07-14-2022, 03:24 AM
Hello misterP,
What you do sounds great - thank you for trying !!! Let me add two trains of thought, for what it's worth:
1) your approach comes could (potentially) hit a snag, which may not surface until almost all the effort is spent. Databases like this have permissions at every "leave and branch of the tree". Just think of permissions on the files of your harddisk, admin can open a file, you cannot, etc. While the harvester (HTTrack etc.) may be able to download the whole forum database and all its files, there is no guaranty that on the new website/server one can get all these permissions right as needed. A skilled programmer may be able to fix that, but it may involve a lot of time and trouble-shooting (and money). I am not trying to discourage you, but this is not like uploading a file to a different file server (where you could fix the permissions).
2) if we could get access to Guth's user account information (operator/server, user name, passwords, payment details ...) a "new administrator" could, on behalf of all of us, keep running the forum as it is. Whoever is at the receiving end of Guth's payments will happily continue the contract. The money we could collect from "the willing coalition of prime members". Of course this approach does not cover all possible risks (the server operator could go bust), but at least we would have a hard cut-off date to face.
What you do sounds great - thank you for trying !!! Let me add two trains of thought, for what it's worth:
1) your approach comes could (potentially) hit a snag, which may not surface until almost all the effort is spent. Databases like this have permissions at every "leave and branch of the tree". Just think of permissions on the files of your harddisk, admin can open a file, you cannot, etc. While the harvester (HTTrack etc.) may be able to download the whole forum database and all its files, there is no guaranty that on the new website/server one can get all these permissions right as needed. A skilled programmer may be able to fix that, but it may involve a lot of time and trouble-shooting (and money). I am not trying to discourage you, but this is not like uploading a file to a different file server (where you could fix the permissions).
2) if we could get access to Guth's user account information (operator/server, user name, passwords, payment details ...) a "new administrator" could, on behalf of all of us, keep running the forum as it is. Whoever is at the receiving end of Guth's payments will happily continue the contract. The money we could collect from "the willing coalition of prime members". Of course this approach does not cover all possible risks (the server operator could go bust), but at least we would have a hard cut-off date to face.