[traveler]

Katherine,
We can all see how important VW was to a lot of folks, with all the comments and threads that have been started. A lot of speculation is going on within the threads too.

I think most of us are rooting for VW to get back up as it was.

And it may take more time than your original estimate of 4 to 7 days (or something like that). If it takes longer, there will be even more controversy.

My suggestion, is for you to have a topic in the announcement section titled "Status Report". Ultimately, that is what we're all waiting for, the return of VW. Putting timely information in one spot I think is important. And if it were me, for that particular thread, I would make it a read only versus allowing even more comments in that section. If people want to comment on the status, they can easily do it on another thread.

If you do put up a Status thread, please be a little more specific than just saying "we're working hard to get things back up". We know you all are and appreciate that. If I were in this situation and I had to report to my boss each day on status, there would be some key information that I would have to report. I would like us to see some of that, put some meat into the status report for us. Give us a timeframe based on the latest information.

Also to start this thread, you might include some information we don't have. Many of us have some technical background and can understand some of the issues you are dealing with.

For example, did you own your own servers, or did you have a hosting service. Did you have a physical location for the servers. I assume they were unix based and you used something like appache for hosting. Igor certainly had access to all this either remotely or physically. If he changed root password access, he could shut everyone else out, and if you had backup servers, the same thing could have been done.

If so, that explains why you had to put up a new server and just the basic VW log with the current message on the new page. Also the same reason why you need a quick way to have some sort of BB. Funny how some see this as the same as the one on the other site and that its suspicious. They don't understand that this is a free public domain BB app that was easily to get up on a new server.

One of the questions I have is how will VW come back up. Please be open and honest with us.

On Saturday, when this all happened, the content was still there, but no new contribs, and one by one, the forums were frozen so no new entries. Based on that, it looked like Igor didn't destroy all the current content. But my question to you is, did he block you out so you can't access the content and will not be able to put up all the content as it existed before Saturday? Will you have to start over. This I think is important to many of us. These are the kinds of things you could put in a status report as well as periodic updates as to progress. I'm hoping that when it comes back up, it will be as it was before this happened, with the content in tack. Thanks for considering this request.

[Suntann]

I support this at least in takes away the rumors that circle and allows one central place to get up dates.

[mbckic]

Great Idea hope they listen.

[Stacy69]

Great ideas!

[overload69]

She sure jumped on me when I asked if VW had the source coding....she said they did and I was crazy for thinking they wouldn't...all I did was ask.

Hit a bit of a raw nerve there, didn't cha? While we're on the topic of Katherine, has anyone actually talked to this person? Do we have any way of knowing she's actually a woman, since she could "get fired for even bringing up the subject of showing her tits?" She's threatening to cancel memberships of VW members for "sowing dissension," but she allows Igor to continue to post stuff? What's going on here? Still haven't gotten a reply to my email to the address listed on the splash page.

[VWPublicRelations]

Katherine,
We can all see how important VW was to a lot of folks, with all the comments and threads that have been started. A lot of speculation is going on within the threads too.

I think most of us are rooting for VW to get back up as it was.

And it may take more time than your original estimate of 4 to 7 days (or something like that). If it takes longer, there will be even more controversy.

My suggestion, is for you to have a topic in the announcement section titled "Status Report". Ultimately, that is what we're all waiting for, the return of VW. Putting timely information in one spot I think is important. And if it were me, for that particular thread, I would make it a read only versus allowing even more comments in that section. If people want to comment on the status, they can easily do it on another thread.

If you do put up a Status thread, please be a little more specific than just saying "we're working hard to get things back up". We know you all are and appreciate that. If I were in this situation and I had to report to my boss each day on status, there would be some key information that I would have to report. I would like us to see some of that, put some meat into the status report for us. Give us a timeframe based on the latest information.

Also to start this thread, you might include some information we don't have. Many of us have some technical background and can understand some of the issues you are dealing with.

For example, did you own your own servers, or did you have a hosting service. Did you have a physical location for the servers. I assume they were unix based and you used something like appache for hosting. Igor certainly had access to all this either remotely or physically. If he changed root password access, he could shut everyone else out, and if you had backup servers, the same thing could have been done.

If so, that explains why you had to put up a new server and just the basic VW log with the current message on the new page. Also the same reason why you need a quick way to have some sort of BB. Funny how some see this as the same as the one on the other site and that its suspicious. They don't understand that this is a free public domain BB app that was easily to get up on a new server.

One of the questions I have is how will VW come back up. Please be open and honest with us.

On Saturday, when this all happened, the content was still there, but no new contribs, and one by one, the forums were frozen so no new entries. Based on that, it looked like Igor didn't destroy all the current content. But my question to you is, did he block you out so you can't access the content and will not be able to put up all the content as it existed before Saturday? Will you have to start over. This I think is important to many of us. These are the kinds of things you could put in a status report as well as periodic updates as to progress. I'm hoping that when it comes back up, it will be as it was before this happened, with the content in tack. Thanks for considering this request.

I like the suggestion of Status Update that is on the front page that addresses the latest. I have been more or less trying to give this Status Update thru BB or individual emails.
Just to clarify things again, content is not destroyed. WE have physical possession of servers. Are you computer programmer/IT???

[traveler]

Katherine, Thanks for responding to my suggestion. I know you must be very busy and my suggestion was aimed so you could post status and updates in one place. As we can all see, there are so many thread going, its hard to filter out the really important information, thus the suggestion to put it in one thread and make it read only for others, so we don't have to read through a bunch of comments to find what the latest information is.

I think it was important for some of us to know that you have access to the content and you have your own servers. It hopefully will result in VW coming back up with the content that was there on Saturday, minus of course the incident stuff. Then we can all pick up where we left off and folks that had entires posted will continue to have them up and scored.

It's so sad how so much mis-information can go around. One comment stated that if Igor stole the usernames and passwords, then how could you contact us or restore our access. Again, stole doesn't mean "erase", just copied, so I think your statement that you have access to all your original content means you also have access to all the usernames and passwords.

The best thinkg that can happen is to quickly get things back up which should put an end to all the speculation.

As for my experience, I use to work in the computer industry, but I'm an old fart now and have no current skills, except to look at VW. But my last bit of work experience was with unix systems and I did set up and maintain a company internal Apache website as well as market those systems.

[Suntann]

Katherine, Thanks for responding to my suggestion. I know you must be very busy and my suggestion was aimed so you could post status and updates in one place. As we can all see, there are so many thread going, its hard to filter out the really important information, thus the suggestion to put it in one thread and make it read only for others, so we don't have to read through a bunch of comments to find what the latest information is.

I think it was important for some of us to know that you have access to the content and you have your own servers. It hopefully will result in VW coming back up with the content that was there on Saturday, minus of course the incident stuff. Then we can all pick up where we left off and folks that had entires posted will continue to have them up and scored.

It's so sad how so much mis-information can go around. One comment stated that if Igor stole the usernames and passwords, then how could you contact us or restore our access. Again, stole doesn't mean "erase", just copied, so I think your statement that you have access to all your original content means you also have access to all the usernames and passwords.

The best thinkg that can happen is to quickly get things back up which should put an end to all the speculation.

As for my experience, I use to work in the computer industry, but I'm an old fart now and have no current skills, except to look at VW. But my last bit of work experience was with unix systems and I did set up and maintain a company internal Apache website as well as market those systems.

This speaks volumes to me. I hope that the Admins are listening.

[pilotguy]

It's so sad how so much mis-information can go around. One comment stated that if Igor stole the usernames and passwords, then how could you contact us or restore our access. Again, stole doesn't mean "erase", just copied, so I think your statement that you have access to all your original content means you also have access to all the usernames and passwords.

In fact, the usernames are retained in a php database with phpbb accessing that database for authentication. Passwords are encrypted and can only be reset to some default or randomly generated password by the phpbb application and php database, or changed by the individual users.

As the admin for my own phpbb web forum, I can see the encrypted password, but have no idea what the actual password is. If I had a contributor causing problems I'd ban that user and probably ban the IP address from which that user posts. If I had an employee problem, I would remove that employee from the authorized users of the website management interface.

It is possible, however, to "empty" the database after one has copied it or downloaded it. It is possible to just empty out the passwords or user names or both. It would be like a neutron bomb - leave the site, just kill all the people.

As far as retaining content, we make regular backups of the web site and database. It seems to me that the delay in getting the site up and running again is that there was no backup of the site that could be restored to the servers?

-Joe