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Pillar of the Community
United States
2852 Posts |
I found an alarming message on wikispaces this morning while I was vamming.  Did I just miss this? Has this been discussed? If so what will happen to Vamworld?  I'm hoping either someone tells me this is a joke or that Vamworld has plans to move it's content if wikispaces is truly going away. Any info is appreciated.... ANA Member 3171274 Vamming? What's that?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8659 Posts |
It's news as of this morning and not a joke. This message by Messydesk from the VAMworld message board "Stay tuned for a VAMWORLD migration strategy." Should prove to be interesting at the very least. 
Member SSDC
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Pillar of the Community

United States
1377 Posts |
Looking at Wikispace's blog, the entire service is shutting down for technical reasons -- too expensive to maintain/upgrade. Everyone has a few months to get their content migrated to another service (and Wikispaces will help) but it's up to the users to figure out what to do with their space and make the transition, if they're going to at all.
Working on: Peace dollars (two to go), US type (early Bust era), Indian quarter eagles, Chinese pandas, and San Francisco tokens. "Fear is the enemy of will. Will is what makes you take action; fear is what stops you, and makes you weak." -- Sinestro to ( my avatar) Hal Jordan, "Green Lantern" (2011)
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2852 Posts |
I hope Vamworld gets transferred somewhere without any issues. I love Sotheby's site and live there a lot...
ANA Member 3171274 Vamming? What's that?
Edited by srs77 02/12/2018 2:26 pm
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Forum Dad

United States
19721 Posts |
The software that runs Wikipedia is open source and can be downloaded freely. It's pretty easy to set up, I've done it. However migration can be tricky and who knows if wikispaces will make their DB available. There have been similar situations, usually free forum sites though, that hold your DB for ransom when they shut down.
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Pillar of the Community

United States
3142 Posts |
As you know Bobby, it's not the software, it's the scale. Any fool can hand code a web page... coding 100s or 1000s of web pages and serving them to 1000s or more simultaneous users that is difficult. An analogy: If I want to go to the coin show this Saturday, I hop in the car and drive. If a couple of us want to go, we meet in the side lot of Walmart, you park your cars and hop in mine and I drive to the show. Not THAT much more complex for 3 or 4 vs. 1. If I want to take the whole club to the ANA show in Irving, now we need a bus. Place to meet and park more than 2 or 3 cars. Maybe hotel rooms and food. How often does the bus stop for bathroom breaks. As you scale up, the logistics get much more complex... beyond linear.
-----Burton 45 year / Life ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Owned by four cats and a wife of 35 years (joined 1983)
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Forum Dad

United States
19721 Posts |
Quote: As you know Bobby, it's not the software, it's the scale. Any fool can hand code a web page... coding 100s or 1000s of web pages and serving them to 1000s or more simultaneous users that is difficult. It absolutely is the software. Wikis are database driven. All of the same type pages are the same code just like here. There is one single page of code for every single solitary topic here (over a 1/4 million).... topic.asp. There is one single page of code for every single member's profile page... pop_profile.asp. If you get the same software for the new site and someone very familiar with migrating databases it can possibly be done in less than an hour. (Depends on the size of the DB) Got nothing to do with scale other than the time you wait while migrating the DB. I know I could move this site somewhere else, with the help of my DB guy in likely less than 2 hours and it would only take that long because the DB is almost 10GB.
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Moderator

United States
23520 Posts |
I'd be surprised if VAMworld is anywhere near the size of CCF. At least now I get my wish to see the place migrated off of the wiki platform.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1772 Posts |
If CCF did take over VamWorld, I for one wouldn't mind paying a subscribers fee here.
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Pillar of the Community

United States
7684 Posts |
I am hoping that they come up with a solution as well. I think the Wikipedia-type system as Bobby is mentioning would be awesome because it allows both real-time editing and a discussion page for each topic. However, both Wikipedia and Wikispaces' discussion/forum systems are terrible. Perhaps the CCF VAM forum could become the official or semi-official VAM forum with the blessing of the SSDC, in exchange for some sort of compensation to Bobby; this would be an improvement and also funnel some traffic to CCF for generating PPI ad revenue & maybe even CCF subs/SSDC memberships. I wonder if John et al. have talked to the ANA about a numismatic grant to help re-establish the website, or perhaps enlisting the aid of donations from SSDC and NSDR members? I'd be more than willing to contribute. Some of the things I had briefly discussed with him & others at ANA in regards to the VW site a couple of years ago might be more feasible on a new platform, e.g. a page on each VAM for user photos of their own examples of that particular VAM and its diagnostics. Perhaps the new website can also integrate with the SSDC Registry website to more of an extent than it currently does, allowing automatic updates of Registry populations instead of requiring tedious manual page-by-page editing. A new website with better usability and a better design might bring increased public exposure, memberships, and more importantly, donations, which could be used to fund more scholarships to the VAM classes, promote VAM Thing, and help publish more VAM-related books.
Member ANA - EAC - TNA - SSDC Specializing in 1932-1964 Washington quarters"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -- Louis D. Brandeis
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Pillar of the Community

United States
9971 Posts |
Quote: If CCF did take over VamWorld, I for one wouldn't mind paying a subscribers fee here. At the risk of flogging a dead horse, I would argue that there is already way more than enough value here on CCF that you shouldn't mind being a site supporter.
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed." -----King Adz
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Forum Dad

United States
19721 Posts |
Quote: If CCF did take over VamWorld, I for one wouldn't mind paying a subscribers fee here. No plans for that, don't even know where that came from. They are absolutely welcome to use our forum though.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1772 Posts |
I can see how my above comment can be taken out of context. To try & explain it a different way. Since becoming a members most of my posts were sharing my errors, researching info so I can provide correct information members are asking about, etc.. The last few years with my serial number plate positions charts, research & census data on Natick Web Overprint Errors. When my brother-in-law died in 2011 & my sister dropped off about 75 Morgan silver dollars she needed to dispose of quickly to raise much needed money, this is when I needed the help from the experts here, and the people here amazed me with their VAM knowledge. This is why I mentioned being willing to pay to keep VamWorld alive, not for me since my brain is wired for currency, but for the experts here who study the thousands of Varieties of Silver Dollars. I will admit that my posts seem a bit confusing expressing my thoughts, and can only attribute it to my last stroke in 2015.
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Pillar of the Community

United States
1522 Posts |
I still prefer to attempt to attribute my Morgans myself before asking for help. I saw where the VW data/info will be available until the end of July 2018.
Is downloading the recommendation? Is that safe for technically difficient users? Does it require significant storage space?
You can see where I'm going with this. I'm just trying to figure out where I can go in the future with the demise of VW. I used their photos to attribute most if not all of my Morgans.
I posted in CCF new additions to my collection and sought attribution confirmation here.
Your thoughts and patience with me are appreciated.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8659 Posts |
The VAMworld 2.0 message board is up and running. There is a link on the old site named "New VAMworld Forums - Message Board" http://ec2-13-58-222-16.us-east-2.c...47d9ae699effThe old message board was locked down this past saturday but still visible. The VAM listing pages are still accessible but I'm not sure if any updates will be done before they are moved to the new site.
Member SSDC
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Moderator

United States
23520 Posts |
I was unable to register - their Captcha scheme is completely unreadable and I exceeded the number of allowed attempts trying to get it right.
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