Re-import, and data in edits

As of now, there is the ability to re-import data from SMF in a limited manner, this time running the SMF data through a better input converter. This should fix many of the issues in old posts with corruption due to failed import. However, it will necessarily result in the loss of any edits made to the re-imported posts since the move to XF.

It is possible to do this by small parts, choosing which posts to overwrite and which to leave. However, it's not easily possible to tell which posts have valuable edit data which should be retained, and which can be overwritten with their SMF versions. Moreover, once a post has been re-imported, to revert it will require a restoration from backup, which is an onerous procedure.

Thus, asking the userbase: how many of you have made significant edits to old posts since moving to XF? If edits were made only in order to fix import errors, would re-importing in order to make the posts match their SMF version be acceptable? Would it be a problem if those edits were lost, to be replaced with the properly-converted contents of the SMF database?

In order to resolve the archive issues, it's very likely such a re-import will take place. However, doing this it's possible to exclude posts at almost arbitrary granularity. Anyone desiring such should particularly note it here.

 

I kind of want to have it reimported. With the tags fixed/edited....

Sure we'll need to edit the index or save a copy of the index of various quests stories and such...

But it's for the greater good.

Also please do a system wide notification before you do this?

 

To clarify, the only way this will result in substantial data loss is if significant new content has been added to an old post via edit, that was not in the SMF forum. If a post was edited only to fix import issues, ideally, the re-import should result in an equivalent fixed post. (Also, if you have any posts which you do wish to be excluded, just note them here. I'm quite capable of leaving be individual posts.)

The re-import itself will require several hours' downtime, and won't be happening for at least a week or so, while I get done with finals. There will definitely be a site-wide notice before it goes down, and a backup will be taken, so any unintentional losses can be restored.

Edit: Also, as a bonus, the re-import automatically amends post links. Any links which pointed to SMF posts in SMF will afterward properly point to XF posts here. Thus, unless something strange is going on quest and story indexes should come out right without needing any modification.

 

Hrm, if you do do this, I'd ask you to leave my posts in my quest, Birth of a Succubus, alone, because I've already gone and fixed up the important posts in it and it would be a hassle to re-fix the front pages and such. Other than that, have at it.

 

Unfortunately, the edited-since data has been contaminated; some of my stopgap fixes, such as removing the   HTML entities which got scattered around posts, touched the edit field, and there have been other edits which were solely intended to fix corruption issues, and thus shouldn't necessarily block re-import. Using opt-in would miss the point: the reason for this is to fix the archives, all of them, including those by authors who are currently out of touch. My theory is that anyone who's actively editing old posts will be on the site enough to see the notice during the week or so I'll have it up, and come here to tell me.

I could also set a cutoff point, e.g. December 5th (about a week after the transition, and after most of the fuss, including my mass search-and-replaces, had died down), and exclude any posts edited after that. Would that be preferable?

 

Well... No need to touch my posts for me.

 

I came after the move, so I have no opinion. It oughtn't affect anything I've done, because of that, yes?

 

I can't think of a circumstance under which this would be necessary. If I run it cutoff-style, then any posts of yours older than the migration that were not edited should come through in substantially identical form (barring corruption), and any that were edited would be ignored by default. (The only potential issue being with posts that were edited only in the week or so after migration but then not since, but it's my impression that most of the posts at issue are updated regularly with character stats and so on, and so would have edit dates more recent than that. Are these what you're referring to?)

Both correct. Content that was originally posted to XF will not be touched in any event.

 

I have not done many edits to my posts. And the changes done are saved in word-files so there's no problem you change them.

Haven't really looked at my post though and don't know if it's needed.

 

I've decided to use the date-cutoff method of excluding posts, probably with a value around December 5th. Therefore, any post which was last edited after that date will be preserved automatically. If you've already edited a target post after that date, you're fine; if you haven't, you can just make a trivial edit now in order to push the date to the right place.

There are a few technical issues I need to resolve before doing the re-import, and though finals are now done I instead am in the midst of the much more pleasant but not significantly less time-eating pursuit of family Christmas celebrations. Thus, these have to be done in my spare time. Re-import may happen sometime in the few days before or after Christmas; in whatever case, there will be at least several days' warning with a sitewide notice before downtime happens.