Step Site Upgrade Imminent

[z929669]

As we've been announcing for about 3-ish years now (see pinned Announcements for reference) we are finally gearing up for a full website/server move and upgrade. We had been held up significantly by our reliance on Mator in developing the now-aborted CMS project, which progressed slowly in fits and spurts and then altogether halted early in 2020. We suspect this was largely due to his basic abandonment of the Mod Picker platform we had planned to use ... we didn't learn about his silent decision on that until well into 2020, since it wasn't news that he ever shared with us.
 
As a result (also as previously mentioned in past announcements), we are sticking with the wiki. The good news is that the software and server upgrades will provide enhancements that were not possible previously. We will be first upgrading and moving followed by subsequent development within the new wiki infrastructure.
 
At the moment, we are doing a lot of wiki housekeeping. Once we finish that piece, we will be doing some initial development on the current production wiki while we do the laborious work of skinning the new wiki. This could take a while, but TechAngel85 and I have been working pretty exhaustively over the past weeks and will continue to do so, keeping this post updated as we go.

 

As always, we could use help from community volunteers for various maintenance tasks here on the forums and on the wiki. Anyone with wiki experience and willing to help out is most welcome to do so … we are a community site providing completely free services without any advertising. PM Tech or myself if interested in volunteering!

[z929669]

So that everyone is aware, the wiki will be locked for edits this evening (see post timestamp) probably beginning at 8-10 PM CST and possibly tomorrow and Monday in order to take a backup and perform some updates ahead of the move. This is rather tedious work, so it will take about 8 to 16 hours over the next day or two. We are planning on moving to the new website and updated software in January if all continues as planned. Probably mid January, but we don't have a good ETA as yet.

 

This planned maintenance will add the needed functionality that will be used on the new wiki software but will not necessarily work as intended on the live site. We will update this thread accordingly.

 

Thanks

[z929669]

The wiki is currently set to read only for maintenance

[z929669]

The wiki has been opened up again  for normal use

[z929669]

Still making progress. On track to move the site and upgrade software this month.

[z929669]

This is just a friendly reminder that this site will be unavailable this Saturday, Feb 13 for maintenance beginning at approx 1400 GMT (6-9 AM for US time zones) for at least 5 hours (possibly closer to 8 hr). The extended downtime cannot be avoided, as there is a lot of manual work that must be done to move everything onto the new server and perform all the needed upgrades.

 

Note that it is wise to update your password before then, especially if you still use the same login used in 2012-2014 (those logins will be completely invalid). Updated passwords will all apply to the new site.

[Mercury71]

Upgrade time! This is very exciting indeed. :)

 

Great work forum team.