WETA forums problem

[The Josh]

Hot off the press: Unfortunately, Chuck hasn't responded to Pordey's latest attempts to contact him. Pordey, Scriff, Red and myself are looking into options for plan B. Well... Pordey is doing most of the work. He's contacting Magnus tomorrow to ask if we can host the forum on their servers.

I don't know if we're going to be able to move the old forum, but if there's any way to salvage the data, we will look into it. But I think we may need Chuck for that as well...



(On a plus side, a new forum would also mean that we could admit Josh again )

I would be pleased about being back for sure. If there's anything I can do let me know.

 

[Aerosteel]

I would be pleased about being back for sure. If there's anything I can do let me know.

Forgive me for my curiosity, but what happened? Were you banned?

 

[KingKong]

If donation is needed to setup a new S&F forum, let us know.

 

[The Josh]

Forgive me for my curiosity, but what happened? Were you banned?

Long story.

 

[Aerosteel]

Long story.

I'm always interested in stories!

 

[The Josh]

It's all water under the bridge now. So it's best to just forget it and move on. Hope ya understand.

 

[Radagast]

Thanks to the S&F moderators and other forum members who are working on this. I plugged the URL for the Shadow and Flame into the Wayback Machine (an internet tool that shows archived pages) and was able to get an image of the forum. It says there are 10,000 pages archived but I have not been able to see anything other than the pages with forum topics. When I click on a topic to see the actual posts I am not able to see anything useful. Maybe someone with some web knowledge can retrieve some posts? Any chance Shi?

 

[Aerosteel]

It's all water under the bridge now. So it's best to just forget it and move on. Hope ya understand.

Absolutely, no worries. I didn't mean anything by asking, just curious.

 

[theguru1]

Does anybody know if there are ways to at least recover the database without Chuck's involvement?

It would be stored on the server, under his account and hence user name and password. So basically, need Chuck to get access if nothing else.

I take it no one has heard a thing from him in weeks.... hope he's OK.

 

[Olórin]

I believe Pordey did get a reply a few ago, but nothing since.

 

[stig.oien]

Sorry I haven't visited this thread before. Will read through it all and answer the questions I am able to answer. Cheers, Pordey/Stig

 

[bill59]

Good on you Stig...good luck!

 

[The Josh]

Absolutely, no worries. I didn't mean anything by asking, just curious.

No worries. No harm. No foul

 

[Glassary]

Hiya Stig!
Glad to see you once again

 

[FrodoEyes]

Hey, imagine we get a new forum on Weta's servers, if we're quick enough we might see Josh with a post count of 0!!

 

[The Josh]

Hey, imagine we get a new forum on Weta's servers, if we're quick enough we might see Josh with a post count of 0!!

I'm like the Elves I think my fast posting days are sailing into the west.

 

[Arinion]

Glad to see some familiar names here, I've really missed the S&F in the time it's been down. I check a couple times each day but am always disappointed. Really hope it eventually comes back up or at worse we just get a new forum and most of the members find it.

Just wanted to let some of my forum brothers in on something I discovered. I apologize if it's already known but I hadn't seen any talk of it before. As some of you know BUDK seized discounts on their Lotr/Hobbit items. However what some of you may not know is that the only items that are restricted are the ones under the actual Lotr/Hobbit sections. Lotr/Hobbit items that aren't listed in their respective sections still get discounts applied to them. The ones I found that were in stock but not listed in their sections were:

Sword of Boromir (I ordered this one the other day, $160 shipped!)
Anduril Scabbard
Gondorian Infantry Helmet
Helmet of Elendil
Helmet of Isildur

You just have to do a search for them and you should be able complete a transaction with an applied discount. Right now they have a 30% off sale going on so if you have been wanting one of those items now is a good time. Especially if this is just an error that they might fix later.

 

[pordey2]

Uh, I'm going to stay out of this - but actually this forum was the original home of the Wetaholics - somebody posted the tshirt a little while ago.

And as Dave mentioned, the owner and many of the original/senior members of S&F were originally Freaks. Back in the day, SS and Weta were putting things out together and this forum was much more Tolkien-centric. Once their partnership ended in 2005, SS started diversifying their franchises in earnest .....Star Wars was the most memorable to enter the Sideshow barn. As more non-Tolkien loving members showed up, the tenor of the site shifted and those of us still interested in LOTR/Hobbit/etc. decided to join a forum where Tolkien was still pretty dominate in our discussions and prone to being a bit more laid back in our interactions. Many of us maintained (and still do) dual citizenships.

As Dave and Rumi said, many of us joined the Freaks while SSW lines was the hottest thing out there. I have many fond memories from the old EZ board

I hope Weta is doing something to get the S&F Forum fixed asap. There's no denying that a lot of fans go there and usually make their decision on buying collectables from Weta. It's a good advertising site for Weta. And I think S&F gets something back as well from Weta if purchase was done from the affiliate link. I miss it terribly. There's a lot of good threads and good friends there!

Yes, S&F is not owned by Weta but as KingKong said they opened an official forum thread on the fan forum S&F when they closed down their own forum. Weta have referred to it now and then in newsletters, on Facebook and on conventions, that's why I'm a little surprised that it's been down for so long.

An old post on their official website about the move of forum.

As others have said, Weta does not run the Shadow and Flame and there is very little they can/could do when the now infamous server update happened. The biggest fault here may be that there was only one person who had access to maintain the forum and server. And that person being incredibly hard to get hold of makes it even harder.

Being without a forum one has been a part of for almost 10 years is hard, especially when it's not by choice and the way it happened.

 

[Wetanut]

"Being without a forum one has been part of for almost 10 years is hard..."

Amen to that Pordey! Dave has been extremely understanding regarding all our Weta references and posts (especially on a Sideshow-centric board), but I am mourning the loss of so much information that was on the S&F.

 

[BigBunny]

Don't get me wrong - Eti has done a great job to fill a void, but Facebook does have its limitations.

Scriff

I don't get you wrong Scriff, I want S&F back too