On 28/03/2021 00:11, jr wrote:
> I've been using the RSS feed to read new posts (on Android), but even after
> refresh (and re-subscribe a few minutes ago) I see the date/time of posts but no
> content.

Should be fixed now.

-- Chris

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hi,

Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> On 28/03/2021 00:11, jr wrote:
> > ... RSS ...
>
> Should be fixed now.

looks good, thank you.


regards, jr.

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On 22/03/2021 01:46, Bald Eagle wrote:



When I got to the point of looking at the HTTP config for tag.povray.org 
I discovered something that I'd forgotten I did: the URL of the tag Q&T 
pages were long ago redirected to a re-hosted form of them on the wiki.

The link on the povray.org menu still pointed at tag.povray.org but 
anyone clicking on it would have ended up in the wiki.

Since I had forgotten I did this when bringing the main site back up 
(and hadn't done TAG yet) I thought it was still live on the TAG page :-/

So thanks for the offer, it won't be needed for the HTML version of the 
Q&T anyhow. I'll keep the current version until we get the wiki back up.

-- Chris

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On 23/03/2021 23:41, Ash Holsenback wrote:
> wiki status update: i've found only 21 occurrence (in two files) of 
> mysql->mysqli that needed to be converted. i've also been able to pull a 
> file i created from the database, but have /not/ done an import. i'd 
> like to resist doing that for now unless it's absolutely necessary. i'm 
> feeling 99% ready to get at a live wiki so i can finish testing wikikdocgen

Thanks ... with most of the infrastructure now back up and running I can 
now start looking at how I will re-host the wiki and lib sites. I'll let 
you know when I make progress (probably via email).

-- Chris

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On 22/03/2021 01:28, Bald Eagle wrote:

> include attachments in ANY of the newsgroups.

Try it now :>)


> backed that up and created a PDF and a zip file of all of his sources. I 
> have all of Friedrich Lohmueller's excellent work as well.
> Perhaps we could have some dedicated space on the new server for that 
> material,

I'm happy to re-host that and other related resources provided that 
copyright / license issues don't get in the way.

> and maybe mull over a mechanism by which the core POV-Ray 
> material (source, binaries, documentation) could have backups hosted on 
> one or more other sites.

archive.org kind of does this for the www site in an informal way. That 
said though we always designed the site such that everything important 
sits in our FTP directories. For example, ftp://ftp.povray.org/pub/ and 
below contains binaries going back to version 1.0. The same physical 
directory tree is mapped to the WWW site as http://www.povray.org/ftp/, 
and this is where downloads get pulled from when initiated from the www.

The reason for doing it this way is that in the past (much less so now, 
though) it was common for FTP sites to be mirrored in various places 
around the world (less as a means of backup than as a speedup for local 
users as international bandwidth wasn't what it is now, and also as a 
means of offloading traffic from a main site).

We used to list the formal mirrors (those we had arrangements with) on 
our download page but don't anymore as they tend to come and go more 
than they used to. You also could find mirrors via the Archie search 
engine but I don't think that's really a thing anymore.

That said there are still mirrors out there, e.g. 
https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.povray.org. I'm sure there's 
more but since FTP sites themselves aren't as far as I am aware directly 
indexed by web search engines they will only turn up in searches if the 
FTP site also has a HTTP front-end.


> is not free - Perhaps there is something some of us could do by check, 
> paypal, patreon, ....?

Appreciate the thought, but not needed at this point.

-- Chris

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On 22/03/2021 01:28, Bald Eagle wrote:
> material, and maybe mull over a mechanism by which the core POV-Ray 
> material (source, binaries, documentation) could have backups hosted on 
> one or more other sites.

FWIW I am considering using cloudflare to optimize access to the site. 
Apart from better response overall they also have the ability to keep 
parts of a site online when the origin server (i.e. us) drops out via 
their "Always Online" feature 
(https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200168436).

Their free account would probably work OK but there's more functionality 
available to us on pro or upwards. They do offer free pro accounts to 
eligible open-source projects so I've applied for this (it's not clear 
if we're eligible, but time will tell).

If not then I can still do stuff with the free tier, I'll have to get it 
set up and see.

-- Chris

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> On 22/03/2021 01:28, Bald Eagle wrote:
>
> > include attachments in ANY of the newsgroups.
>
> Try it now :>)

I'll give it whirl as soon as I'm able.  :)
DMV after work today   :(

> I'm happy to re-host that and other related resources provided that
> copyright / license issues don't get in the way.

I guess I'll see what I can find.
I've run into a couple of neat links via archive.org, and to be honest, most of
the sites are defunct, OLD (thus the internet archaeology required), outdated
(POV-Ray 3.5 or earlier), and the authors may very well no longer be with us in
this realm.

To Quote Joshua English when he replied to my email in 2016, "Wow. I didn't
think anyone actually could find the Cyclopedia after all these years."

Well now I can't - because his site is down too --- so I'll be HHTracking that
one too.

From an archaeological and historical point of view, some of the material is of
important value, and the authors would be pleased to have it shared and
disappointed and bewildered if it wasn't. Making it available for people to
learn from and USE was the whole point of putting in the creative work to begin
with.
From a practical standpoint - they posted it on the web (maybe in 1998), it got
archived, I can access it.   Who actually hosts it seems a bit irrelevant.

I think is we slap a (c) Someguyon Theinternet notice on it, with a "contact us
if you think this violates xyz, and want it removed" boilerplate, all will be
good.
I'd be positively flabbergasted if someone('s next of kin) took issue with, let
alone _FOUND_ a resurrected copy of a 23 year old POV-Ray include file or
tutorial.

I will post a list of what I have - hopefully by the end of the week, and you
can decide how such things will be integrated into the site.

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

>
> Additionally posting from the web view has now been re-enabled; those
> who use that interface may like to test some posts and attachments.
> Please LMK of any issues.
>
> -- Chris

A massive THANK YOU to you, Thorsten, Ash and others here for tracking down and
solving so many issues, and for getting all of this stuff up and running again.
All of your hard work is *definitely* appreciated.

I'm using the web portal, and it all looks good so far. For what it's worth, as
of 45 minutes ago, I still couldn't post a reply here (I was seeing a blank
screen when I hit "reply to this post".) But now it works! GREAT!

Congratulations!!!

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

> > Additionally posting from the web view has now been re-enabled; those
> > who use that interface may like to test some posts and attachments.
> > Please LMK of any issues.

I have only tested the newsgroups so far, not the rest of the site / links.
A recent newsgroup question prompts me to ask: will multiple attachments be
possible through the web interface, (and will any more wiki accounts be
available for use)?

> A massive THANK YOU to you, Thorsten, Ash and others here for tracking down and
> solving so many issues, and for getting all of this stuff up and running again.
> All of your hard work is *definitely* appreciated.

A hearty second to that.  :)   I must admit that I was on the verge of panic
when the site went down ... and stayed down...  :O

Here's to another 25+ years of raytracing - the old skool way.  :D

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On 1/04/2021 09:32, Bald Eagle wrote:
> A recent newsgroup question prompts me to ask: will multiple attachments be
> possible through the web interface,

I guess it could be. I've not looked at that side of it for a while.

> (and will any more wiki accounts be available for use)?

I can't imagine we'd be able to open it up to the world again since 
we're just constantly fighting spammers. But that doesn't mean we can't 
hide the registration page in a non-standard spot* and only pass that on 
to folks we want to allow registration from. I'll leave it up to Ash.

* or require a password just to access the page, via .htaccess.

-- Chris

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