R. S. Martin Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 They claim they send out email notifications when forums are inactive for ninety days. But I've been checking my junk mail and my regular email. THERE WAS NO NOTIFICATION. This is the second time Free Forums.org deleted my site Canada's Bible Belt. See their excuses in the support forum here. I rebutted their excuses but they refuse to respond to my rebuttals. I have another forum Dog Owner's Directory. I forgot about it for five--that's 5--months. It's still there. Is this discrimination or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadedAtheist Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Glitches happen. I seriously wouldn't read too much into it unless it's happened multiple times. I am sorry to that it got deleted though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Glitches happen. I seriously wouldn't read too much into it unless it's happened multiple times. I am sorry to that it got deleted though. It's the second time to the same site. I'd posted information on it that I wanted to keep. I had asked how to save it to my hard-drive and they said this wasn't possible but promised that it would be safe if I always posted when they notified me. I took them at their word. Now this. It really sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Sounds frustrating! I'm sorry you're having to deal with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Thanks for your sympathy, everyone. Just nothing brings back the lost information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Thanks for your sympathy, everyone. Just nothing brings back the lost information. I'd point you to a forum hosting site where that is less likely, if I knew of one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wester Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 PM me if you want the reference for the web host that maintains my site - no problems (so far), relatively cheap, unlimited space and bandwidth etc... Forget christianity, buddhism or jainism; make a religion out of backing up your data 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 Thurisaz and wester, I've been mulling over your replies since I saw them. Thanks for your sympathy, everyone. Just nothing brings back the lost information. I'd point you to a forum hosting site where that is less likely, if I knew of one... So you're saying I should not have taken them at their word when they promised me my forums were safe? PM me if you want the reference for the web host that maintains my site - no problems (so far), relatively cheap, unlimited space and bandwidth etc... Forget christianity, buddhism or jainism; make a religion out of backing up your data I did try to look into that but you may have better advice. Here's a bit more history. In July 2010, the host Free Forums deleted my Bible Belt forums the first time. This raised concerns for me re my Atheist Apologist forums, which is very much larger and older. On July 27, 2010, I posted on their support forums asking for advice on how to back up Atheist Apologist. Here's what I said: TITLE: How to copy forums to hard drive? My forums are not longer active but I want to keep the information. Is there a quick or easy way to copy them to my hard drive, such as from the User Control Panel? There are about 900 pages and copying it all manually would be very time-consuming if there is a quicker way. In addition, there are many links to the internet and some cross-linking within the forums. I would appreciate any tips you can provide. Thanks. Forum URL: http://fffoundation.freeforums.org ANSWER: There is no way to save a copy of your forum, or purchase a back-up of it. The best way to handle this would be to simply make sure you make at least 1 post every so often. This will keep your forum from being removed for inactivity. Be sure to watch your E-Mail (the one that the forum uses), so in case you forget you'll see the Warning E-Mail, and you can go on and make a post to keep it alive. I take that as a promise that they will not remove forums without sending a warning email regarding an inactive forum. Back in Summer 2010, my email contact was not up-to-date so we fixed that in August 2010. I still have all the emails regarding that transaction. For the next year, I got reminder emails in my inbox. But not this last time in Dec. 2011 when they removed them. They claim that the warning email got sent to junk mail, or was stopped by my server before reaching my account. But that makes no sense because I had been used to getting them regularly and was also checking my junk mail/spam. I told them that, but they ignore it and don't reply. Wester, thanks for your offer. I'm still considering what I want to do about the situation. First, if possible, I'd like a better understanding of what happened at Free Forums. My philosophy is that if I don't know what went wrong, it's really hard to avoid the same problem in the future with another host, etc. I would appreciate feedback on how things were handled here. Was it my fault or did Free Forums deal less than professionally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Thurisaz and wester, I've been mulling over your replies since I saw them. Thanks for your sympathy, everyone. Just nothing brings back the lost information. I'd point you to a forum hosting site where that is less likely, if I knew of one... So you're saying I should not have taken them at their word when they promised me my forums were safe? Well I've never hosted any forums so you may want to be careful taking my word for anything about that... but I have to admit that to me it at least sounds like that promise was not one to be taken too seriously Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badpuppy Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Thanks for your sympathy, everyone. Just nothing brings back the lost information. Did you try praying to Jesus? Sorry. Sucks that you lost stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryper Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 You might send a PM to Dave and see what his suggestions are. Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will02 Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I had asked how to save it to my hard-drive and they said this wasn't possible but promised that it would be safe if I always posted when they notified me. I took them at their word. Now this. It really sucks. There is a way to back up forum data but I'm not sure if it's an option at this point. The forum has to store everything in some kind of database, so you can dump (copy) the database content to a file to make a backup. You can then load this backup on a server and it will recreate the database. I do this all the time. I'm not sure if the host would give you access to the stuff you need to do this though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 God could probably back up your forums, of course it would cost you. You would probably have to wash his feet and the whole nine yards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 Thanks for your replies. I read all of them but I don't always know how to respond. For example, when I found this one the other day: Did you try praying to Jesus? I was on the telephone listening to elevator music and an endless string of promises that "Your call is important to us..." Would it have helped, do you think, if I had been on my knees??? It just seemed that if public transit has problems answering prayer *with* the aid of telephones, what's the use of talking to the ceiling without a gadget of some sort...I mean...I suppose my mind's a bit twisted... On a more serious note: There is a way to back up forum data but I'm not sure if it's an option at this point. I doubt it. Here's the email they sent to explain how it works: Forums are considered 'inactive' if they do not have any posts on them for 90 days. After that 90 day period, the forum is considered inactive and we send an email to the founder of the forum, giving him/her 7 days to make a post on the forum. If no posts are made after that time, then the forum is removed. From this point, the founder (or us), has another 7 days to restore the forum. Unfortunately, we are not able to restore forums after that last 7 day period has passed. Some email providers have a tendency to put our emails in the spam/junk mail folders, and some may even block it from reaching the mailbox completely. Please note that the forum is only in the "restore" period, when it gives the option to login and restore it. The date (that the forum was removed) refreshes after the 7 day restore period, so if no option to login & restore the forum is shown, then unfortunately the forum is past that period. Once a forum has been removed (after the restore period), the data from the forum is unfortunately gone as well, and we're not able to retrieve it. The name will be available again, so if you wish to re-signup for the forum then you can do so. I can't reply to it. On the support forums, they ignore everything I say not about having gotten a warning. The forum has to store everything in some kind of database, so you can dump (copy) the database content to a file to make a backup. You can then load this backup on a server and it will recreate the database. I do this all the time. I'm not sure if the host would give you access to the stuff you need to do this though. That sounds like the sort of thing I was looking for. As shown in Post 8 of this thread, they told me in July 2010 I can't even buy back-up. Just now I checked the support forums again. The staff person is asking "what emails?" I had stated in the title and in the OP. I think someone is playing games because they don't know how to deal with the facts. I'm asking that if I'm not talking to the right person, who should I be speaking to. I'm hoping possibly that will get me a more knowledgeable person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 RS, try The Wayback Machine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 I got one more extremely frustrating response telling me sorry the forums are irretrievably deleted and the email did not come through for the possible reasons stated previously. This felt about as productive as arguing the existence of God with a fundamentalist Christian who knows God exists because the Bible says so, and who knows the Bible is true because God says so. Somehow, I've gotten this far in life by not giving up. My real concern in all of this is my Atheist Apologist forums that contains nearly a thousand pages and I consider it too much work to copy manually to a hard drive. I posted again, this time asking how to prevent losing my other forums. I put on some pressure and told them that "my computer friend" (meaning Will02) said back-up was possible. This time, I got another person--someone who gave a logical reply and some workable solutions, suggestions, and options. It is apparently possible to buy back-up at a reasonable price. It seems the person in 2010 didn't know. Alternatively, I can post in a private forum at the beginning of each month, which will reset the 90-day deadline. This person also addressed my problem with not getting the email notification. What a breath of fresh air are rational thought and workable solutions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 RS, try The Wayback Machine Thanks. I tried it but get the message: Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 RS, try The Wayback Machine Thanks. I tried it but get the message: Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived. Aw, that stinks, but I figured it was worth a shot. Google also caches pages as it crawls the web. Not ideal, no guarantees, but it might be possible to recover some specific pages from the Google cache. Beyond that, all I can say is sorry you lost your stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Ruby, do you want a forum or a website to share your thoughts? If the later, there are quite a few free options that are simple to use. Here are a list of 50 different free hosting resources you can use: http://nickstraffictricks.com/6939_how-to-increase-your-search-engine-rankings-plus-50-high-pr-web-2-0-properties/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Vigile, I prefer forums because forums are so flexible and expandable for organizing information according to topic. It also allows for a group to form in case there's interest to discuss topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Vigile, I prefer forums because forums are so flexible and expandable for organizing information according to topic. It also allows for a group to form in case there's interest to discuss topics. Fair enough. I don't have any experience with building or maintaining forums, but I imagine it's not easy for your average person to overcome the technical difficulties involved. It is possible to create topic sections in a blog fairly easily and discussions can take place in the comments section below the posts. Just an idea to explore if the forum issue becomes too cumbersome to tackle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 I can never figure out how blogs work or how to find something on someone's blog. On forums, all one has to do is look at the Board Index like a book and go from there. Most forums are divided (and sometimes sub-divided) into sections (e.g. Rants and Replies, ExChristian Life, etc.) like chapters in a book, and each part has its own topics of discussion. Thus, it can be compared to an encyclopedia set in which one looks up the topic title and then narrows it down to specific subject of interest. I'm not sure how organize material so well on blogs. Maybe someone can explain. I can easily find a blogspot.com site to experiment if I had someone to explain about detailed organizing of info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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