Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Hello all, and welcome back!

Firstly, thank you so much for your patience as the admin team has worked to get the new version of the Plaza online and debugged. We have now migrated to an entirely new host who we believe will have more reliable backup systems, and are also adjusting our own procedures to take frequent backups that do not depend on the host's servers.

For context, our previous host performed nightly backups of our database, and we trusted that this would help us avoid a situation where we lost all our data. As described by the host in their write-up of the cause of this data loss, our backup servers, along with the server on which the Plaza was hosted, were damaged. That meant that, although we had daily backups for the entirety of the site’s history, they were lost when the servers went down.

As was previously announced, and you can now see, the content of the Plaza has been restored to its state as of 27 March. It's possible that our former host will be able to recover some of the data from between then and now, but don't count on it - it doesn't sound too promising. If more content is recovered, chances are we'll try to preserve it in a form similar to the archives of the old Plaza, as merging the two databases would be extremely difficult. Rest assured that if more content becomes available, we'll do everything we can to get it back to you, and update you as that proceeds (if it does). Additionally, this unfortunately means if you registered after March 27, you will need to re-register your account again.

But, the good news is: the Plaza is back! We're sure you creative, resourceful, determined folks who make up our community will be back in action in no time. As many of you will have seen, Nessa has created a Google Drive for the sharing of any content you may have saved from the data loss period to help out your fellow Plazaites, please feel free to add to it and to pull from it as needed!

As always, we strongly recommend that everyone write posts/OPs in a document or other application outside of the Plaza's text box and save your own content locally. We've all been the victim of accidental page refreshes or browser crashes while writing in the text box - unfortunately it just happened to all of us on a much larger scale. While we all hope that this new host or any other will keep our data safe, we’ve seen repeatedly that this is not always the case, through no fault of our own. The best way to ensure your content is preserved is to save it on a computer and have it backed up (on an external hard drive, in Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). As we are taking additional steps to have multiple copies of the database, we recommend that everyone do the same with your posts.

Some features, such as tables, have not yet been restored - we're working on it! The Plaza isn't perfect yet, but it's fully functional and you can get to posting to your heart's content.

Below, you will find the answers to some questions we anticipate will arise. Please read through them, then use this thread to voice any additional questions, report any bugs/broken things you may find, and make any requests related to picking up the pieces such as pinning or locking threads!

What if I signed up after March 27?
You will need to re-register for an account.

What if I took HoK quizzes after March 27?
We have records of all HoK quizzes. The admin team will be working to re-apply points for members who took quizzes after March 27th. Please be patient with us as applying tribute is a multi-step manual process.

Can I retake HoK quizzes if I took them after March 27?
No. We have records of all quizzes taken to date, and you should see your points awarded again as the admin team works through our records.

What if I opened a thread or made a post after March 27?
Threads and posts made since March 27 have been lost. Luckily, many members have pooled their resources to find a large number of threads in PDF and/or screenshot form. Many have been uploaded to the shared Google Drive that Nessa created.

What if I changed my name since March 27?
Your username is currently whatever it was on March 27. Please let us know in Name Change Requests if you would like your name updated again!

What if I changed my email since March 27?
You will need to change it again.

What if I changed my password since March 27?
You will need to change it again.

Will my points count be restored to what it was before the site went down?
No. The admins have no single reliable way of knowing everyone’s point counts just before the site went down, and we are prioritizing HoK tribute and ensuring that the site is back to full functionality. Because so much content has been found and preserved in the Google Drive, members should feel free to re-post their writing to earn points. Everyone will, however, receive a uniform “bonus” for your understanding in light of this incident.


How did this happen?
Please see our (now former) host's blog post explaining the outage. At a high level, the server on which the Plaza was hosted and its backup servers were damaged, which resulted in almost complete data loss for the server on which we were hosted.

Is this the same thing that happened to OP?
No. The original Plaza suffered from a direct malicious attack. This outage was due to an incident that our host - and all of their clients - experienced.

Why is the most recent stuff from March 27?
This was the most recent database backup that Narv had saved locally. We can thank the Eagle Kingdom for that.


What are we doing to keep it from happening again?
We have moved to a new host and Narv and Tara will be working on ensuring that the database backups that the host creates and saves to their servers are copied to additional locations. Since this kind of thing can happen to any host we might choose, the best way to safeguard our data is to ensure that we have it stored in multiple places.

How can I be sure my posts won’t get lost again?
We cannot emphasize this enough: draft and save your posts and OPs in programs like Word, Google Docs, Evernote, Notion, etc. Saving copies of your work to your computer’s hard drive is a great start, and will ensure you have your work locally. To be even more safe (for example, in the event that your computer crashes), we also strongly recommend backing up your documents to the cloud or an external hard drive. This is a general best practice with personal data stored on your devices.

Is there a way I can personally recover anything that was lost?
It is possible to mine Google's cache and find some lost threads! This is a fairly labor intensive process, but has been fruitful so far. Instructions:

1. Google "lotr fanatics plaza site:lotrfanaticsplaza.com". This brings up pages, forum landing pages and threads as search results. It's quite a lot of pages. Using 'Tools' below the search bar, you can filter by date.
2. Open the thread or page of interest and copy the URL.
3. Open a new instance of Google.com.
4. Type in the following text: "cache:(insert copied URL here)".
Example: for Jupiter is Like Saturn, copy the URL (https://lotrfanaticsplaza.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=682) and then google search "cache:https://lotrfanaticsplaza.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=682" which brings up Google's cache of the page.
5. Save it.

You may also be able to try custom searches for specific threads by trying different search terms. E.g., Google “Lotr plaza jupiter is like saturn site:lotrfanaticsplaza.com” brings up the cache page as the top result and you can follow steps 2-4 from there as well. Searching specific thread titles is recommended/more efficient!

I just wanted to add a couple personal notes: first, that my fellow admins have done a really amazing job the last few days fixing things, testing things, and keep everyone up to speed. And second I want to reiterate one of the points above, that Tara and I will focus on making sure we add as much redundancy to the backup process as possible moving forward. Storing local DB copies over and above the regular host-based backups is something I did regularly in the early days of the site when much was in flux, and the truth is that much pain would have been mitigated this last week if I had kept that process up. So as I've said, that is on me, I do sincerely apologize, and I'll do my best to ensure we are as safe as possible from events like this in the future.

Honestly, there is nothing you need to apologize for. None of this should have been solely on you and Tara to keep track of, we could have saved our posts and a thousand other things that could have made this easier. Not to mention it wasn't you that borked the site in the first place.

That said, @Narv, @Marceline, @Lailyn, @Nessa Saelind, and @Moriel are gods for what you've all been able to accomplish in the last week. Discord was full of panicked nonsense yet you all kept your cool and did you best to make sure everything that could be saved was saved for the benefit of the doofs that call this site home.

Thank you. Thank you so much for all the hard work you've done. It has not gone unnoticed.

There’s nothing to apologize for—technology is great until it isn’t, and happens! Thanks for all of your hard work admin team, you rock!

Thank you for getting us back up and running.

Thanks for all your work to get us back up and running! You did an absolutely excellent job given the crap hand handed to you by your webhost.

FAQ ADDENDUM we just gave everyone 50 points in a baldfaced attempt to buy your affection approximate lieu of all the points that you all presumably lost from posts / HoK etc. If anyone feels this was inadequate I recommend the Haiku thread as an efficient additional solution

others, like me, likely made out like bandits in this deal

Limericks are more profitable these days

Also HoK trib from March 28 onward is coming! It will just be slow, as it is a time-consuming manual process

oh Thanks this was actually a question I sort of had with how Narv worded the 50pt bribe lol

It's all about the Limericks
they require a few more gimmicks
But indeed they give points
that can get you high like a joint
Unless, maybe you have other interests

If I have to do poetry it's gonna be haikus lol Limericks are too much effort.

Also debating on making a Granny Appie Smith Cookbook thread since I've literally baked bread/buns and lemon loaves today on my day off.

limericks, gimmick, interests? that might just be the worst limerick i ever read, here's a point

1) write horrible limericks

2) ?????

3) Profit

A heartfelt thankyou to @Narv and all the admins who have managed to bring us back from the brink of despair !

I must admit, I was concerned, given the precedence of all that we lost the last time a host server went awry. But the speed at which you have managed to restore as much as possible has been staggering. And I must admit, the constant updates and communication offered to the members to keep us informed throughout was a new and much appreciated gesture as well. So thank you for all of that.

And a personal thankyou to @Nessa Saelind and @Rillewen who took time out of their busy days to help an old woman (and her clearly antiquated laptop) to cooperate with googledocs that initially didn't want to play for me. You are angels.

Aw, you're welcome @Ercassie, I'm glad to be able to help! I know how devastating it is, losing words you've spent hours writing.

Also want to say thanks, all you wonderful people who worked so hard to rescue the plaza and recover all that you did!

That really was a very fast solution-seeking! Well done, admins!

And apparently I should stop being lazy and save the posts somewhere instead of just typing up my couple paragraphs on the go. Now just have to get sorted and see what's to be done...

Firstly, thank you SO much to the whole admin team for what must have been an enormous amount of work in a very short space of time and all the while probably feeling a whole lot of pressure to boot (I very much hope you didn't feel any, but I'm sure you did just because you are all those kinda thoughtful people). Anyway, key message here is: you guys rock!

Secondly, I want to reassure everyone that even though I have just been gifted considerably more points than I've earned in the last 10 months combined, I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of trying to get the plaza to crash again in order to see another windfall.

Muahahaha the Great Mathom Mix-up has gone so I could literally re-run the entire game and just test your memories on which present was hidden where! Happy additional birthday Silas

Also THANK YOU ADMIN TEAM, arent you all absolute champs!

Jorgyferret is missing?! This is a tragedy! We must find him!

Love you all long time <3

I'm just hopping in here to say that as the De Aedificiis folder on the Google Drive will be periodically updated as the slow process of going through the Google cache continues. So keep checking the folder from time to time, we actually might find your missing posts. Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed to this project of member awesomeness and uploaded the things they had on the Drive. You are the best!

all

Psst @Galadrihell & @Baphởmet the mathom mix-up & Jorgyferret are riiiight here ---> viewtopic.php?f=13&t=429

I was tricked! How SILly of me to believe @Galadrihell

Well done and thank you Admins for getting the Plaza back so unbelievably quickly - phew!!!

Dang I completely forgot that I had segued that game straight into another game hahahaha @Baphởmet @Lailyn guess I will have to think up ALL NEW CONTENT

Glad you made it back in!

@Galadrihell you outsmarted yourself!

I’ll try and see if I have anything in my Google cashe this weekend. Who knows if anything will turn up

But a huge thank you to the admins for working hard at getting our playground back so quickly.

Thanks Admins!