Today's Events - Moderator accidentally merged dozens of topics together

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Hi all - some of you may have seen that the site was closed today for some hours.

A moderator accidentally merged a lot of topics into one topic. I've accidentally merged some extra posts before, but in those cases I've been able to find and remove them. Given the number of topics merged it wasn't feasible to split the topics apart, so the only option was to restore the whole site from backup. I couldn't do this until this evening due to work, cooking dinner, etc, so this morning I locked the forum to prevent people making posts I would have to delete when restoring from backup.

Human errors happen, and no blame should be laid to moderators who give up their time to help manage the site.

In light of this happening, I am increasing the backups to every 3 hours rather than just daily. That way if we do have to restore again in future, there will be hopefully less rollback needed.

Apologies to anyone who posted since the backup was taken and have lost your posts.

 

[Michel Van]

My beloved SPF is back online, Hurra

 

[Justo Miranda]

My beloved SPF is back online, Hurra

same here

 

[zen]

Please accept our deep appreciation for this site and the community it's created.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Unfortunately, IT support is only available when I am not at work and also awake. However, over 19 years of existence, the uptime of the site is pretty high.

 

[kaiserbill]

Unfortunately, IT support is only available when I am not at work and also awake. However, over 19 years of existence, the uptime of the site is pretty high.

That's true.
SP has a very high availability rate.
Very glad it's back up.

 

[DWG]

I think we all prefer putting up with a little bit of downtime than having to search through 1800 pages of posts in one mega-thread trying to find the one we want. Thanks for keeping the place up and tidy!

 

[TomS]

Absolutely no complaints from here. You have done yeoman work.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The cloud of tags from all the merged topics was kinda funny. Should've taken a screenshot. One topic to rule them all!

 

[DWG]

The cloud of tags from all the merged topics was kinda funny. Should've taken a screenshot. One topic to rule them all!

And in the darkness hide them!

 

[Archibald]

It's back, hurrah ! Thanks to our very own Sisyphus @overscan (PaulMM)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

Fun fact: I knew something was badly amiss when an alert told me my post about that row of Dassault planes, vintage 1987 : had landed right in the middle of the SpaceX thread.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/dassault-aircraft-lineup-picture-sought.44503/#post-717375

Woops !

The cloud of tags from all the merged topics was kinda funny. Should've taken a screenshot.

With due respect to the unfortunate 583 souls that perished in that freak tragedy... today's events were this forum's very own Tenerife disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster
Clouds leading to major collision and crash in flammes...

"Is it clear, the PanAm ?"
"Yeaaaaah !" [emphatically]

 

[zjz]

Posting here to show my appreciation for all the hard work by the Admin and moderators in keeping this forum going .....

Thank you!

 

[Stargazer]

Thank you very much indeed, Paul, for restoring the forum back to its former self!
It is clear to me that the quality and reactivity of this forum are unrivaled, not just in terms of contents, but also maintenance, moderation and so forth. Keep up the good work, folks!

 

[Manuducati]

This is by far the most interesting, best documented, tightly controlled forum about our passion on the Internet.
Thank you to the administrators and moderators for this! And to the highly knowledgeable members here as well.

 

[Dilandu]

Well, mistakes happens, and the problem was solved. Thank you for restoring the situation!

 

[Caravellarella]

Naughty moderator! Will you punish him/her?

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[scautomoton]

Naughty moderator! Will you punish him/her?

Terry (Caravellarella)

The first thing that popped into my head was Basil Faulty threatening his car with "a damn good thrashing!"

 

[Michel Van]

View: https://youtu.be/qz4ox5BSDWA?si=cabENfM_6kD50Vi9

 

[4decaa]

The cloud of tags from all the merged topics was kinda funny. Should've taken a screenshot. One topic to rule them all!

I was sitting in an 8am calculus lecture and had just pulled out my computer to give SPF a quick check, and saw that I had a LOT of notifications from the Standoff & PGM munitions thread (odd, I don't watch that thread!), clicked on it, and just saw a wall of 100+ topics & phrases. Quite a funny start to the day.

the most amusing part was probably reading discourse about early 1900s aircraft immediately followed by the message "no one is putting two F135s in anything" lol

 

[Archibald]

And I thought only Mr Bean had dysfunctional relatiosnhip with british cars...

 

[Antonio]

Naughty moderator! Will you punish him/her?

Terry (Caravellarella)

That's me, Terry. the one who almost became Death, Destroyer of Worlds.
I emulated Sauron's (Annatar) plans for a moment. I'm so sorry and, of course, I'll accept any consequences from my action.

To all members, in advance, please accept my apologies for any inconvenience and thank you for the comprehension received.

Thanks Paul for the quick reaction. Since 2006 we're lucky to keep you amongst us. Without both your professional expertise and generosity, enjoying such a meeting place should be impossible.

Antonio

 

[Michel Van]

Don‘t blame your self Antonio
Take it like bob Ross: there only happy accidents

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

That's me, Terry. the one who almost became Death, Destroyer of Worlds.
I emulated Sauron's (Annatar) plans for a moment. I'm so sorry and, of course, I'll accept any consequences from my action.

Antonio has been a unpaid moderator since the very early days of the forum - we owe him a big debt.

There are no consequences - so long as he wants to be a moderator, he can be. If he doesn't want to anymore, that's fine too.

 

[hesham]

No problem my dears PaulMM and Antonio,

all of us appreciate what you have done for this great forum,with all Moderators also.

 

[klem]

"More fear than harm". We should not look for a culprit in the person who seeks a solution, no one is infallible in acting to do good

 

[southwestforests]

I just look at it as a novelty, sort of a case of, "And now for something completely different."

 

[perttime]

I was a bit worried when a message came up, instead of a page with new posts. But the message seemed confident that things will be fine. And things are fine again.

Nobody died or became seriously injured. Right?