Chat: I am truly one with the community again!

[BobWay]

I woke up absolutely livid at Ripple the company last night. The Ripple hosted forum had been down for a couple of days. That made it impossible for me to look up some references I wanted to share. But yesterday the forum links were redirected, implying the old forum was 100% gone. And that really, really ****** me off. Inside I was raging. It really felt like an attempt to slap me or the community down.

But I knew that was entirely irrational. I mean WTF! I've had nothing but support from David, Arthur, NikB and everyone I've talked to. They all complement me for my return to the forum. But I always feel skeptical of everything when I'm interacting in the cryptocurrency space. Obviously, sometimes even about the actions of old friends. But just because I knew it was irrational and probably completely unrelated to me, I still felt angry that "over there" somebody didn't see the value of keeping the forums history public forever. Knowing you are irrational doesn't stop it your anger from feeling real.

So in the middle of the night I pinged an old friend at Ripple who would know. And he said, "We've had lots of DoS attacks lately and the forum keeps falling over. It's rarely used so also rarely updated. We've just haven't been able to prioritize keeping it running." And he anticipated my next question by saying, "But both the forum and the old wiki are all backed up on the WayBack machine at the Internet Archive."

And actually, that was all I needed to hear to put me back at peace with Ripple and the rest of the world again.

---

I really do understand how it can seem that some Ripple actions are aggressions aimed at the community. But I know from experience the actions are mostly just coincidences. But ones with community perceptions that no one at Ripple ever anticipated before taking that action.

If you start feeling anger about something specific that happens in the future, please PM me. I'll do my best to find out what's up. But I'm not really interested in rehashing old grievances. Let's let sleeping dogs lie.

[Truckdriver]

Thanks for your post Bob . I'm not into telling another man what to do , but some advice. Try and not let the little things ştress you out , stress is the biggest killer IMHO. You can only control what you can , other things outside that you try and deal with intellect and not too much emotion. It's very hard if your a passionate and emotional person which I use to be , but now I try and breath normally and methodicaly approach the issues. Diet , sleep , laughter and less stress has to be the key for longevity. Take care and thanks. 

[BobWay]

Thanks. I try but sometime I’m only human. I know there are a lot frayed nerves towards the company. Just wanted everyone to know it happens to insiders occasional to. 

But you are right. A deep breath fixes everything most times.

Thanks for the advise!

[Dario_o]

Actually I don't like the WayBack Machine solution. It's incomplete.

A conversion from PHP to static Html pages made by Ripple itself maybe could save it from DDoS and oblivion

[Sukrim]

I don't have access to my private messages on there using the wayback machine any more, search doesn't work there either and not everything is archived. As the only active moderator on there I was given no prior notice or warning whatsoever and all I got over the years for investing hundreds of hours into making sure their forum stays clean was literally a t-shirt, a letter and a few stickers half a decade ago.

Sorry, but that's not enough to make me at peace.

[BobWay]

1 hour ago, Dario_o said:

Actually I don't like the WayBack Machine solution. It's incomplete.

A conversion from PHP to static Html pages made by Ripple itself maybe could save it from DDoS and oblivion

I was actually thinking of that myself. I could do a quick and dirty using site sucker. I could also as the internet archive team to get involved. Unfortunately, Jason announced they are busy trying to archive off all of Google+.  I'm guessing that is a better use of their team.

[BobWay]

10 minutes ago, Sukrim said:

I don't have access to my private messages on there using the wayback machine any more, search doesn't work there either and not everything is archived. As the only active moderator on there I was given no prior notice or warning whatsoever and all I got over the years for investing hundreds of hours into making sure their forum stays clean was literally a t-shirt, a letter and a few stickers half a decade ago.

Sorry, but that's not enough to make me at peace.

I absolutely 100% agree with you @Sukrim. I think I'd be banging on the front door if I were you. Maybe I'll even go bang with you.

I really just wanted everyone to know the immediate precursor to why it happened. I am absolutely not making apologies for a result I think is short sighted.

And @Sukrim I am absolutely not apologizing for their absolutely horrific disrespect to you and your long term efforts. Even as a company, you should always back, support and respect your friends. Even if you need to move on to different things. 

What is your preferred solution @Sukrim. I understand the forum software itself might need an upgrade in order continue being viably hosted. I could see several possible ways forward including the one @Dario_o suggested of turning it into static html. I could also see, limited time re-hosting of the site so people can access their personal messages. (I'd like that too)  Or even transferring the hosting to someone else. 

 

@JoelKatz  I'm pinging you on this because I want you to be aware that, what might have seemed an inconsequential decision inside Ripple. I having, must larger, and more personal consequences outside Ripple. If this was unintended on the companies part, perhaps at least a personal apology to Sukrim is in order? 

[Sukrim]

12 minutes ago, BobWay said:

What is your preferred solution @Sukrim.

Get a free cloudflare account and pop the forum behind that. They probably even already tried that, judging by the certificate that was served a while a few days back. Alternatively communicate with the community if someone would be interested in taking this over (hosting an old php forum is not a thankful job, but the stored history and knowledge alone might be worth it).

I don't know about the DoS problems (it was available for me when I looked), so I don't know what the type of these attacks was and if a read-only mode would have helped.

12 minutes ago, BobWay said:

perhaps at least a personal apology to Sukrim is in order?

They don't owe me anything (other than the most recent bug bounty that still isn't paid after a week), I did this as a volunteer. I just feel frustrated because I at least hoped that this is at least being appreciated somewhere by someone and not just cast aside without further notice.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Sukrim

[Benchmark]

1 hour ago, Sukrim said:

I don't have access to my private messages on there using the wayback machine any more, search doesn't work there either and not everything is archived. As the only active moderator on there I was given no prior notice or warning whatsoever and all I got over the years for investing hundreds of hours into making sure their forum stays clean was literally a t-shirt, a letter and a few stickers half a decade ago.

Sorry, but that's not enough to make me at peace.

That does sound like a slap in the face. 

[BobWay]

1 hour ago, Sukrim said:

I at least hoped that this is at least being appreciated somewhere by someone and not just cast aside without further notice.

Know it was hugely appreciated by me personally. I use it for reference occasionally, and I always like to point people there. And of course, it was and is still very important to me to be able to link to old posts there.

So that was what kicked off my rage. I absolutely didn't mean to downplay yours.

 

1 hour ago, Sukrim said:

Get a free cloudflare account and pop the forum behind that. They probably even already tried that, judging by the certificate that was served a while a few days back. Alternatively communicate with the community if someone would be interested in taking this over (hosting an old php forum is not a thankful job, but the stored history and knowledge alone might be worth it).

@JoelKatz  Any thoughts on Sukrim's proposal?

[NightJanitor]

2 hours ago, Sukrim said:

Alternatively communicate with the community if someone would be interested in taking this over (hosting an old php forum is not a thankful job, but the stored history and knowledge alone might be worth it).

I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.  I certainly hope they don't hand over a database of logins/emails/pm's to anyone... that'd be bad.  The public content is on archive.

[BobWay]

15 minutes ago, NightJanitor said:

I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.  I certainly hope they don't hand over a database of logins/emails/pm's to anyone... that'd be bad.  The public content is on archive.

Good point. I shouldn't have even mentioned that as an alternative.

[NightJanitor]

2 minutes ago, BobWay said:

Good point. I shouldn't have even mentioned that as an alternative.

Yup.  Be careful;  that "one with the community" thing has downsides.

No worries.