Topic: Archive a Forum

[laurad]

We have a SM Forum which has been active for nearly 3 years now. We want to admit some new Administrators, but feel that all previous Admin topics should not be visible to new Admins, but we don't want to lose the topics and threads of previous discussions.

Is there any way to create a backup or archive of the database so that we, the existing Admins, still have access to the data?

[Arantor]

Not any particularly easy way of doing it, remember that an admin has the power to see everything regardless.

Pretty much the simplest way is to take a copy of everything (as if you were moving host) and setting up a second hidden forum entirely using that copy of the database.

That said, would it really be so bad for new admins to see the history of the place?

[laurad]

Well, yes, because we have discussed individuals in the Admin area and our discussions were made for our eyes only. It's just a sensitive issue.

When you say "take a copy of everything" what do you mean? We've never moved host or had to set up another Forum and not very experienced in these things. I do have access to the MySQL database - would this be something I could do or would our host have to set it up? I'm just not sure how to go about it, but that does sound like a good option.

[Arantor]

I literally mean you would take a backup of the database, create a new database, install a new copy of the forum software, then overwrite the new forum with the old data - there would be some fiddly tidy-up to do after but nothing huge.

It's not a hugely complex process but I'm really not sure I'm the best person to try and explain how to do it, because there's quite a few things that could go wrong (all fixable, but not necessarily easy unless you're very familiar with how everything works)

Better question: if you don't trust them enough to see the history of the forum, why are you making them admins?

[laurad]

Yes, I would need someone to explain that process a little more clearly to me, if possible. Thanks for the suggestion.

It's complicated.. we have a group of members of which 4 are Admins. Throughout the past 3 years we have discussed many Forum issues, but have also discussed individuals and our comments were for our eyes only. As I said, it's a sensitive issue, not a trust issue. None of us would be comfortable for a new Admin to read those comments, regardless of whether they are trusted or not, but we need to keep a record and history. We could of course save each page to a Word document, but it would take hours to save hundreds of pages - that's not really an option.

[laurad]

We found a solution.

There is a nifty print button which I hadn't investigated until recently. What a great feature. It copies an entire thread to an HTML File which can then be saved. This is ideal. I can copy all the threads I want to archive and then delete them from the Forum. There is sensitive information in there that would not be appropriate for new Admins, so this has worked out really well.