View Poll Results: What should the future be for RPA?

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  • Move to Jcink. No grace period for saving/copying threads. RPA as current goes inactive.

    2 11.11%
  • Move to Jcink, 3 months for member manual copy. After such, current site goes inactive.

    15 83.33%
  • Another way. Please detail in thread. Action plans only!

    1 5.56%
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Thread: The Great Migration - Update and Member Discussion

  1. #1
    The Replicant
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    Default The Great Migration - Update and Member Discussion

    Note: We apologise for the wall of text - to make things easier, the key points are highlighted in blue.

    Dear members of the RPA Community,

    As many of you know, or have by now rightly guessed – the JCINK move did not go according to plan. On behalf of the moderators of RPA we feel it’s time to explain rather than continue to speak in generalities. Our Technical Moderator, Miss Devil, was chiefly responsible for the selection of this new host and was helming the migration of our fair site to a new and better world; one which is not only more modern, but far less expensive to maintain than our current (and severely outdated) InMotion host. Unfortunately, we were misled in this endeavour. Sometime after our migration date came and went, Miss Devil disappeared.

    We only recently learned, after inquiring with the folks at JCINK, that Miss Devil was informed back in 2023 that our migration, as originally envisioned, would not be possible. Miss Devil never passed that information back to us as a staff group, and so we did not have the opportunity to address it further or revise our plan. Instead we believe she attempted a workaround on her own initiative, while insisting to the rest of us that everything was indeed fine. Among other things, this meant that our FAQ about the move was not accurate (for example, usernames could NOT be transferred), and that we paid money to a third party for a new JCINK skin that we now may not use. According to JCINK, Miss Devil only contacted them a second time the week before the move deadline, where they informed her that her workaround would not work and that, again, a migration would not be possible. As this was the same day that Miss Devil disappeared, we can only assume that she panicked and decided to ghost us rather than admit her mistake.

    With this information in hand, Miss Devil has been stripped of her staff title and all rights that come with that, and there is an ongoing conversation surrounding a potential permanent ban. Miss Devil had many opportunities to inform us of the truth, and we could have worked toward a better and more sustainable solution. The simple fact of the matter is, she chose not too and fled rather than taking accountability for her mistakes. She consciously chose to deceive us and by extension the entire RPA community.

    As a staff we decided to trust one of our peers, and in so doing, we took you all down the rabbit hole with us. This is the cause of the numerous delays, the push back of the dates, and locking down threads to prevent new posts for a migration that ultimately wasn’t imminent, or even an option. These mistakes have taught us a valuable lesson and we will not repeat them. Our ultimate responsibility is to you, our user community, and we sincerely apologize for all that has transpired. We let you down, and we hope that in time you will be able to forgive us.

    With that out of the way, what does the path forward look like? One thing we know for certain is that remaining with our current host in the long term is unsustainable. The costs are exorbitant. But that doesn’t mean we are giving up. Moving to JCINK is still an option, but it has drawbacks: as we cannot take any of our existing threads or data with us, to move there it means we lose all our history, all of our posts, blogs, visitor messages, the works. The advantage would be that we could move quickly, and we would keep the original site running for a "handover" period (currently proposed to extend 2-3 months after JCINK goes live) to give folks ample time to register and either migrate their content for themselves by simply re-posting it on JCINK, or to save it elsewhere. We are also exploring what else is out there, and if there is another host we can migrate to successfully which is more cost effective, but so far there is no standout option that will leave us secure and sustainable in the long run.

    With all of the above said, we would now like to hear from you, our members, about how you would like us to proceed. We will also continue to provide updates as they are available. We thank you for your continued patience, understanding and support, and we welcome any and all feedback or questions that you have.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  2. #2
    Give into Decay...
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    That's understandable. I wouldn't have second guessed it. I don't have anything except praise for you guys.

    Good luck on finding a new home for us. I can see how difficult this has to be for you. It's okay to need a breather before trying again.

    I've spent some of today searching for alternatives in terms of archiving. I've mentioned this to Scottie already, but if RPA can't be transferred I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing as long as we can backup everything.

    I've had httrack running for a few hours now and I don't think it's what I think it is. So far I have a bunch of people's signature images saved haha not what I was thinking it would be. Someone told me that maybe it's only starting with images? Maybe we'll see a result. I'll keep looking into it.

    I was surprised (but also disappointed) at how much of RPA is on the Wayword machine.

    In terms of badges, having a list of what they looked like is good enough, or save the images and retribute them (If needed, I'm not suggesting each member get all of their awards back, that would be a nightmare, but if they were to er-earn them, if that website has badges). I have all of mine screenshot anyway. Seems some on my page are broken, but I believe I have screenshots of them before then.

    Forum games can be lost. Most of them are gone anyway, right? Or are they archived somewhere? If so, I'd love to have that too haha. Especially the ones I made. But ultimately, they're not important. As memorable as they are (The Post Last One) who rereads them?

    Same for blogs. It would be useful/nice to be able to download all of mine (I have 680) it's one of those things that's okay to lose, as you already mentioned. Most of them are cringy rants anyway lol and I do have a good set I've saved over the years.

    Mainly we just need to preserve all of the RP's.

    I (think) I have all of mine backed up, but it was time consuming. Using the printable version. It's too much to preserve RPA through out, even if we broke it up among members. I'm willing to spend a couple hours (or a group of hours) on this, but not months lol

    Is there a way to get a full RP on one page or download it that way?


    The seals have been broken...
    The Purgament has begun...
    The Piper's out of the basement...
    The Dead have started to boogie...
    Decay is Coming

    Spoiler: The winner is... 

  3. #3
    The Grey Lady
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    I am fairly certain, that even if things cannot be transferred, it should be possible to download a backup of the site.
    Thanks to Hayabusa/Ryoku for the set.

  4. #4
    Senpai
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    Hello, hi. Just chiming in.

    I think everyone honestly can benefit from this. Yes, it's a huge undertaking, and it's gonna take a lot of work for everyone to get back up to speed, but I think we can all use a new clean slate, and give everyone time to backup their most valued works.

    As cliche as this may sound, starting from zero sounds like an exciting proposition, to me at least.

  5. #5
    The Replicant
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    Thanks for the feedback!
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


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