Is Lambertus alive?

Is Lambertus the only one who can add forums? Does no one else have any access to the forums?

The discussion about Lambertus being inaccessible is going on Talk list for a month already and the current outcome is that new server installation is very possible (with the data from current forum harvested via HTML, as we have no fresh backups available):

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2016-July/076412.html

That would be a chance to upgrade to a better forum software:

https://www.discourse.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_(software)

@ligfietser
Maybe could you ask on talk-nl and the dutch forum if somebody knows anything from Lambertus?

Christian

Done, see https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-nl/2016-August/015415.html

I’ve posted it also on Dutch forum:

http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=55496

I wonder whether we could give a tip to the Weekly team. Maybe any of the readers would know anything.

Sure, especially hinting that we’re preparing to phase 2 (server migration), could you let them know? However it was already mentioned in #313 (Community section):

http://www.weeklyosm.eu/archives/7874

I was thinking along the lines of a big-ass headline or something. God. I still can’t believe it’s for real.
Can’t we ask whoever physically hosts the server to contact Lambertus?

Someone already tries an analog way of making contact, maybe its working.

Host of the server is: daresel07.oxilion.nl, if you want you can try to contact oxilion. Maybe its working somehow? Don’t know, would be better in dutch.

I have asked Stefan de Konink, who manages (?) the openstreetmap.nl domain and knows people from Oxilion.
He would be able to help with the migration but first let’s wait after the holidays for further steps.

interesting! When holiday ends? What means to help with migration? Do you think he could manage to get the db-data without having a contact to Lambertus? I would like to have the data, but I would not like to support that kind of acting :slight_smile:

just for your information, there is an exchange of ideas and views going on in the german forum about the forum in general and the question if a new software could be helping or could be troubling. I would like to start an exchange like that in english-speaking forum too, but didn’t have the time yet.

Let us wait and give Lambertus time to respond, maybe he is on holiday. Stefan has the know-how to access the data from Oxilion, I dont know if/when he is willing to help and in what way but in case there is no response from Lambertus, you could contact him (he is also on this forum).

If Oxilion policies are not too strict and they can trust somebody else than Lambertus himself (which may be the problem), it should be technically possible to extract all the data even without the passwords having physical access to a server. I guess disc is not encrypted, since it would prevent booting without human intervention.

I do! Iam still hopeful that all the discussions are senseless and we can manage it together with Lambertus :slight_smile:

But I would like to have a kind of deadline, because there were several attempts to contact Lambertus in the last months. It looks like holidays in Netherlands ends in early september.

We should still discuss if we want new software (sub-national forums would be great!) and prepare new server and management team, so the planning phase may start now, even without him. I also believe deadline is a good thing to have.

There are a lot of ideas that could/should be included in a future forum. But there are also legitimate concerns why a new software could make it worse. Its not an easy to make decision and I think its important to have some time and collect opinions and ideas about that. So I propose not to start planning too much but discuss about the pros and cons of different possibilities.
As I said, there is already a discussion ongoing in the German forum, maybe you would like to start one in the Polish forum too? I tried not to ask about plans or problems but what everyone likes and miss in the current forum and if they would like to have a new software

Sure, that’s what I meant - this is very broad topic and it gives us some time before taking any action, however it would be safe to start making fresh HTML backups now.

I prefer to proceed with main discussion in English (here or on the Talk list), since it’s international problem.

yes true, but I worry that some people wont participate, so I would like to collect opinions in national forums too