POLL - Talkchess | CCC should move to a new server

This is what I just posted at Talkchess.

Ed wrote:

We are 2 days further, problem still remains, can't access the forum without VPN. Third time in a year this happens to me. When things become normal, what is Quentin Turner (the owner) saying? And what's the guarantee for the future?

Why should we not move to https://www.forumotion.com/

The setup is a piece of cake, polls are available, youtube support, likes support.

The pain is of course the Talkchess database but the people who still can access the forum still can search it.

I say, let's move and take things into our own hands, no more member blocking.

IMO CCC cannot afford downtime: I think there's a serious risk of it going into an irreversible rapid decline.

Exactly.

An international forum that is not accessible by the internation community is no forum at all.

We founded CCC to have a place for any chess programmer and fan in the world.

By blocking people this whole idea is a farce now, not to say that an admin beeing a moderator and beeing capable to manipulate everything is a wrong path.

I am also no interesting in seeing people beeing moderator who host other forums.

Arent they capable to stay where they deserve. Why do they need the next forum ?!

Power corrupts people. Infinite power corrupts infinitely.

Mclane wrote:

I am also no interesting in seeing people beeing moderator who host other forums.

Arent they capable to stay where they deserve. Why do they need the next forum ?!

Power corrupts people. Infinite power corrupts infinitely.

I guess you will not be voting for me or Ed then?

Ed was forced to be here.
You can moderate the dying hiarcs forum.

Mclane wrote:

Ed was forced to be here.
You can moderate the dying hiarcs forum.

lol I thought you would find a reason.

harvey williamson wrote:

Mclane wrote:

I am also no interesting in seeing people beeing moderator who host other forums.

Arent they capable to stay where they deserve. Why do they need the next forum ?!

Power corrupts people. Infinite power corrupts infinitely.

I guess you will not be voting for me or Ed then?

Harvey, it's not the time of making sneers, I estimate 50% (and maybe more) can't access the forum with no solution in sight. You and HGM are responsible for the health of the forum and the forum is dying. You should act!

harvey williamson wrote:

Mclane wrote:

Ed was forced to be here.
You can moderate the dying hiarcs forum.

lol I thought you would find a reason.

If some dedicated chess computer freaks would not from time to time post some data, the hiarcs forum under your control would mainly have viagra and sleeping pills content.

Computerchess dies because of the zillions of Stockfish clones .
No shredder. No hiarcs. No mchess.
All gone and replaced by copy and paste stockfish clones.

It's gone again: opening http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewforum.php?f=2 (or any of the posts in the forum) yields:

"Forbidden: You don't have permission to access /forum3/viewforum.php on this server"

I am guessing that the underlying problem is that there are now too few people who are both willing and able to maintain the server hardware and the BB software.

Ed has solved that problem here by using the Forumotion platform.

Another possible issue: obviously just a guess, but maybe upgrades, and other changes, to the server (which is also used to sell goods for the shop) has unexpected side effects on the CCC forum?

Another possibility: they've installed a security product on the server which keeps on changing the access rights in the CCC folders.

They should have moved like half a year ago. My trust in Talkchess "community" is beyond repair. I don't want to participate in a group that accepts geoblocking, effectively hiding forum for potential new users and practically destroying once-great site of Chessprogramming Wiki (which heavily relies on Talkchess links). As of now, the best thing Talkchess could do is creating a read-only copy, storing it somewhere accessible, and then dying off.

HGM says there are hackers/ criminals attacking the CCC Forum.
How realistic is this ?! What do these hackers want ? Play a good chess game ?! Steal secrets how to program out of open source engines ?!
I get the feeling this is a joke.

Mclane wrote:

HGM says there are hackers/ criminals attacking the CCC Forum.
How realistic is this ?!

Can be true, and I tend to trust the threat is actual. Many reasons for hackers to attack a forum, from the simple pride for "performance achievement" to introducing malicious code that will later enable something they want.
But the countermeasure seems really poor; blocking large ranges of IPs, I guess hackers can easily get round it.
The only context I can think of, for blocking large ranges of IPs, is if hackers would have launched a DDoS attack (distributed denyal of service). But I do agree with you: why would they do that? DDoS attacks might be "worth the effort" to threat governments, large profitable companies,...

it was a sort of goto social media site that I'ld check in at and read bits of, keep generally "uptodate" and so on, but it keeps giving me access denied messages, so now I don't bother, or if I do, I just geet another "access denied" message. Can't say I'm missing it. No longer on my goto list. Apparently I'm a moderator candidate from some weeks ago. No idea how that, or elections are going to work now.
If you guys want, then I guess another site ought to be possible. Talkchess doesn't own the name "Computer Chess Club", if anyone owns it, it's what's left of the Founders Group, me, Ed, Thorsten and Hyatt if he's still around. I'll back Ed with what he wants to do, and if he wants, we can legitimise use of the name on some other site.