CRVL Forum down for a few days

[Blacktank]

i dont watch the vids but rumor has it that Bob wants to buy some land,watched a little of blindviews live stream

[Kaylee]

Quick question:
Did CRVL send out a mass mailing that they're back online?
I registered there at the end of March, and haven't received anything.

Kaylee, is a Vandwelling website something anyone would waste those types of resources on?

Excellent point/question!

Up until a half decade ago DDoS-for-hire was expensive.
The price has dropped dramatically, such that one of the most infamous DDoS of all time only cost a "few hundred bucks" (the 2016 attack on Pulitzer Prize winning cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs' site).

As has been discussed here, there's enough folks who are ticked off at BW, that it's not impossible that somebody might have paid a wee worm to attack CRVL.
It merely feels unlikely, and there's no apparent evidence to support the claim.
frater secessus noted seeing DB error messages, which he could only see if the site was running. That alone is unimpeachable counter evidence.

QFT:

When using free forum software on a lesser powered server, backing up a large live forum is non-trivial. I expect they will have lost several hours or even days of postings.

Do admins not schedule that kind of maint anymore?

1. take the forum offline in the deep night
   
2. allow the db to quiesce
   
3. make the backup/dump (and run any other maint you want)
   
4. restart the processes.
   
5. do any compression or off-site movement in the background
   

I've been out of that game for a while so maybe it's done differently now.

I'd be shocked if the ${CLUELESS_HOSTER} didn't clobber more than a week of posts.

You sir, won the best estimate prize!

Excellent step-by-step of how to do a backup!
Small forums are easy & quick to backup. Huge ones, mean noticeable downtime, which means whining by the non-patient, which tempts casual web teams to cut corners.

One simple approach is to program the forum to make incremental backups (e.g. as each post is made, it would first be saved to its own flat file, and if there's a catastrophe, a separate program would recreate the full db from all the tiny individual post files).
I don't know if any popular forum software includes that option.

Kaylee,if you see any issues with this site ,let me know,i really dont have a clue

Gary:
Generally, you're doing great.
As a charter member of the Internet Smiley Liberation Front, I give you bonus points for not having any silly limit on the number that can appear in a single post.

Minor stuff...

Eventually, for email notifications, you should consider using an email address on your domain, rather than GMail. It's not a high priority, just something to keep at the back of your mind. The main reason is "deliverability", which tends to be an issue with less patient types, which seems not to be the demographic here, thankfully.
When that time comes, give me a shout, and I'd be happy to help you with SPF & DMARC DNS records.

Much more critical, keep an eye out for spam bots swarming your forums.
You'll know when it happens. It'll be obvious.
To prepare for that, research how to disable link posting by new users. Some forum s/w has it built in, some require an add on.
That'll discourage most bots, however once they become aware of your forum, they'll continue, like mosquitoes and other insects.

[MN C Van]

it's not impossible that somebody might have paid a wee worm to attack CRVL.
It merely feels unlikely, and there's no apparent evidence to support the claim.

It didn't ring true. No one cares enough about some little site like that to expend any resources, short of posting a nasty.

Simplest explanation is some IT thingy was neglected and, instead of coming clean, he made up an "I'm a victim" story.

He's a warrior suffering abuse. While fighting for us. Sorta thing.

[GotSmart]

IMHO, it just takes one person with a clue, or an administrator without one. 

Not my circus or monkeys.

[Kaylee]

It didn't ring true. No one cares enough about some little site like that to expend any resources, short of posting a nasty.

Simplest explanation is some IT thingy was neglected and, instead of coming clean, he made up an "I'm a victim" story.

He's a warrior suffering abuse. While fighting for us. Sorta thing.

I concur (with both you and GotSmart).
I was just trying to be systematic, and try to identify how they could support their claim, so as not to come across as, um, of "questionable" reliability.
DDoS as a service is a possibility, and can be done for barely two digits. It's become depressingly cheap.
It's also easy to prove, which they haven't.


There were two Bob YT reviews during the downtime, that perfectly demonstrate what you all have been saying. One was terrible, one excellent.

The terrible "review" was of a prepper/scam long-term food "product", where he did a whole lot of hand-waving and didn't do any tasting or comparison to cheaper alternatives.
All those "kits" have similar issues, in my experience/experiments: they're ridiculously expensive, very limited menus (with suspiciously identical overlap), relatively poor taste quality compared to genuine premium competitors (Mountain House), and the vendors lack "history". They're marketing driven.
When I did my own experiments, I ate at least one meal per day for over a month, and compared them to Knorr's and other readily available inexpensive off-the-shelf brands.
Shelf stable foods are one of my push button issues. Prepare to hear more, in cooking.

The useful one was a review of a specific model and general discussion of the advantages of choosing a dual fuel flat cook stove.
Based on his advice, I bought one, though not the one he reviewed.

[ZoNiE]

Wow, have I finally actually started a thread on a site that is the largest?
Should've been a bucket list item, LOL.

[Texjbird]

Quick question:
Did CRVL send out a mass mailing that they're back online?
I registered there at the end of March, and haven't received anything.

   No. I don't think so.  <<<<
Jewellann
Queenie made me do it!

[Blacktank]

Wow, have I finally actually started a thread on a site that is the largest?
Should've been a bucket list item, LOL.

getting there but just honorable mention at the moment https://vandwellerforum.com/stats.php

YARC is top dog on two forums https://www.cheaprvliving.com/forums/stats.php

[American Nomad Patriot]

I have my own opinions on this but I shall shy away of any mention of government context in my replies. Or special interest groups that may be threaten by the growing popularity in areas of land they have interest in for different things on their agenda. But I will not get into that here.
"Back To Camping" comments for me.

#NomadLivesMatter

[Motrukdriver]

There ya go Mr. Patriot.... leave the political rants to the political forums and venues. In here I like ranting about camping stuff like cleaning up your campsite before leaving it and things of that nature. I've learned that the backspace key is a wonderful invention and I use it quite often. I guess that's the keyboard version of biting your tongue.