Zompist Bboard Again

I did not know there existed any such archive.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:12 am I did not know there existed any such archive.

Long story… basically, we started discussing how to rescue posts from the old board, eventually I offered to have a go at upgrading the database to the latest version of phpBB, zompist sent it to me, and I now have a working copy of the old board at home. I think the original plan was to re-upload that updated copy to incatena.org, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that, so for now I seem to be stuck as the only person (besides zompist) who can access the old board. I still think it would be great to get it re-uploaded, so I don’t have to run PHP every time I want to read something from it!

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:19 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:12 am I did not know there existed any such archive.

Long story… basically, we started discussing how to rescue posts from the old board, eventually I offered to have a go at upgrading the database to the latest version of phpBB, zompist sent it to me, and I now have a working copy of the old board at home. I think the original plan was to re-upload that updated copy to incatena.org, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that, so for now I seem to be stuck as the only person (besides zompist) who can access the old board. I still think it would be great to get it re-uploaded, so I don’t have to run PHP every time I want to read something from it!

Is it running as a phpBB board? What I had downloaded from this thread was a database in a slightly different format, and a script for display.
(I'm asking to see if and how I can help with uploading it )

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:19 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:12 am I did not know there existed any such archive.

Long story… basically, we started discussing how to rescue posts from the old board, eventually I offered to have a go at upgrading the database to the latest version of phpBB, zompist sent it to me, and I now have a working copy of the old board at home. I think the original plan was to re-upload that updated copy to incatena.org, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that, so for now I seem to be stuck as the only person (besides zompist) who can access the old board. I still think it would be great to get it re-uploaded, so I don’t have to run PHP every time I want to read something from it!

How far back does it go?

Way back to 2002, as far as linguistics and Almea-related discussions go. But more ephemeral and off-topic discussions used to be purged regularly, so the origins of the pickles-and-tea tradition are probably lost.

It's older than my presence on the Internet.

That was about the year I found the LCK and zompist.com (through Ardalambion, as I recall: like many, I suppose, I was fascinated by Tolkien's language and wondering how you'd go at doing something like that). I was 18 at the time (talk about a remember that I'm not getting any younger!)

Reminiscing a bit, I was strictly lurking at the time -- I had intermittent internet access at the time, and frightfully busy otherwise -- but the very early ZBB did have a lasting influence. In particular I think I owe a long-standing interest in the languages of America to the work of Jeff Burke at the time.

By the time I got interest into conlanging again and joined the ZBB, he was unfortunately gone. Does anyone have any news of him, by the way?

I know Pickles and Tea was firmly entrenched as The Greeting of the board when I joined, which might have been as early as 2004, but might have been closer to 2005 or -06, my junior or senior years of high school. (Also that it was better than the alternative, tickles and pee.)

linguistcat wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:03 am I know Pickles and Tea was firmly entrenched as The Greeting of the board when I joined, which might have been as early as 2004, but might have been closer to 2005 or -06, my junior or senior years of high school. (Also that it was better than the alternative, tickles and pee.)

There was also the alternative alternative, tickles and *pea*.

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, so here it goes:
I'm looking for beta readers for a novella (~32k words). I'm not asking for free labour, but we can work out the sordid details by PM. Let me know if anyone here would be interested in helping me polish my work.

Sure. I'll be happy to help.

Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:22 pm Didn't want to start a new thread for this, so here it goes:
I'm looking for beta readers for a novella (~32k words). I'm not asking for free labour, but we can work out the sordid details by PM. Let me know if anyone here would be interested in helping me polish my work.

I do enjoy reading; what sort of novella is it?

to my mind pickles and tea was always about how it sounded like tickles and pee.

I think I might've heard that before.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:23 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:19 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:12 am I did not know there existed any such archive.

Long story… basically, we started discussing how to rescue posts from the old board, eventually I offered to have a go at upgrading the database to the latest version of phpBB, zompist sent it to me, and I now have a working copy of the old board at home. I think the original plan was to re-upload that updated copy to incatena.org, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that, so for now I seem to be stuck as the only person (besides zompist) who can access the old board. I still think it would be great to get it re-uploaded, so I don’t have to run PHP every time I want to read something from it!

Is it running as a phpBB board? What I had downloaded from this thread was a database in a slightly different format, and a script for display.
(I'm asking to see if and how I can help with uploading it )

OK, so at the moment there are three databases floating around:

1. The original database, which works with an old version of phpBB, but fails when run with more modern versions of PHP. This is what is currently running at incatena.org.
2. Zompist then sent that database to me so I could have a go at upgrading it to the latest phpBB. I eventually managed to do it, and got the board running locally on my machine only. I sent this database back to zompist, so he should have access to it as well.
3. I also made a copy of this database, removed all private information, and published it online. This is the stripped-down version I linked to.

If we want to get it up and running again, I see two options:

• Since zompist has the updated database, he should be able to upload the database to incatena.org along with the latest version of phpBB, to get the board at incatena.org working again.
• Alternately, if anyone here has a website with PHP support, they could use my script to let them host a minimal-but-working copy of the old board. (Navigation and search could be tricky, but it should be possible to work out some way to get past those.)

I don't have the updated database; as I said at the time, I didn't have a Dropbox account.

I don't really have the time or skill to mess with phpbb/databases. If you can get the board publicly available but without login/posting ability, I'd be fine with that. Or I can give you access to incatena.org so you could put it there.

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:03 pm I don't have the updated database; as I said at the time, I didn't have a Dropbox account.

Huh, weird; I’m sure it’s possible to download shared files from Dropbox without an account. Certainly, I can do it when signed out in a private window (though I have to close a dialog first which pushes me to make an account). But if that really doesn’t work, I’ll see if I can find some other way to send it to you.

I don't really have the time or skill to mess with phpbb/databases. If you can get the board publicly available but without login/posting ability, I'd be fine with that. Or I can give you access to incatena.org so you could put it there.

It should be a pretty simple process:

1. Download the files for phpBB-3.3.0 from the website, then upload them to incatena.org
2. Replace the old incatena.org database with the updated one
3. Done!

Alternately, I suppose I could try doing this myself if you give me access, but I’m horribly unfamiliar with these sorts of tools and don’t entirely trust myself to use them correctly. I most probably would end up doing everything correctly, but I do see a small chance of me completely destroying incatena.org or something similar.

The final option is, as you say, to make the board publicly available without phpBB. This is possible (I’ve tried it myself), but tricky: you still need to depend on phpBB somewhere, and the result ends up being pretty much just plain hard-to-navigate HTML. The only real advantage of this approach is that it can be hosted by someone else if needed, since it can be done with the stripped-down version of the database.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:49 pm

Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:22 pm Didn't want to start a new thread for this, so here it goes:
I'm looking for beta readers for a novella (~32k words). I'm not asking for free labour, but we can work out the sordid details by PM. Let me know if anyone here would be interested in helping me polish my work.

I do enjoy reading; what sort of novella is it?

Sort of horror/mystery, set in the present. The first draft should be ready in a couple of weeks. I'll PM you if you're still interested.

Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:41 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:49 pm

Glass Half Baked wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:22 pm Didn't want to start a new thread for this, so here it goes:
I'm looking for beta readers for a novella (~32k words). I'm not asking for free labour, but we can work out the sordid details by PM. Let me know if anyone here would be interested in helping me polish my work.

I do enjoy reading; what sort of novella is it?

Sort of horror/mystery, set in the present. The first draft should be ready in a couple of weeks. I'll PM you if you're still interested.

I should tentatively be, provided no major changes happen in my life.

I am thinking about trying to (re)learn how to program. In highschool I took programing classes for a couple years, where I learned C++, and I studied python on my own a bit around the same time. I've forgotten absolutely all of it though. If I did want to pick it back up again, does anyone have any recommendations on what language to learn? I'm inclined to go back to C++, or maybe try and learn C instead, but perhaps something more modern would be better? I don't know... the mathematician in me wants to try Haskell.