki.

[RobmannN.2689]

Noticed the link to "Game Update Notes" on the launcher points to the old forum.