connecting to oooforum.org

users
#1

Is anyone else having trouble connecting to oooforum.org or is just me?

Been doing a lot of googling trying to figure out how to write some python macros in LO calc and many links lead to posts on oooforum.org. Lately everytime I try one it times out.

Regards, Jim

#2

Jim,

I don't really use that forum but if you can send the link I will give it a go

Cheers

#3

Hi Jim,

I didn't realise this had cropped up before - pretty sad as I logged the first message! I have attached a link to when this was discussed back in February

http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/oooforum-org-td4039871.html#a4040074

BTW, link not working for me at present either

Cheers

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
It's just you.  Actually i doubt that but someone 'had' to say it.  Do you use this link
http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/
and then search once you are in there or are you doing a straight google search to get into there?  I got there quite quickly from my little link there.

Since Apache took them over they have been very much more robust so hopefully it's just a temporary glitch. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
I think it might perform better if you go to the link i gave and do your search from inside their forums.  That way you might dodge any links with domains that might have changed.  Outside of their forums search engines may still be giving old links. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

Tom,

Undoubtedly you post with the best of intentions, but please stop
jumping in with confusing misinformation.

There are two entirely separate forums:

1. http://www.oooforum.org The independent "unofficial" one Jim was
referring to. For reasons nobody has been able to explain, their server
is at best unreliable and frequently times out.

2. http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/ The "official" one Apache
inherited from OpenOffice.org which you are referencing.

Dave

Tom Davies wrote:

#7

Hello

This is just to reply to Jim's initial problem with the oooforum website.

Jim I am getting likewise no response to the web page, so similiar to other respondents, it seems to be down, or as indicated unstable. This could be currently an unmaintained server, or one with a low priority of whoever is supposed to maintain it, or the hosting co. is not offering a good level of maintenance, but all supposition. It trace routes fine reachable, but the actual html or whatever being used for the web page/s seems to be the problem.

Regards

Andrew Brown

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
If it is a completely independant forum and one that is owned by the community could we just copy it and host on TDF or LO servers?  Alternatively might they be in a better position to ask Apache to host it or donate a better server to them?  or could TDF donate a better server to them?  There are neutral 3rd parties such as "Friends of OpenDocument", ODFAuthors, OASIS.

I can't believe they and everyone else considers the pages hold are so worthless that they still haven't been able to gather support.

Do they use "Creative Commons" or other copy-left licenses or would they be annoyed if we just copied the whole lot onto somewhere safer?

Regards from

Tom :slight_smile:

#9

Hi Jim,

I didn't realise this had cropped up before - pretty sad as I logged
the first message! I have attached a link to when this was discussed
back in February

http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/oooforum-org-td4039871.html#a4040074

BTW, link not working for me at present either

Cheers

Hi Tim,

Thanks for trying and thanks for the link. Reading through that link I see possible spammers as the problem. I do recall one time I got a message that there were too many connection. It would be a shame if all the info became unavailable.

Regards, Jim

#10

Hello

This is just to reply to Jim's initial problem with the oooforum
website.

Jim I am getting likewise no response to the web page, so similiar to
other respondents, it seems to be down, or as indicated unstable.
This could be currently an unmaintained server, or one with a low
priority of whoever is supposed to maintain it, or the hosting co. is
not offering a good level of maintenance, but all supposition. It
trace routes fine from my country in an average of 300 to 400
milliseconds, so it is reachable, but the actual html or whatever
being used for the web page/s seems to be the problem.

Regards

Andrew Brown

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for checking. By now you have probably seen Tim's post where he gave me a link detailing how this same problem came up earlier. I sometimes run into problems because I normally refuse cookies. If a site doesn't work I can usually fix it by accepting cookies, this time that did not work, so I sought some help.

Regards, Jim

#11

Hi :) 
I guess that is 1 good argument for keeping posts on-list.  I really thought they were both the same thing.  I thought pretty much all the community stuff had been forced to escape from Oracle and ended up here or as genuinely 3rd party stand-alone projects.

Thanks for correcting me there! :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#12

oooforum was setup and is controlled by a single very busy person with no help from anyone else in any way. So, it uses resources available to this person and is maintained by this person. The other forum is maintained by a group of volunteers so there are more people to fix it.

#13

I may be missing something, so, if my answer is non-nonsensical; sorry..

If you are suggesting that "oooforum" can be hosted by a neutral 3rd party, I don't expect that to happen. The site owner is unwilling to give up control. I assume you could call it a sentimental attachment. He is also unable to provide sufficient rights to others to help maintain it because it is hosted in an area where outside administrative rights cannot be granted.

I shot an email to the site owner and asked if he was aware that it is currently down and has been for a while. He is on California time, so no idea if he is even awake at this moment.

#14

Hi :slight_smile:
Sounds like someone we should be supporting if it's at all possible.  is there anything we can do?  Could Friends of OpenDocument Format be approached to see if they could help? 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#15

Hi :) 
Ok, so if it is hosted on a single server then maybe we could ask "Friends of .." or some similar organisations to contribute towards the costs of a new server?  or pay to get it hosted through a dedicated hosting service that hosts a lot of sites rather than however it is being done right now? 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#16

Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:

1. http://www.oooforum.org The independent "unofficial" one Jim was
referring to. For reasons nobody has been able to explain, their server
is at best unreliable and frequently times out.

oooforum was setup and is controlled by a single very busy person with
no help from anyone else in any way. So, it uses resources available to
this person and is maintained by this person. The other forum is
maintained by a group of volunteers so there are more people to fix it.

Yes Andrew, I am fully aware of the history behind oooforum.org and the
number of times in 10+ years the owner has refused outside help. You & I
both remember in the early days of OOo it was proposed to merge the two
forums and Ed would not even join in the discussion. He may well be a
very busy person and as you observe in another post "you could call it a
sentimental attachment", but over the years users have contributed a
vast amount of useful material, which is all too frequently locked away
from other users because of his personal workload and/or sentimentality.

My original reply was not intended as a criticism, it was just note to
indicate that one of the two longest established forums was not always
accessible.

#17

I did not take it as a criticism.... I just assumed you were not aware.

I would prefer if an external host were found so that others could help with the administration. I expect that it is just a question of how to do it so that the current owner would not lose their personal attachment to it and thus be willing to do it. My guess is that he does not visit it often because he was not aware that it was down. He told me that /var had run out of space. When I just checked, I could connect, but could get nothing to display.

I am not aware of any way to scrape the content, perhaps someone more talented than I would know how to do that.

#18

Unfortunately, under some jurisdictions, creating backup copy of remote server
might be considered an attack attempt and even penalized.

Anyone willing to take a risk might want to get himself familiar with httrack
(http://www.httrack.com/).

Since legal status of all material posted there might be questionable, one
should consider all options before making any copies publicly available.

Personally I think that entire copyright law is just obstacle here and public
read-only copy of site in question would not hurt anyone. But then, I have
better things to do than proving my point before court.

#19

so this looks to me like people have contributed to a site which took
their knowledge but later did (or does) not present it back to the
public in a satisfactory way.

Two thoughts:

1 - Does the owner sufficently understand the public need for high
availability of the forum's content?

2 - How is the forum's content licenced?

Nino

#20

Nino Novak wrote:

Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:

1. http://www.oooforum.org The independent "unofficial" one Jim was
referring to. For reasons nobody has been able to explain, their server
is at best unreliable and frequently times out.

oooforum was setup and is controlled by a single very busy person with
no help from anyone else in any way. So, it uses resources available to
this person and is maintained by this person. The other forum is
maintained by a group of volunteers so there are more people to fix it.

so this looks to me like people have contributed to a site which took
their knowledge but later did (or does) not present it back to the
public in a satisfactory way.

Based on my years of experience as a user of the site, I seriously doubt
that this was/is the owner's intention.

Two thoughts:

1 - Does the owner sufficently understand the public need for high
availability of the forum's content?

I am convinced that he does. The problem appears to be twofold:
  1. His personal workload prevents him from giving sufficient attention
to server administration and spam elimination.
  2. His reluctance to accept much (if any) outside assistance.

2 - How is the forum's content licenced?

I have never found any notice on the site to indicate what the content
licence is. IANAL, but the absence of such I notice and no mention of
content licensing in the "Registration Agreement Terms", would lead me
to believe the content is public domain, just like this email.

Nino

The good news is that the site is currently accessible, albeit with the
usual amount of spam adorning the main page.

Dave