PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

[TheCotMan]

Re: All contest and event organizers READ THIS

Forums will be down for scheduled maintenance Saturday, around 5am PDT or Saturday around 8:00pm PDT or both.

Begins in 8 minutes.

Should be done in 15 to 30 minutes.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Looks like it is done.

Please post replies letting us know of any problems you see with the way the forums work.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Deviant Ollam found and reported a problem with the Toxic BBQ Contest/Event Subforum:
Threads were missing. (Thanks for letting me know about this. :-)

After a review of the settings for that forum, I found I was a dumbass and didn't override the default "only show threads less than 1 month old" option for not only the Toxic BBQ Forum, but about 20 other forums (10 from Defcon15, and 10 from Defcon 14.)

I've since visited all of the forums, to check on the number of visible posts, and how long they should be visible to be sure the active content in forums is visible.

The only forums with limits based on age of last post in threads are:
/dev/null (2 months)
Fucktard Hall (1 year)
The limits for these two forums were added by me about 1.5 to 2 years ago.
(Even the real world has a maximum penalty when crimes are committed.)

Maybe we should have a new holiday called "Historical Crap from the Forums Week" -- maybe during the November-December lull in forum use, where we make all of the content in /dev/null and Fucktard Hall visible. Some of it is entertaining. Most of it is people flaming other people. As for entertaining, we have Public Service announcements from Chris, Noid and Skroo, as well as Octalpus, and more, where they point out problems encountered by logically-challenged forum users.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Reminder:

You can make custom RSS Feeds to monitor a few forums for new content instead of all forums (default.)
[[nourl]https://forum.defcon.org/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=285,296,290][/nourl]
The above should RSS feed for CTF, Lost MysteryBox, and Defcon Robots, for example.

Note: RSS sorts based on date of first post in thread, and old threads eventually drop off the RSS feed. (This means people posting replies to existing threads don't cause those RSS entries to jump back to the top of the RSS feed.)

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Maintenance notice:
On Monday, July 29, 2007, some time after 8:00pm, maybe 10:00pm, the forums will be down for maintenance as we look to put them in "Defcon mode."

What this tends to mean is that many of the forums are hidden from view, and closed for posting. All of the forums in the Group "More Defcon Forums" should be available for reading and posting. (This means things like contests and events should be open for reading and posting, as well as rides and room sharing, and of course Drunken Banter.) The Present Pref-Defcon 15 Discussion forum will be available but read-only. A new forum, "Defcon 15 and beyond" will be opened for posting.

We will probably alter the waiting period to be only 24 hours for people to post replies and post new threads, so as to minimize waiting while at con. We may even have one space, like drunken banter, or /dev/random be available for posting without any waiting. (Much to the delight of spammers.)

We can always clean up the forums when we get back.

I don't know what converge's plans are for the days leading up to con starting Monday, but mine will grow ever-busier with almost no time to visit the forums. Once Defcon is here, I don't plan to be on the forums at all.

This stated, there will be an open space for you to post complaints about "Defcon Mode" for the forums. Post your complaints on Tuesday and if I have time, I'll see what I can do, but Wednesday will probably be too late, leaving any fix requests to other admins to fix if they want, or for me to return from Defcon.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Still converting forums to "Defcon mode" where there are fewer restrictions, faster promotions, but fewer forums available.

I know I won't be around much today or tomorrow, and even less Wednesday, to fix things.

If there are any problems, we'll probably take care of them after defcon unless one of the mods isn't going to con and will be checking more often.

The content that you don't see, the "missing content," will return after defcon is over.

I've pulled in the common forums where discussions have been taking place, so as to not harm community discussions.

If you think I've made a mistake, and removed a forum that should be available during defcon, please let me know with a reply here, or by PM with the forum that should be available. If you don't reply by end of day Tuesday with a request, you'll have to hope someone else will help you with it.

Good luck from Las Vegas!

BTW, it rained today (Monday) and local weather says it may rain off and on through to and including Thursday. Remember, the TBBQ is listed as happening rain or shine.

It also showed that Friday-Sunday should be sunny.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Oh yeah. I was talking to HighWizard and "Defcon mode" doesn't sound very fun.
How about Defcon 2?
The forums are configured to run at Defcon2... not a super-tight mode, but with more limits to exposure than normal. :-)

Retaliation will likely be delayed.

I don't see any requests for other forums to be included here, so I'm guessing the included forums are enough. :-)

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Notice: forums may become unavailable during a maintenance cycle, Wednesday, around 5 pm pacific time.

(Nope. Not by me. I'm busy in Las Vegas.)

You've been notified!

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Forum "Generic DCG Discussions" has been deleted due to lack of use.
Threads moved to "Defcon Group Forums, and/or Links" at the bottom:
https://forum.defcon.org/forumdisplay.php?f=242

Contests and Events for the next Defcon have been made, but are hidden. I'm going to try to contact leaders/organizers for contests/events, using their forum registered email addresses to let them know what the defcon forum discussion URL would be if they have their contest/event listed on what would be the next Defcon web page.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

New forums added to DCG Forums Section:
* DC252 Goldsboro, NC
* DC406 Great Falls, MT
* DC412 Oakdale, Pennsylvania
* DC509 Kennewick,Richland,Pasco, WA
* DC563 Davenport, IA
* DC972 Irving, TX
* DC6332 Cebu City, Phillipines
* DC6341 Cavite, Philippines
* DC38051 Nikolaev, Ukraine

A few other DCG forums were not visible in the "all us" and "all non-us" usergroups. I've checked every single DCG forum to verify they all are listed as available to each usergroup as appropriate. (Sorry they were overlooked before.)

WebDAV Tool works in Windows XP. It is pretty slick. I have a Network Mapped Drive in "My Computer" and I can drag video, and images to it, and that uploads them to pics.defcon.org using my forum/pics username and password. Cool.
Also works with Cadaver, and the Gnome GUI Network Share Tool that is included by default with Ubuntu. Need to test this with Mac OS X next, and verify auth works as desired.
Upload of a 100MB video file to pics.defcon.org worked just fine.
Upload of a 300MB video file to pics.defcon.org worked well too.
Upload of a 600MB file would have worked fine if I didnt trip the power to my wireless access point and kill the upload. (Oops.) I should probably check into DAV features to allow for continuation of upload/download if part of DAV2. (Future feature request.)

Sorry, Firewall rules prevent this from public use ATM. It is probably only fair to open up access after we have support for Mac OS X anyway-- even if Chris has another opinion about Apple. :-)

DC16 Contest/Event forums have been prepared, but I still have not emailed contacts with URL for when forums become private. Crap. I'm derelict in my duties. Why is it that the work that pays the bills gets in the way of my fun here? :-)

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Probably friday, this week, I will be conducting major maintenance on some of the software used by the testforums, forums, and pics. I'll probably start this on Friday around 10:00pm, and should hopefully finish before 2:00am Pacific time. I'll do my best to minimize downtime, but I need to move a great deal of data and can't have any of the software running while I do this.

Converge might have an announcement for other maintenance too, but his maintenance is unrelated to mine and may happen at a different day and time.

Thanks!

[converge]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Yes, I'll be performing some maintenance to update the forum software. This will be sometime after noon and before midnight on Wednesday ... the best I can narrow right now, so be prepared. Maintenance should last no more than an hour and more likely phenomenally less.

--update: postponed until this weekend or next weds.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Probably friday, this week, I will be conducting major maintenance on some of the software used by the testforums, forums, and pics. I'll probably start this on Friday around 10:00pm, and should hopefully finish before 2:00am Pacific time. I'll do my best to minimize downtime, but I need to move a great deal of data and can't have any of the software running while I do this.

Sorry. Too tired after work to do this now-- Need to be awake when working with data you don't want to lose. ;-)

Looking to do this Saturday night.

[TheCotMan]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Major system maintenance completed. Please let me know if you see strangeness. If you can't post, just email defconforums@gmail.com and one of us will get it.

-Cot

[The Dark Tangent]

Re: PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

Excellent, thanks!

I am looking into purchasing a wild card cert for defcon.org so we can properly ssl everything. I'll keep you guys up to date.

Also we will need to schedule about 6 to 12 hours of downtime for the firewall upgrade. I will do all I can ahead of time, so it might just be three hours, but I want to plan for the worst.