Pulling forum - how to leave forwarding page

[Alvin63]

I'm pulling my forums

Firstly I have no idea how to do this. Do I just delete everything in the server?

Secondly - is there a way I can leave some kind of forwarding page that comes up if people try to log into the web address and the forum is gone?

Need to do it in the next two days. Thank you.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Firstly I have no idea how to do this. Do I just delete everything in the server?

When you say pulling do you mean deleting? Yes deleting everything on the server, or rather in the public_html directory would achieve that.

You could then put up a simple html page, titled index.html

Or else upload web site software such as wordpress.

 

[Alvin63]

Thank you. How would I create an HTML page please? And presumably I'd need to upload that to the server. Where would I put it? Thanks. I wouldn;t have a clue how to use wordpress but it might be easier maybe as the server is geared to Wordpress.

 

[MentaL]

I'm pulling my forums

Firstly I have no idea how to do this. Do I just delete everything in the server?

Secondly - is there a way I can leave some kind of forwarding page that comes up if people try to log into the web address and the forum is gone?

Need to do it in the next two days. Thank you.

.htaccess

Redirect 301 / https://newpage.com/

so any old forum content can be forwarded to a new page , maybe a place holder, off site, fb. 301 = perm redirect, 302, temp.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks. Sorry I didn't quite understand that. I'm deleting everything. Just want a holding page with info on.

 

[MentaL]

301 / will act as a catch all and redirect to whatever url is in that newpage.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Thank you. How would I create an HTML page please?

Very simply with a text editor, and just name it index with the html extension.

Making plain text look nicer is a different matter and requires understanding of the coding.

I suppose you could actually just put up a page with a pdf file, index.pdf

Wordpress has plenty of tutorials but it’s very simple to start, if you already know how to configure xenForo then Wordpress will be easy.

Meanwhile, while working what to do you could just delete everything off of xenForo site except the home page and use that.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks very much. Yes my brain is starting to function a bit after some sleep now and I also think that for now I could just leave the home page up with all interaction turned off and shut the forum bit off. And maybe leave resources up as well.

Both forums are just "me" really and information sites. So members are in the middle of working out where we will go.

It'll give time to think about sorting out a decent page redirect.

Also can't get my head round if I could archive anything from the database but I don't think so because it would have nowhere to go except into forum software - is that right? It's the articles mainly.

Members are doing print to pdf of threads they want to save - is there a better way?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Members are doing print to pdf of threads they want to save - is there a better way?

Well if you turn off posting, ie it's read only then leave as is. You can update your own announcements etc as you see fit but with no user engagement there is no need to bother with OFCOM.

You won't need to upgrade anything apart from maybe PHP at some time in the future but your host can advise on that.

You'd be leaving a UHA. (Useful hamster archive)

There could also be people who could convert the site to pure html, that means an archive could just stay there forever. Or at least until OFCOM see sense.

 

[chillibear]

I was also going to say much the same - if you turn off your guest limit for viewing pages and then tweak the user permissions to prevent all members (except staff say) from posting any new content it would fall outside of Ofcom and you get:

• Breathing space
• The warm fuzzy feeling of leaving something useful - which is probably why you started the forum
• The potential to restore things in the future if you or Ofcom change their mind - remember in a couple of months there will probably be risk assessments you can just pinch and do a find & replace on
• The opportunity for something like the Internet Archive to crawl and keep it for posterity in time.
• The time to look at ways of statically archiving the content yourself (maybe one of the crawlers mentioned below)

Now that said if you're not keen on having hosting hanging around (and I understand not everyone's business depends on having lots of servers). So of course do what feels best, but it was a cute site when I had a look!

There are tools like https://www.httrack.com/ or https://ricks-apps.com/osx/sitesucker/index.html that can crawl sites and download copies for offline browsing - depending on quite how much people want, something like that might be an option. I use the latter myself from time to time.

As an aside I'd love to see a XF to static convertor, I've one site on our books that is in effectively a read-only mode, but I'd rather have that as plain HTML so we don't have the faff of maintaining PHP and so forth for it. I suspect if I ever get time to do one I'd actually look at pulling the data out into JSON and have a builder so it was easier to tweak the look (or maybe XML and XSLT). One for the backlog.

 

[Suzanne O]

You can just nuke them and then make your decision to restart them at a later date.

 

[Alvin63]

Thanks. I've been busy dealing with people on both forums to get set up with somewhere else to have a group after it closes. And got myself confused as to what I actually need to turn off in ACP just to leave the home page viewable.

So essentially, the whole forum would still be online, with members who could log in but only see the home page and not interact - is that right? I'm not sure I'd want to leave the forum section just sitting there to view. But I am keen on the idea of archiving it.

I know you can archive a web page easily. But a whole forum? So would that be a case of using something like htt track to download it onto computer? (How big a file would it be?) and then what? How do you upload it to an archive site?

I'm thinking - if I could archive the home page, and then archive the forum as well. I could just close it down then - the home page would still be viewable online. No more server fees.

UHA Like it.

 

[Alvin63]

So turning off the guest viewing thing (ie removing the addon) would mean anyone - member or not, could view the home page, is that right? In which case the membership becomes irrelevant. To be honest that site, while it was really nice and a nice little community, was pretty quiet. It was more of an advice site though because people would join up with emergencies (sick hamsters) and need tips.

 

[Alvin63]

I guess there could be an issue. If I just turn the forum "off" but people can still log in and see the home page. In that they might then want their details deleting for security purposes and wouldn't know how to contact me. Would the "contact us" button still work if they can't post and the forum is turned off.

Also, rather than just setting their settings to not posting, what settings do I change in ACP to stop the forum being visible at all? Sorry if I'm repeating myself.

And if I wanted to "delete" all members and leave it as an empty forum ready to archive. What is the easiest way to do that?

 

[Alvin63]

Actually I don't think I can leave the home page online. All the sharing links are still clickable and the "Log in" and "Register" links at the top are still usable. I think I'll just have to archive the page.

So can I disable:
Sharing links on the AMS page
Login and Register buttons?

 

[Alvin63]

Ok solved those. Disabled share icons and removed register button. And am downloading the forum with httrack.

I will need to hide the forum completely though because there will be links to click on in threads so then it would still be an Ofcom issue. I did the Ofcom questionnaire thing again and it was only when I selected no hyperlinks and no user to user contact, that it said No it doesn’t apply to you.

So the forum will have to be out of view and likewise the resources which all have download links. I can leave the home page up - no hyperlinks in any articles and no share icons left.

The one thing remaining though is the login button. And as I understand it, that can’t be disabled.

So an active login on the home page could technically mean users could communicate (I know messaging would be turned off and posting bot possible but it’s not just a web page then. It’s a web page with a login function.

So if I can’t disable login then presumably I’d have to delete all accounts? Then login would just give an error message - is that right?

I’m also wondering whether to leave the contact us button still usable. And whether that would be classed as user to user communication.

Really appreciate all the thoughtful suggestions and help above by the way.

 

[Mr Lucky]

did the Ofcom questionnaire thing again and it was only when I selected no hyperlinks and no user to user contact, that it said No it doesn’t apply to you.

If no user to user, harmful content but still has hyperlinks it does not concern Ofcom.

 

[chillibear]

You can have a website with login that is outside of the OSA, it's only the user to user communications that drags it in. For example Ofcom explicitly cites review sites as an example they consider do not count - so amazon is outside the OSA, but you log into that. All you need to do to keep the "forum" online and outside the OSA is remove any mechanism for one user to talk to another directly.

Now depending on what you want the "end goal" to be there could be a few options. If you'd like to keep it as it is where a guest can only view 'X' posts/pages/whatever before registering then fine - just leave that add-on enabled. You'd then just need to ensure that the permissions prevent your general members from posting threads/posts/profile posts/tags/reactions/PMs/etc. That will all slightly depend on how you have your groups set up. You may find you need to add additional enabling permissions to your admin type groups (or directly to those users) if they exist so they can still do a bit tidying, etc. Your existing users would then be able to log in, read anything already posted - change their details, etc, but NOT be able to post anything. Guests such as myself would be able to read a few pages then be prompted to register. I could then register and presumably read anything already posted, tweak my account, but NOT be able to post and interact with any of the other users. Obviously it'd also make sense to add a notice somewhere saying what has been done and why!

A site like that would be outside of the OSA from my understanding of it.

A word of caution with archiving the site - if you are archiving it as your user - who presumably has admin permissions then the crawler might well archive stuff that shouldn't be shown to the public - so whilst that archive might be good for your own personal consumption/reference it may not be suitable to have online. So if you have given the crawler a login you might want to make sure it's a "general user" who can just see most stuff, but can't go off and see things like reports, user details, etc.

Best of luck getting it to a state you are comfortable with.

 

[Alvin63]

Thank you very much. I am assuming the httrack can only see what a guest sees because my first attempt didn’t archive any of the forum at all - just a bit on the home page. I had just changed permissions for unregistered users to “no view” of the forum. I changed permissions back to viewing and ran httrack again and it’s still downloading so seems to be archiving the entire forum now .

It’s been running for about eight hours now- any idea how long it will take?! Says it’s downloaded about 2.5gb so assume there is a lot more to come!

I think it would be too frustrating for people to have just partial functioning of a forum. On another other platform they can still interact. It woukd be easier for me just to archive the home page and turn everything off. But I think I just want to keep the home page as a kind of static web page with articles that can be read.

I’ve already disabled the limited viewing so anyone can see it.

The other thing is - if the forum is closed some people will be wondering about storage of their details - GDPR etc so I may need to delete accounts anyway.. especially if disabling contact us.

I’m probably being belt and braces but I am not wanting to run a forum any more with this legislation and bureaucracy. I might have sold it on if they hadn’t done it all in such a short space of time. Don’t suppose the domain is even worth anything now.

Not that I was in it for profit but might have been nice to recoup a lot of financial investment.

Anyway login. I need to be able to login myself. All the while the home page is online. But don’t want anyone else trying to login really. If I can’t disable login then I think I need to delete all members. And just keep the home page viewable to all.

If there are no members and no option to register, what would happen if someone hit the login button? I could do with some kind of notice that says “there is no login available for this site”.

Edit - googling seems to show it can take a few days to finish downloading - I don’t have time for that as need to turn the forum off. Assume I can’t actually use the site until it’s finished. I was leaving messaging and posting active until 16th to give people chance to sort out ongoing connection eise where..

Transfer rate is only showing about 23kbs - must be limited by something as I have good internet. At that rate it could take a week or more maybe so I’ll have to give up.

 

[Lee]

Why are you deleting your forum? Talk about making a hasty decision!