Sure, threads are returning. But they're full of those dreadful "This post is missing and cannot be restored" posts.
What the hell use is that? The final restoral process had bloody well better give us some more posts back.
Calm down dear, 4 years of backlog can't be restored over night. Have some patience. Can you imagine how many posts there are on the Ezboard network that need restoring? It's going to take some time.
Patience, Harley, patience brings good luck. It is seldom found in humans, and never in a duck."
*Kicks Robert*
I know this is a cliche comment but Harley needs it...
I'm so getting mines kicked...
You should be glad that some posts are actually returning. Hopefully in a matter of time all messages will be back, with everything returning to normal. So like everyone else has said, just sit back and chill.
You mean the RP Guild is still not back up?
Nah I'm just kidding, I don't really care.
In all seriousness (insofar as is possible) any news from the Big ezCheeses as to the progress of the board restoring? They've got a lot on their hands, it seems, but it's been a little while and I do hope they've made progress.
Latest announcement has this to say:
Quote:
Please don't panic if your particular board has not seen data restored in the last day. Unfortunately it is taking time for the restoration process to propagate throughout to all servers in our systems. Set your expectations to seeing data by Monday. Please hold off on asking CS or me to clarify things about your board until next week. This will allow us to focus on getting your data back faster.
So if I'm reading that right, it looks like we'll be seeing more on Monday.
Honestly, I'm just worried whether ezboard will be able to stay in operation after this. No doubt they've lost a lot of investors and having to pay their tech staff for all this overtime has probably screwed them up bad.
*looks up* IF JMAN CAN POST A PIC OF HIMSELF, SO CAN I!
Well, seriously, complaining won't help... Patience will!
Oh, come on. You've got a sack on your head. That could be anybody. I remember this girl who used a photograph of a little-known brazillian model as her picture.
And where are your planes? Last night I dreamt that more stuff around the board had returned. It hasn't.
There's still loads of posts missing and it's Sunday!
But I can't help noticing that it is not, in fact, Monday.
Oh, and just another forewarning, while it is stated that more data will be restored on boards Monday just make sure to note that it doesn't mean all posts will be back. It would be pretty nice if that did happen, though I doubt it would, especially considering ez has other boards to take care of too.
Just saying this in case not everything is restored Monday so Harley won't get disappointed by this. 
I give them until Tuesday.
I give them till they get done, give or take a day.
~Rico
Last night I dreamt that more stuff around the board had returned.
You know you're spending too much time on the forums when...
Incidentally, EspioKaos' fora have most of their topics back, complete with a lack of "This post is missing and cannot be restored" messages. Of course, HIS is smaller, but still.
They're also out of chronological order, but they DID say that'd happen.
The only thing that I think is worth reviving is the massive SPA and MFC2 topics, to be honest...
Oh yes, beacuse all that work people put into writing stories and RPs is just nothing compared to those, isn't it? 
Then again, I don't really care much about the SPA, so who am I to talk? 
Yeah, can you just wait until they say they're done. I don't care about their speculations about when they will be done.
The board won't automatically open when Ezboard gives the all clear anyway. I haven't been on when Dr L and Vec have been, but they (with the assistance of anyone that would like to help that's on when they are) will have to check the threads and see what exists when Ezboard is finished.
So relax people. ;p
I feel a lot like Harley in the sense that I'd really like to see the more important RPs back for sure. But when it comes down to it, they can't help the fact that they were hacked, and they're trying to rebuild as best they can. So anything we get is a bonus or a privilege, rather than a right. We can't reasonably expect them to restore everything perfectly after such a massive strike.
I'm not sure just how much has been restored, but it looks like it's still going to take a little more time. Cross your fingers...
When we go back, most of the existing topics will lots of "unknowns" in them.
Should we:
A) Close them all and replace them with a new topic.
B) Continue to post in them, ignoring them.
C) Delete all the unknowns. (VERY time consuming)
There's probably more options but I just woke up and too lazy to think of them. 😛
It is now Monday, and there are still threads missing.
There's always D, Lighthead. Get a brick and stove the person responsible for backup on Ezboard's head in, because if we're missing this much information, somebody wasn't doing their job.
I'm sure they WERE doing their job, Harley, or else those RPs wouldn't have existed in the first place, the whole of the Mofo wouldn't.
He WAS doing his job, just NOT VERY WELL
What the hell is he paid for? To make reliable backups in case of something like this happening!
What are we paying for? Gold, which is supposed to have regular backups!
Im glad that I can read some of the MF classics x_x. That was buggin' me for some time. o.O And seeing that it is indeed Monday, Im quite shocked that I see as much as I do. I was figuring the middle of the week actually.
In any event, they'll come back soon enough. As for the continuation of EZ after this ...well...look at Enron >>
I think maybe everyone needs to just go out somewhere, get a drink, maybe socialise a little, and come back in a few days. Why bother causing a fuss because it's not back up on Monday like they said? It's the magic that is "Internets"; things take time to restore, and they are probably trying to solve any number of problems. ezBoard does not equal the Mobius Forum; they have thousands of posts and thousands of communities to try and restore as best they can. We're lucky the board still exists as completely as it does, so just relax and let them do their work.
I won't bombard you with clichs, but...it's not the end of the world.
Well, this is a nice little thing to come back from Europe to. HOORAY FOR RESTORES!
LOL @ DL's sig
Thank you, J-Man for some levelheadness. 😉
As for options, Dr L, those are the most obvious ones. I suggest waiting until the all clear and if any other options possibly become available. Still, we'll most likely either selectively delete the "unknowns" (meaning only topics that are actually still active), or just lock down and create new ones. It's mostly the large topics that suffer from the "unknown" business.
There were back-ups, it's just that the hackers went specifically after the back-ups before taking down EZboard itself. This wasn't a sloppy job, they crippled the company in ways unimaginable, considering the fact that they had their legs chopped off through this whole ordeal, I am in marvel at the company's resourcefulness on getting some of these posts back at all.
I'm pretty damn sure the people slaving away to restore the thousands of EZboard communities and their billions of posts, wouldn't appreciate you insinuating they are lazy, worthless and don't deserve money.
If you want to curse anyone out, curse the hackers.
Bull. If they had backups, why are they saying this now?
Quote:
We are truly sorry for any content that is missing and while our words will not bring back that content, please be assured that we have changed our systems and implemented new technology to ensure that Gold Board content is backed up. For security reasons we are not divulging the changes we have implemented.
Check out their latest grovelling to ascertain it.
Noticed anything else, RP fans? Three pages of restored RP has vanished. Poof. Gone. And no extra posts have returned.
Yeah. I vote we use up our Gold credit and then move.
Harley, remember 2 years ago where every single post on this board was deleted by Turbokiller, and we had EZboard use the back-ups to restore the board to how it was?
They DO have back-ups.
Well then, what happened to those pages that magically disappeared then?
Quote:
There were back-ups, it's just that the hackers went specifically after the back-ups before taking down EZboard itself.
Perhaps they disappeared or deleted themselves as a safety mechanism? *shrugs*
While you waste time complaining about pages appearing/disappearing, have you actually checked to see if any topics that "appeared" did "disappear?"
It is not a secret that many topics have been "restored" but are not visible UNLESS you go to the exact url for it, even though the topics alternate between being "visible" and "invisible" in terms of the topic listings as they continue working. Since the Knothole & South Island topic lists are two of the featured topics of the entire message board, I have been using those two topics to gauge how well Ezboard is doing in terms of restoring at least those two forums during some of my free time. Considering the circumstances, I'm okay with them. Before complaining about whether or not pages of topics are visible, particularly since EzBoard is not done yet, why don't you check if some topics are there. This way you'd be doing something that actually shows how well Ezboard is doing with their restoral.
It's not a secret anymore that Ezboard had a lousy back-up system, but relax over stuff not being done yet. Most everyone knew that when they said "Monday" to actually think more along the lines of "Friday" anyway. We've been here for basically five years, we should all be used to how things work around here.
Like J-man said, they probably doing the best they can. It's not like Gamefaqs where there is only one community througout the site.
I was expecting everything to be cleared not for a good several more weeks...
OKay, as J said, let's get a beer and live in the real world for a while... Nah, I wanna be here the second the Mofo opens again (well, all of it)
Apparently, they're done now.
And guess what? MF Classics is STILL polluted with "Unknown" messages! As far as I can tell they didn't restore jack!
Gah, this sucks. Just sucks. Peeps, NOW would be a great time to start searching your cache.
How can a company have such a poor backup and/or disaster recovery plan? I have seen the methods that have been implemented by other companies in case of total data loss, and ezboard backup plan was just crap. Why could they not only have 'backup server' but also make incremental backups and store them somewhere else (e.g. in a cupboard) where they could not be hacked.
Quote:
Every current Gold Community, and every Gold Community subscription that lapsed since the attack, will receive six weeks of additional subscription credit.
That's it?! After weeks of disruption, data loss, hassle and loss of time of the boards staff members, and this is their response. Very pitiful, very pitiful indeed.
How can a company have such a poor backup and/or disaster recovery plan? I have seen the methods that have been implemented by other companies in case of total data loss, and ezboard backup plan was just crap. Why could they not only have 'backup server' but also make incremental backups and store them somewhere else (e.g. in a cupboard) where they could not be hacked.
Nightly physical backups are feasible for small businesses, not for someone who has thousands of gigabytes of data stored. A complete system backup onto physical media would probably have taken days to complete, during which time severe slowdown and outages would occur.
After weeks of disruption, data loss, hassle and loss of time of the boards staff members, and this is their response. Very pitiful, very pitiful indeed.
The attack was less than six weeks ago. Personally I think they're overdoing it; if I was them I'd simply give precisely the amount of time the system has experienced disruption.
It's no use whining about something you have no control over. Sh-t happens. Quitcherbitchin' and go outside. It's summer for Christ's sake. Personally I just wish the staff would open a fresh Gaming Academy. I couldn't care less about old threads, as long I can post.
You have to admit that they have a business to maintain and they have to make money - but it'll take more than six weeks to get used to having about a million posts missing.
And why do only gold communities get this extra credit? It's not like the other communities weren't affected too.
And if past threads don't concern you, Cycle, then you're not an avid RPer.
And why don't the numbers of posts reset to their true number?
Oh relax, it should've been obvious long ago that many topics were going to have the "unknown" thing. Unless someone has been actively going into the archives, there's no way most of that is going to be restored beyond what's been done.
What credit would a free board get? A free board doesn't pay anything. Credit means you get to have something for free.
The posts are at their "true" number. The content of the posts has nothing to do with their topic number.
Since the all clear has finally been given... **goes off to survey**
Cycle, stuff will be re-opened within the next few days anyway--possibly even sooner.
Quote:
And if past threads don't concern you, Cycle, then you're not an avid RPer.
*Gasp* Someone not an avid RPer?
Dun Dun Duh
I'm sure you've hurt Cycle greatly, Harley.
*Gasp* Someone not an avid RPer?
Okay, maybe I should rephrase that...
And if past threads don't concern you, you're not an obsessively avid RPer.
*punches Craig*
Uh... what? What did I do? I was replying to Allik, who was replying to you.
*Thrusts hand at Harley* SHUN'd
Huh? I thought that comment was directed at me, since all the others seemed to be.
I'm not an obsessively avid RPer as well, yet I care about the threads, though obviously not more than Harley. Of course, I have no idea who does. What does that make me? I mean, I never knew you had to be into RPs at all to care. =O
Hey, you can care about old threads and not be an RPer. But if you don't care about past threads, you're obviously not an obsessive RP nut.
And I'll go on like a broken record just as long as I want, thankyou.
