Review [Special] R.I.P. - RU Forum

[Vikingsrallentando 3,058]

 

The staple of the Russian community, its forum, was lost a few weeks ago. Little has been said about this event, but we're going to get to the bottom of it in this article. The Russian forum is back up now and we'll cover that as well.

 

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What Happened?

 

Before we dive in, I'll let Russian Wiki Administrator, Serene, who was kind enough to respond while the Russian forum was down, explain what happened.

 

@Vikingsrallentando: What caused the RU forum data to be lost? Are any of the other forums at risk if losing their data? What do features of the new IPS Community Suite 4 do you look forward to using?

 

@Serene: Backup restoring while upgrading to new engine was failed and due to some reasons backup was also corrupted. We are still in shock, it was a bad day for us and for developers. Of course, there is no risk for other forums now, everyone learned a lesson.

 

New forum will be TX style, it's just more comfortable to use, e.g. quotation much easier. But new forum is not only new engine, it will bring much more changes I'm not sure I can tell about.

During the week of the 23rd through the 27th of January, maintenance was planned to take place early Wednesday morning for 6 hours with occasional restarts. Instead, it took over 12 hours to get the forums back up. Other sources confirm parts of this story; the backup process that stores a copy of the forum data failed, thus deleting over seven years worth of Russian materials. Since this occurred, the decision was made to update the forum engine to the new IPS version. That is what was said in Vlog #123, though Serene's quote implies the update to the new forum was the process being done when the backup failed. Regardless, this was an unfortunate loss for the Russian community and it's members.

 

As you can still see, at the bottom of our forum is the Russian eSports section that was put in place while the Russian forum was down, so eSports could attempt to still function in the down time. This will likely disappear when everything has been copied over, or when our forum is updated to the new version and at that point can be moved over to the RU side fairly easily. 

 

Is the EN forum at risk of being lost?

 

The answer to this question from staff and developers is a resounding NO, but a real answer would be probably not. There is no doubt that someone learned a lesson from this disaster and no doubt that there will be more caution as other forums are updated. But the line has to be drawn somewhere.

 

Human or technological error was the cause; or perhaps both. Humans are not perfect and make mistakes, we are not the first to point it out. Though the humans (the Developers) entrusted with the information created by its users, who are around technology most of their day, ought to have the necessary experience to prevent such events from occurring.

 

Confidence isn't the right word; optimism, perhaps, that this will not happen again. Those that do not use the forum might not understand the impact it has, but those that are concerned with the English or any other forum are weary, understandably; you shouldn't worry, measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again.

 

Old Version vs. New Version

 

The recent demise or the Russian Tanki Online forums and its resurrection on a new design creates a defined rift between the contemporary Russian and the old English community forums. Several prominent features separate the two.

The newer Russian forums have more text size options, an “Activity” tab that replaces the old “New Content” tab, a staff directory page, and the ability to have players follow each other. It has a sleek, modern look that is brought upon by a bright white theme with grey and green accents. This gives a more hostile yet clean look due to the harsh colors.

On the other hand, the older EN forum has more general posting tools, a full member list containing all forum participants, and a quick navigation mode. The color scheme is black with green and grey accents, which provides a pleasant atmosphere that is comfortable for both day and night usage. The background image is more visible in the English forums compared to the RU forums.

Overall feedback seems to be that most people prefer the aesthetics of the older forum design, but appreciate the new functions of the fresh design used for the Russian forums.

 

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As the Russian forum rebuilds, we await the update to the new, brighter version of the forum. The debate over which forum is better has already begun.

 

Thanks for reading; hope you enjoyed.

Old vs. New written by @Blackdrakon30. Special thanks to @Serene for the response.

[Vikingsrallentando 3,058]

The Players' Opinion

 

I sent about a dozen PM's to Russian forumers who had been the most active in the new forum and asked the following two questions:

1. What is your favorite memory from participating in the old forum?
2. Do you like the functionality of the new forum?

Here are a few of their responses:

 

Changeless:

1.) This, of course, all the information that has to re-balanced. Archival screenshots, stories, interviews with the moderators/administrators who have already left the project.

 

2.) I like the new engine, it is much better than the last. Not everything is perfect, but over time the forum and its functionality will be even better :)

 

RomanTank777:

1.) This is a difficult question because the new forum has all of the same themes and topics that were on the old, and the variety of the forum members has not changed much. However, the forum contains all the stories, it was the face of the game for seven and a half years. It was possible to trace the development of "social classes" and individual players: noobs, competitive players and creative tankers, flooders and trolls, troublemakers, and those who fight them. This is more than a million in order (by the way, I personally have been waiting for the moment to create a theme number 1,000,000 - and did so), more than a million of the flood, discussions, forum games, questions that troubled players, and so on and so forth. And now it is not present. The pillar of  Tanki Online's glorious past, which leaves the rest to many players. Many times I went to the archives, and with sadness, but also with pride rereading these themes, feeling a part of history. And, of course, on the old forum I had many friends and acquaintances, however, almost all of them have left the game and the forum long before the dreadful day of January 25, 2017.

 

2.) Just not happy that the design is copied from Tanki X to Tanki Online. But it does not matter - I'm not accustomed to this yet. Especially since it was created in the shortest possible time, and wait for the functional extensions to be implemented, which I think will take a couple of months. So this issue will leave no single answer.

 

x-XOM9IK-x:

1.) Old forum was quite good and probably better for many players. From my memory was the design, which, unfortunately, will never be on this forum.

 

2.) Regarding functionality of the forum, I'm satisfied. There are many new cool items that were not in the old version. Yes, there are those things that are very unusual, but it's a matter of time.

 

A number of the forumers simply responded along the lines of "it's too early to tell how well the forum will function."

Edited February 8, 2017 by Vikingsrallentando

[Spit_Fyre 334]

So much information, thoughts and effort lost to the void... void seems like an apt feeling now.

[gabriele02 3,813]

Russian forum looks ugly, hate it.

[TTK_229 1,080]

[Guest Maserati]

Russian forum looks ugly, hate it.

Before our version was updated, during the time of 2014, many people loved that one. When they changed it, many disliked but got used to it.

 

x-XOM9IK-x:

2.) Yes, there are those things that are very unusual, but it's a matter of time.

[Heles 9,220]

#rip my PM with Figishe :'c

:c