so, what the heck happened with the imported stuff?

[Trina]

I was just looking at some of the imported threads (since there were a few that were in midstream when the forum switch occurred), and they sure don't seem to have survived the importation process particularly well. In the few I looked at, the original post was missing entirely (so the thread is shown as being started by the first person who responded), and a lot of the posts appear truncated -- just end with "

Any chance of figuring out what went wrong? And, more remotely, any chance of doing it right?

[hmtcastle]

I was just looking at some of the imported threads (since there were a few that were in midstream when the forum switch occurred), and they sure don't seem to have survived the importation process particularly well. In the few I looked at, the original post was missing entirely (so the thread is shown as being started by the first person who responded), and a lot of the posts appear truncated -- just end with "

Any chance of figuring out what went wrong? And, more remotely, any chance of doing it right?

I just posted a note on the same issue (though I hadn't noticed the truncation). Clearly something was "lost in translation". But it's not a fool-proof process to convert data from one format to another.

[Trina]

...it's not a fool-proof process to convert data from one format to another.

Clearly not

The current result is pretty messed up. A small test run might have been instructive

[Trina]

And the link to the old board (http://www.robertsrules.com/cp/Scripts/ASP/forum/default_old.asp) which Ms. Evans posted a few days doesn't go anywhere any more. Hope the source data's still somewhere, in case there are plans for another conversion attempt...

[hmtcastle]

And the link to the old board (http://www.robertsrules.com/cp/Scripts/ASP/forum/default_old.asp) which Ms. Evans posted a few days doesn't go anywhere any more. Hope the source data's still somewhere, in case there are plans for another conversion attempt...

Although the old messages seem to be intact. As, for example, here. But I still think that, six months from now, those six months (?) of messages won't be missed.

EDIT: Live link removed due to possible virus threat.

robertsrules.com/cp/Scripts/ASP/forumtreplies.asp?message=78776&all=True

[Boss Lady]

We hired the company that develops this forum software to do the conversion. It all sounded so easy and fool-proof initially, but it was extremely difficult and fraught with problems in the end. I am not sure if we should ask them to try again or leave it alone at this point.

[hmtcastle]

We hired the company that develops this forum software to do the conversion.

Ask for a refund and let those old messages rest in peace. If there's any money left over, perhaps a beer blast on the General's birthday would be appropriate. Though that's an awfully long time to wait.

[Trina]

We hired the company that develops this forum software to do the conversion. It all sounded so easy and fool-proof initially, but it was extremely difficult and fraught with problems in the end. I am not sure if we should ask them to try again or leave it alone at this point.

I echo Mr. Mountcastle's opinion that they certainly shouldn't expect to be paid for what was done so far. Or, at any rate, the current state of the imported messages is probably an embarassment to the site rather than an asset.

[Trina]

Although the old messages seem to be intact. As, for example, here. But I still think that, six months from now, those six months (?) of messages won't be missed.

That actually does work. But pretty tedious to try to locate a particular thread of interest, by typing in a thread number, using best guess for posting dates (I just tried, out of curiosity, and it makes the old search capability look downright wonderful by comparison)

[Boss Lady]

I'm sorry it is so difficult to use. I had certainly hoped the import would go more smoothly.

There were only about a month and a half of messages in the old board. We had to regularly prune it because if the database got too full the system slowed to a crawl. I am sure many of you remember that happening sometimes. We will not be able to keep everything indefiniely here either, but we should be able to keep more messages before things start to slow down.