Cookham Discussions

[Cookham Webmaster]

I am afraid that I have inadvertently deleted the Cookham Discussions. Perhaps it is a good time to start afresh!

[aj]

I do hope there is a restorable backup. These discussions are a small but nonetheless important part of our history. To lose this is to deprive historians of the future a valuable resource. This is why sites like the way back machine strive so hard to preserve internet history. You may think this is a trivial and unimportant thing. It is not. With the decline of permanent written records our digital age is at grave risk of being but an ephemeral footnote in history.

[Birdman]

Hi James - can you start again at page 1 please!! (hope you are well, by the way).

[Cookham Webmaster]

The data for all the discussions is available on the server, as is the data for the classified ads, news and the reviewer. Interestingly enough the British Library chose cookham.com for their archives a while back so there is a copy there for future generations!!

[Paris]

Can the back up be loaded again? It's not much use to anyone looking for info as they won't be able to access the back up if not reloaded in as much entirety as possible.

Or, looking slightly askance at this, and I'm not really doubting that a mistake had occurred, but the local elections are coming up so could the absence of the whole board be political?

[Bathsheba]

I'm pretty sure a school-grade php programmer could restore it. (Although php is not as cool as it was a few years ago, it's all python these days.)

Any kids out there willing to do this?

[windymiller]

Another vote from me to have the old discussions restored if at all possible please. I have frequently searched through old threads for facts/figures/info from way back when.

Or, if the "data for all the discussions is available on the server", please advise how we can access/search that (if that is what is meant).  I would currently like to look again at the "Land for sale at Switchback Road" thread.

[Watchman]

Ditto to everything stated in the post immediately above mine. ^^^

Please restore the old discussions in their entirety.

[James Hatch]

Well I am very disappointed that nearly eleven years of my village history has been erased! As for my health Birdman I am in fine fetal for an 89 year old. So far I have had a remarkable life in my travels around the world. A one on one meeting with Pierre Trudeau one day in the East Block in Ottawa. Another with his royal highness the Prince Charles in Dorchester. First notable meeting at the age of six with Lady Nancy Astor at White Place Farm, after that we had several memorable meetings, the last being at Cliveden in 1954 when Lord Bill Astor married Philippa Hunloke.

My interest in computer technology and video is still very strong, and I was hoping that the Cookham Society of which I am a member would look after my writings. To keep local interest alive here is the story of my Great Grandmother Merina Hatch. Which I have had to smile over the name Merina that use appear in the Last of the Summer Wine.

https://youtu.be/kA77ElyYvU4

[Paris]

Any news yet on the restoration of past discussions?

[James Hatch]

Hi Birdman,
I think you will find that a lot of my past work has now found its way to Cookham History.
I have reopened two slots here as you will have seen already. So all my old work will be in the new location, and anything new will be posted here, including my Great Grandmother Merina Hatch!

[grumpyoldgit]

Another request for restoration of the history. Not for the first time, I had reason to look up a year-old planning application on the RBWM site, and confidently turned to Cookham.com to see what was discussed at the time. Shock horror!

My day job is solving people's computer problems, and the first thing I do when working on customers' machines is take a backup. I cannot believe you didn't have one readily to hand; and I urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to get the history restored in its entirety. If it makes it easier to restore, it could held in a separate "archive" category.

[Cookham Webmaster]

Cookham.com is held on a server owned by Heart Internet and is backed up daily. To restore costs money.
The Discussions software is a package written by the US company Simple Machines, the programs are in PHP. As Bathsheba suggested if a PHP programmer would like to look at the program they could probably recreate the header record for the discussions, so if anyone knows a PHP programmer who is prepared to help?

[Bathsheba]

@Webmaster, Do you think you could ensure there's a copy of the most recent snapshot prior to the deletion, in case we can find a php programmer?

(Anyone wanting a programming job at Facebook would know how to code in php.)

Although now we'd need to be careful not to clobber the new discussions, although @grumpyoldgit makes a good suggestion. Oh the joys of IT!

[Cookham Webmaster]

A PHP programmer can look at the whole thing on line, programs, data everything, this is a website on line not data held on our personal computers. The programmer can have the sign on. Although Python is the older language, apparently 83% are still PHP, although I think that will change. Python is much better at updating new versions than PHP. Perhaps because it is European.