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Anything I can do? Incorporating a PHPBB board I don't have full access to

Started by khigh, October 28, 2014, 05:07:04 PM

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khigh

I'm afraid I already know the answer, so I'll keep it short. Never hurts to ask, though.

I know things like users would be out of the question,  but I want to archive the messages.

I'm part of a very active PHPBB board that unfortunately died at the top. The owner/admin/whatever is long gone and it's only really running because it's piggybacked off a commercial system so no one can access it.

It's starting to die a slow death on the technical level. It runs about half the time and then it doesn't.

I'm going to start an SMF board and I'd like to keep as much of the old board as I can.

The plan now is that I'm downloading the entire board to my PC with WinHTTrack. I'm going to upload that and it should run off just static files. I'll through a Google search bar on top of it so people can find the old threads, and they should be able to navigate the old threads with the static links.

But is that ALL I can do? Or can I do more? I'm thinking not, but every little bit helps.

Thanks for looking,
Kevin

kat

Is there any way for you to get the database?

If you can get that, somehow, you may have a chance.

If not, I think you're a bit screwed. :( 'course, Bruno might prove me wrong, if we're lucky. :)

margarett

Unfortunately I won't :(

I know WinHTTrack. It's nice for you to keep a local copy of something. But it won't do you no good in getting it in a nice format for any database-driven operation.

The way I see it, you have 2 chances:
1 - If there is any admin still around and, assuming he can install a MOD-like package (it's been too long since I touched phpBB so I don't remember anymore how exactly that works), it's possible to upload a hack package that, bottom line, allows you to export your database.
2 - You use a crawler converter. Never used it myself... http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=188741.0

Do note one thing: it might be really wrong (ethically, and maybe legally) to get someone else's forum content and get it into your own forum. I understand your best intentions but be careful ;)
Se forem conduzir, não bebam. Se forem beber... CHAMEM-ME!!!! :D

QuoteOver 90% of all computer problems can be traced back to the interface between the keyboard and the chair

khigh

The crawler converter is a step ahead of where I was before. That's good to know. Thanks!

As far as the ethical dilemma - If the person ever comes back, they can complain. Knock yourself out.


JBlaze

Quote from: margarett on October 28, 2014, 09:09:06 PM
Unfortunately I won't :(

I know WinHTTrack. It's nice for you to keep a local copy of something. But it won't do you no good in getting it in a nice format for any database-driven operation.

The way I see it, you have 2 chances:
1 - If there is any admin still around and, assuming he can install a MOD-like package (it's been too long since I touched phpBB so I don't remember anymore how exactly that works), it's possible to upload a hack package that, bottom line, allows you to export your database.
2 - You use a crawler converter. Never used it myself... http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=188741.0

Do note one thing: it might be really wrong (ethically, and maybe legally) to get someone else's forum content and get it into your own forum. I understand your best intentions but be careful ;)

If it's phpBB 3.0 or lower, then all mods are installed manually, so without FTP access at the least, there's no way to do that. phpBB 3.1 was just released today, and even that doesn't really include a package manager that I've seen yet.

The best way would be to scrape all the HTML from every post, and somehow convert it into either an SQL, XML, or CSV file, then import using phpMyAdmin. Of course, that would take some serious effort and coding knowledge.

Ethically, it's a grey area. Since the OP claims that the admin/owner has either abandoned or is no longer able to maintain the website, it could be considered up for grabs. However, it can still be considered the legal property of the server/site owner.
Jason Clemons
Former Team Member 2009 - 2012

Gwenwyfar

I would say trying a crawler converter is your best bet. I think there should be one for phpbb for free around, or other forums based off phpbb (in which case it would probably not be too hard to adjust it for your forum, just need to look around for the bits of html the converter looks for and change it accordingly).

Edit: Oh, yes, there's some for phpbb on that link margarett gave you :)

Another option if the forum is important is that there are people that sell services of converting forums (with crawlers), but I'm not sure if there is anyone with one for phpbb out there so you'd have to look for it.

Or if the forum is not too big and you really want to convert it and none of the above works, you can always use your extraction of the pages with httrack to strip the html and add things more manually if you don't know any coding.

As for the "legality" part: As long as the members agree with the change I don't see a problem, you're still doing the right thing. I almost got caught in a similar situation myself, but the admins came back and agreed with the change.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

khigh

This is kind of an old thread, but it turned up in my unreads so I thought I'd give an update.

The disinterested owner is turning over the forums to the users minus the name and hosting. Supposedly "his tech guys will get in touch with our tech guys (me)", so I'm hoping for a full and proper transfer of the site.

Not sure what to expect sizewize

"Total posts 54070 • Total topics 6505 • Total members 1658"

Pictures are linked and not hosted. Anyone want to guess at a size range?

I should start researching the proper transfer tools and methods.


margarett

The compressed database should be small, under 10Mb (depending on some unnecessary tables like logs)
If you don't have attachments, then the files structure should not be bigger than 3Mb. If you do, well, it depends on the attachments :P
Se forem conduzir, não bebam. Se forem beber... CHAMEM-ME!!!! :D

QuoteOver 90% of all computer problems can be traced back to the interface between the keyboard and the chair

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