Editorial Team

19 Jun 

Hi everyone,

The updating of the code we've been working on in the last few weeks is completed and ready to be uploaded.  So, this is to inform you of an upcoming scheduled maintenance planned for this weekend, on Sunday.

Although we were hoping we wouldn't have to do it this way, it's unfortunately the best approach, 'cause there are hundreds of files to transfer over.  

This means PoetBay will incur a period of downtime (inaccessibility to the site) for all the members, while we upload the new code files to replace each of the current ones.

Maintenance work will begin on :

Sunday, 21 June 2020

18H00 EST - 22H00 GMT - 23H00 CET

Maintenance work will end on :

Sunday, 21 June / Monday, 22 June 2020

20H00 EST / 00H00 GMT - 01H00 CET

We're giving it at most 2 hrs to complete these uploads, but we will obviously try to keep it as short as possible.  

To reiterate, these updates will make PoetBay's code more robust for general online security, as well as ensure easier ways for its upkeep to the latest versions, so we never get caught offguard like we were in September. 

Apologies for any inconvenience.  Thanks for your patience in this process of making PoetBay's technical health stronger.  We're nearing the end of the list of things to cover. 

Isabelle

Hi everyone, 

Many thanks to you all who have left their thoughts on this Poll's question, they're greatly appreciated.  

Seeing as there weren't any objections expressed by the rest of the community, I'm thinking it's reasonable on my part to interpret that to mean everyone is on the same page about not minding the removal of the Forum from PoetBay. 

As it's been noted, it's true it's a section of the site that hasn't really been used in a very long time.  Still, I just wanted to give you a head's up of my intention, and in case your feelings were different, you'd be able to say. 

So, the result of the poll is :  the Forum has been removed.  When our uploads are completed, the change will be officially set then, and the Forum will no longer exist on the site. 

Isabelle

=================================================

15 Jun

Hi everyone,

In the last 6 weeks or so (see 'What's up? (Update 6)), I've been working in the background to continue the updating of our code to the new ways of doing things in code. 

These updates will make PoetBay's code more robust for general online security, as well as ensure easier ways for its upkeep to the latest versions, so we never get caught offguard like we were in September.  

It's going very well, and I'll be able to proceed with the uploading of the new code on the site here soon, most probably at the end of this week.  I will let you know before I make the uploads of the code updates to the site.

But, as I'm finishing up my work, I'd like to run something by you before I go ahead with a change I have in mind :

Would you mind if the Forum was removed from PoetBay?

Thanks for letting me know your thoughts/preferences!

Isabelle

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know we've noticed that our site hasn't been performing all too well this week.  So you may have experienced trouble connecting to PoetBay.  We're in the process of investigating it.  

Apologies for any inconvenience!

Isabelle

Hi everyone,

This is to inform you that our webhost (server service provider) is planning a scheduled maintenance of their equipment. 

During their maintenance work, it will undoubtedly incur periods of downtime (inaccessibility to the site) for all the members of PoetBay because the server will be turned off and rebooted multiple times.  

Maintenance work will begin on :

Tuesday, 24 March 2020

18H00 EST - 22H00 GMT - 23H00 CET

Maintenance work will end on :

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

04H00 EST - 08H00 GMT - 09H00 CET

We recommend that you do not post anything during that window of time, to make absolutely sure that nothing gets lost.

Our webhost assures us that this is necessary and they apologize to us and our members for any inconvenience.  We do as well.

Isabelle

18 Apr

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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08 Mar

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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07 Feb

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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04 Feb

Mini update in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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03 Feb

Hi everyone,

Since last update we've been working on replacing the gibberish and the question marks (punctuation, accents) remaining on the site. 

Hundreds of thousands of records are involved, so this is a long one.

What we managed this week :

-  All texts'  Title & Body are cleared of gibberish and question marks (2005-2020).

NB:  If you have many texts in your archive in another language than English, we would need your help in finding out which characters the gibberish currently displayed needs to be replaced with before we can correct them.  We're unfortunately unable to do it on our own 'cause we don't know your language.  Sorry about that :-/ 

What we're currently working on :

-  Comments on texts & exhibitions

-  Author name on profile page

-  Profile page presentations & fortune cookie

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

================================================

25 Jan

Hi everyone,

Last night we think we managed to fix the character display issue which showed question marks (instead of apostrophes, quotes, and accents) in Texts and Comments, for some members of the site, and in all Private Messages. 

So, you'll notice that your new posts will display correctly now.

As for the question marks & gibberish (instead of the correct characters) on the site, we are sorting out a way to find and replace all instances of them in our database.  So, this part will take a little while longer.

We also fixed the NOT SECURE warning about connecting on PoetBay (http:// to https://).

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

================================================

19 Jan

Hi everyone,

We’ve put up new changes on the site today.  We hope that they will enable you to organize and share your works in an easier way. 

We’ve added:

  →  a new menu link on My Page titled Tags.  From here, only when logged

        into your account, you can view lists of your texts, by tag that you’ve set

        on your texts.  You can also edit your tagged texts from that list with

        the Edit link.

*NB:  Although this view is private to the account holder, be aware that ALL tags saved to a text are always PUBLIC.  It’s the listing and editing that is private.

  →  a new menu tab on Poet Home page (clicking on a writer’s name link

        will get you there) titled Tags.  From here, visitors can view the author’s

        lists of texts that have tags set to them.

We think this will add to the sharing experience as well as enhance the possibility to organize and better manage your PoetBay archive of texts.

We’ve also added:

  →  a basic text Title search option of your own account’s archive of texts. 

        On My Page, click on Texts, and the search box is at the top.

We thought this may be useful for members who have hundreds of texts in their account.

This work can be considered as major changes on the site, so although we’ve done all of the extensive testing possible, it’s possible we may have skipped an order of action or an IF consideration to test.  Hopefully not, but should a problem pop up, please let us know and we’ll fix it.

We have a few more changes we plan to bring to the site, but for now, we think we’re ready to tackle the character display issue.  It’s one of two remaining issues from the move to the new server.  We couldn’t continue fixing those before completing more of the tidying/normalizing of the code, which is what we moved along these past couple weeks.  Finally ready to start :-)

This is a big one too, involving a lot of thinking and figuring out for the best solution.  So, thinking caps on, we’re off ;-)

That’s it for now.  But do let us know about any of the changes… we’re very much interested to know if everything is ok and that we’re not disrupting your usual experience of the site.

We’ll be back with more soon…

Isabelle

================================================

11 Jan

Hi everyone,

We've moved on with the fixes/changes this week (we're still keeping the issues list up-to-date here: www.poetbay.com/whatsup.php).  Here's what we've done, and a bit of an explanation on some of it :

  →  Added a new section (Featured Photos) for the home page selections by

        the Editors where exhibition pictures from members can be featured,

        above the Books selections.

  →   Finished the tweaks for the Editors' Dashboard.

  →   Fixed the access to comments in the Diary section.

  →   Included the display of former Supporters' published Books and

          Exhibitions in the Galleries.

  →   Added the display of the publishing date on books in the Books gallery.

  →   Made a final adjustment in the profile page Archive's layout (width) to

          accommodate skipping years in the calendar.

  →  Fixed the Category link (in My Bookmarks) displaying a blank page when

        there was no more than one category (default).  Now it displays correctly

        and it's possible to place your bookmarks in your own made categories.

  →   Fixed challenge Themes created by creators who have deleted their

         account:

           •  In order to keep the challenge going and not affect the challenge text

               submissions, those themes are reverted to the Editorial Team to

               manage. 

  →   Challenge themes make more user-friendly (first stage complete, we're

         still in the tweaking process):

           •  We think we've so far managed to simplify this feature a little bit

               more for you.  It is no longer necessary to submit a text before

               publishing a challenge theme for others to participate.
 

           •  The creator of the challenge theme can submit a text or not, it is

               optional.  The first text submitted to the challenge will be displayed

               as the example of the challenge theme, under the Description. 

           •  We think doing it like that will open up the way to ideas without

               obliging the one who comes up with an idea to have to write an

               example text before others can participate.  Let us know what you

               think about it.

  →   Display on Today's Texts page the latest challenge Theme posted.  If

         the latest challenge theme posted is older than 5 days, then no NEW

         CHALLENGE will show on Today's Texts.

We're working on finishing up the challenge Themes, as well as the My Tags tab/section on profile page that we'd started.  Things are moving along very well.

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

_____________________________________________________________

For more information on challenge Themes (How to create a challenge theme and How to participate in them), we've prepared this basic How-To:  PoetBay Challenge Themes Guide.

_____________________________________________________________

Hi everyone,

We've done a lot of work on the site lately and have sorted out more items on the issues list (What's up?). 

We would love your feedback, whether you like or dislike any of our changes, and the reasons for your impressions.   That information helps us to determine whether we're going in the right direction in our website design decisions for the community.  

Your opinions and your experiences on the site are very important and that's what we keep in mind when we make changes.  So, let us know:  Yay or Nay, any time.

A couple recent changes are :  Tags and Search.  Additional information about them can be found in the comment section below.  Any and all thoughts most welcome.

We'll be back with more in a bit...

Isabelle

=============================================== 

19 Nov

Hi everyone,

As you've noticed, we've scaled back our presence as far as updates are concerned (to avoid intruding with our tech babble ;-)) since we prepared for you a list of the current known issues, as well as the issues you've reported, on the What's up? page.  We've been keeping it up to date as and when we fix an issue on the list.

However, we thought a bit of an explanation on some of the issues and the work / changes we did in the last few weeks would be useful information for you to know as users of the website. 

Right now, there are still a few issues that we're working on and it's progressing well.  We are also taking the time to correct some of the functions on PoetBay that haven't really worked or haven't been really useful in a long time when we come across them during our work, so a bit of needed revamping is happening at the same time.  

One of the changes is to the My Page | 'friends' latest texts' list  :

The list at the bottom-left of the page on My Page displays 5 writing friends' latest text that they posted in the last 6 months.  If none of the writers in your friends' list have posted any new texts in 7 months, no list will appear there as a result.

If you have more than 5 friends on your friends' list, they will be selected randomly so all of your friends' texts all have a chance to be displayed there. 

Another change is to the My friends' texts section :

My friends' texts now displays all of your writing friends' names in alphabetical order and displays the last 5 posted texts from them. 

We find it looks neater and is more useful this way than what it used to be like (long disorderly list of repeated friends' names and pictures, etc).  

We hope you like these small changes.  We're also rethinking and reorganizing the Tags at the moment because as they are now we think they're not very accessible or useful which defeats their purpose.   We'll of course present you with what we've changed about them when we're done.

About the PayPal / Supporter 'membership' fix.  We did not have to fix anything 'cause we did receive renewals recently.  However, if you experience any difficulty, please let us know.

Concerning the character display issue.  We are still working on determining the best course of action in the solutions we have to fix the problem.  We want to prevent any solution that would disrupt the community's use of the website for any amount of time.  That's one of the reasons why this one is taking a little longer. 

On a more personal level for those interested, the other reasons are all related to time and having to take care of our immigration bureaucracy fiasco that we're dealing with right now and that we briefly mentioned on a previous community update. We met with our MP's assistant yesterday, and there may possibly, very maybe, be something that can be done... Yeah. At this point no one knows for sure.  But we'll see. So we often need to take days off to focus on that for our family lately.  Although a bit of time juggling, we keep on with the work for PoetBay in between, as much as we can. 

We hope everything on the website is working well for everyone.  We'll be back with more in a bit...

Isabelle

===============================================

Our 'What's up?' page (Community notice)

04 Nov 

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that we've prepared a list of the current known issues as well as the issues the community have reported so far.  This to minimize our intrusions about things unrelated  to 'writing' on our main list of poetry postings.

We will be updating that page for you as and when we fix an issue or when a new report comes in so that you know what's going on.  

To view the list, visit this link:

What's up?

There's a fair amount of issues that we're working to solve (all relating to our server specs surprise).  However, we're making progress every day, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel for sure.

Enjoy your week!  And don't hesitate to let us know if you encounter an issue - it will not bother us at all (for those worried about us having a lot on our plates).  

Isabelle

[Pic - Example of an error message and where it appears on the page if one should pop up.]

01 Nov 2019

Hi everyone,

Welcome back! It was a bit of a fight, but we got there in the end. We are now on our new, upgraded server -yay-

However, as we mentioned in our previous updates, we didn't have the required time to fix everything on the site just yet.

Adding to that, our webhost once again misinformed us about what our new server's specs would be, so we got the unexpected surprise of having to fix our fixes to work with our new server's actual specs! So a few all-nighters later, we've stabilized our site to the best we can do right now.

This means that you may encounter a few error messages (hopefully not too many) while you navigate and try to do things on the site. They usually appear at the top of the page (see pic above). If that occurs, please copy/paste the message and send it to us so we may be aware of the issue and correct it for everyone on the site.

On the whole though, we're sure the main core functionalities of our website are working. So writing texts, comments, or messages and uploading pictures on the site shouldn't be interrupted in any way.

You'll notice that we've made a few changes on the site. Minor, lingering things that needed adjusting (ex. hearts in inbox, etc).

We've also reorganized the Forum and Help sections, as well as updated the Terms of Membership. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the new additions, and as always, we're open for discussion if any of them don't ring right for you.

The following is what we know that currently doesn't work (which we're working on right now).

KNOWN CURRENT ISSUES

- Creating an account Sign up

- PayPal / Supporter 'membership'

- Sending emails from our site (Contact us, Report, Send text as email, Send message by email from writer's profile page, system emails)

- HTML editor adding '?' for new lines and spaces in PMs (2 Nov)

- Counters not updating because of website cache (2 Nov)

- Profile shortcut link (2 Nov)

- Profile picture upload & save triggers an error msg (3 Nov)

- Displaying of characters is incorrect on accented words

- Access to comments in diary fix doesn't work on new server, need new fix

- Website maintenance scripts

- RSS feed

- Editors' dashboard tweaking needed

- Challenges (themes) make more user-friendly 

So here we go... second stage of fixing up PB begins now.  Your help in reporting any issues will speed up this stage.  

Again, we thank you all for bearing with us while we sort this out...

:-)

Isabelle

==========================================

02 Nov 2019

Our address isn't fully resolved yet, but we will be able to go back to using www.poetbay.com soon (maybe another 24hrs for some).  Periodically check on your browser to see if you can load our website from our usual www address.  If so, then our address' new web location has finished propagating on the world wide web and you can start using it again.

Hi everyone,

This is to inform you that we're moving our website to the new, upgraded server on

31 OCTOBER 2019

We will do a final backup copy of our website on

30 OCTOBER 2019
AT 18H00 EST / 22H00 GMT / 23H00 CET

This means any activity on the website after that date and time will not be saved and copied over to our new server. So we advise to not save anything such as texts or books or pictures or create messages or comments on the website at that point.

PoetBay will be offline (inaccessible) for at least a span of 24h-48h because our website's new location address needs time to propagate around on the world wide web.

We should be back online on

02 NOVEMBER 2019

If we're not, please don't panic. We will be back as soon as possible.

Please share this information with all PoetBay members you know who may not have seen our updates on the situation. Thanks!

Isabelle 

19 October 2019

Hi everyone,

We don't like to have to say this, but we had unexpected and time-consuming days in our personal lives this past week (bureaucratic lunacy of the immigration process a main preoccupation, for those interested to know).  So this prevented us from carrying on with our plans for the week concerning the PB fixes/the move.  We're really disappointed and we apologize for all of this. 

This setback doesn't mean that we won't keep on... just at the moment of this current update, we don't have the promised information about the move in particular because we couldn't do all we needed to do this week to determine that. 

We've had to offset our schedule for now, but as soon as we're able to get it back on track (a few days), we'll be in the position to finally give all of the details about the move itself.  As it stands, things are still looking positive.

We'll be back with the details for the move by next weekend...

Isabelle 

==========================================

13 Oct 2019

Answer to your comments in the comment section below.

Isabelle

=========================================

12 Oct 2019

Hi everyone,

The good news is that this last week we acquired our new server.  So we will be doing the preparation and setting up this week to make sure that by 31 Oct, it will be ready. 

The not-so-great, in our fatigue, we miscalculated how much we have left to fix before being able to say that we fixed all of the core functionalities of our website.  So we have to confirm now that we will have to move to the new server with some parts of the website not fully working yet. 

That being said though, the main core functionalities of the website, such as writing & publishing texts, writing comments and sending private messages will all be functional.  We'll unfortunately have to fix the other things while we're back online on the new server.  Not what we were hoping for, but we won't have the choice.  We're very sorry about that.

This week we managed to fix Private Messages, Exhibitions, Bookmarks.  We're working on sending emails from our site and updating our website maintenance scripts, Sign up, Search, Forum, PayPal, Challenges (make more user friendly), as well as the Editors' dashboard.  We're also creating web page messages explaining that the sections not working are being worked on.  It's going well but the workload is still important.

By next update, we'll be able to provide more definitive details pertaining to the website's move.

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

==========================================

05 Oct 2019

Hi everyone,

Ok, we won't lay out all of the work we've done this week because the list is much longer, but we've succeeded in fixing the complex Write Text section.  We have two more sections to fix to be able to say that we've done all of the core functionalities of our website.  We're working on Private messages and Exhibitions right now.

As our work continues to progress very positively, we're now feeling a lot more confident that we'll able to move our website to the new server.  So here's how we envision what'll happen next.

At the moment, we're on target for the deadline of 31 Oct.  If it's going to be sooner, we will give you notice of the move date. 

The consequence of doing this move will be that PoetBay will be offline (inaccessible) while we :

- transfer all of our website's files
- configure server settings to fit our site's needs,
- and while our website address' new location propagates on the world wide web (this takes 24h-48h).

We unfortunately can't say with certainty how long we'll be offline.  But usually, this process takes about 2-3 days to complete, providing there aren't surprises relating to configurations of the webhost's new server equipment.  So, if all goes well on that front, 2-3 days.

My husband and I are doing our best to fix everything on the site before we move it to the new server.  However, as previously mentioned, with a team of just two for the magnitude of work involved, it's a lot to cover.  So we expect that once we come back online on the new server, there may be lingering minor issues that might pop up.  We don't want that, but realistically, it's possible.

At this stage, we hope we'll be able to lean on your patience a little while longer and also that you'll be willing as users of the site to participate in reporting any technical issues, if you come across any, so that we can fix them for the whole community. 

So to answer your questions on how you can help, this way would be great for us.  It's a bit rinky-dink from techs to ask this, we know, but in the circumstances, we think this is how we can all achieve keeping PB going.  Please let us know your thoughts about that.

Thank you all for your support.  Our community is truly the best!  :-)

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle 

==========================================

28 Sep 2019

Hi everyone,

As we suspected, the section for logged in PB account users brought on quite a long list of issues. The issues mainly pertain to the programming language and the query language that PB is written in. Like the server configurations, these languages have also been updated on a large scale.

As mentioned previously, this means that some of the ways to do things (functions) like they are on PB don't exist anymore. So we need to find the old functions in our code, then restructure, replace, but mostly now, rethink the logic & rewrite the code to work with the new ways.  It's a lot and it's long to do...

But our structure on how to move forward with the needed fixes is clearer now.  So it's looking up :-) 

Here's what we've managed to fix on PB this week :

Sign in
- Log into account (Check email+password are valid, Display message fail)

 
My Page | My Options

- 'Save settings' button
- Update account Email address (Check email format is valid, Display message fail/success, Save)
- Check boxes for options to Log into Inbox view or My Page view, Show Diary or not, Show Bookmarks or not, Show email or not
- Upload a self-portrait in .jpg format (Upload, Check valid format, Display message fail/success, Save, Delete)
- Set Country, year of birth and gender, or none
- Links (Update, Check valid URL format, Display message fail/success, Remove, Save)

My Page | Extras

- 'Save settings' button
- Set own page address (Check new address doesn't already exist, Display message fail/success, Save, Remove)
- Change color of poet profile page
- Change background color of 'Extras' page
- Enable/disable HTML editor check box

My Page | My Friends | Me as a friend | My friends' texts
- List poet's friends (Display last login date, Display picture, Remove)
- List the poet as a friend (Display picture, Remove)
- List poet's friends' texts (Display picture)

My Profile (menu)
- Display poet's profile page (List poet's texts, Pages, 'Fortune cookie', Shortcut address, Send message, List Bookmarks, List Exhibitions, List Diary, List links)

My Account
- List account creation date, number of logins, support member expiration date info

My Account | Change password

- Update password (Check old, Display message fail/success, Replace with new password)
- 'Save the new password' button

My Account | Remove yourself
- 'Remove yourself' button, (Check password is valid, Display message fail/success, Delete all except poet's comments given to others)

My Account | Block 
- 'Block' button (Check name, Display message fail/success, Set Block to name entered, List poet's Block list, Delete)

Unrelated to the account options (current bugs on PB)
- Displaying of non-latin characters on the home page

CURRENTLY WORKING ON:

- Finishing the testing of our changes in the code

- My Page | Write Text (*Major section of the site, the issues coming up here are turning out to be the most complex.  More analyses in progress.)

- My Page | My Friends (Add, Send private message) | Me as a friend (Send private message)
- My Account | Change password (Send email notification of password change)

- Sign in  (Send email for Forgot password)

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

==========================================

25 Sep 2019

Answer to your comments in the comment section below.

Isabelle

=========================================

21 Sep 2019 

Hi everyone, 

Here’s what’s been going on since the last update. 

We’ve fought through the changes to the configurations on the upgraded server environments (what PB will be upgraded to online) and now our development environment all works on that front. That was the first step to accomplish and we did it! :-)

Following this success, we proceeded to the next step of trying to make our website files work on this upgraded server system setup. Right from the start when we tried to view (execute) our home page, none of the code worked - all that the page displayed was a blank. In 2009, we could at least see the top part of the page... It didn’t bode well, but we carried on our analyses to figure out what caused it exactly. 

Aaand... we were able to pinpoint and correct the issues preventing the pages from displaying! :-) (A lot of modifying and some rewriting of the code and SQL queries). At the moment, we have managed to repair the viewable pages of our site for people who are not logged in. 

In the last couple days now, we’ve begun working on the parts of our website that are for people who are logged into their PB account. This section might throw different issues we haven’t encountered yet ‘cause there are many actions (functions) an account user can do on the site. So it remains to be discovered... 

But so far, things look a little more optimistic than they did a couple weeks ago. We hope our analyses/fixes continue in that line from here.  

We’ll be back with more soon...

Isabelle

 ==========================================

 17 Sep 2019 

Answer to your comments in the comment section below.

Isabelle 

=========================================

14 Sep 2019 

Hi everyone,

Ok, where to start... First, we apologize that we sort of disappeared on you in the last few days after dropping this bad news your way.  But, as hectic as our personal lives are, we've moved along some in our figuring out our options.

This is a long process as there are many facets of consideration to take into account and many setup steps to undertake before the real analysis/work can begin.  So, here's what's moved along since last update to this community discussion.

The small good news of our situation is that we obtained an extension of time before our hosting company goes ahead with their upgrades.  

The not-so-great, our webhost is actually cancelling our hosting monthly plan to move their systems to newer ones.  So we will need to move our website to a new server ourselves.  Initially, our webhost offered to do that for us, but then suddenly changed their minds on that offer.  Without explanations even though we asked for them to explain.  They refuse to answer.  Sooo...

We've wasted quite a few days trying to get answers from them.  It's left us feeling a little disheartened to be dealt with in this manner especially since we've given them business for 10 years.  We feel we don't have much of a choice to find a new hosting company after our set deadline when the cancellation will be going ahead.  

Dealing with searching for a new company, then doing the move and installations to make the website work on the new server are added tasks on top of the biggest task it will be to analyze the effects of the upgrades on the functionality of our website, let alone fix them if they're fixable. 

We're in a bad way, won't lie to you.  That being said, it's not to mean that we won't continue to try our very best to arrive at a successful outcome. 

We realize our words are probably not offering much reassurance right now, but we feel we need to be completely honest with you and let you know what our position looks like right now.  My husband and I have our lives, kids and health issues to take care of, and as volunteers on limited time, we feel the situation is a monumental pickle... and we're not sure we'll make it.  We'll keep trying, but we're just not sure.

Here's what's been going on in the background.

SUMMARY OF STEPS:

1-  Get clarifications from webhost company about their plans

2-  Communications with webhost (not very helpful in the end)

3-  In the meantime of doing 1 & 2, we began building a new development environment (upgraded system) with the latest versions so we can transfer all the website files and the database where we will be able to work on the code without affecting the online website that our members use.

4-  Came up with complications during initial install because of hardware and finding replacements.  Spent 2 days on sorting that part.

5-  Successfully installed the initial install on the new hardware.  Yesterday and today we tweaked our development environment with further installations of needed application tools for the complete functioning system we need to run our website.
6-  Today we've copied and transferred all of the website files and the database onto our development environment.  This is a long process because i) there are hundreds of files and ii) the system is managed by many different types of configurations, permissions, and so on (server environment stuff).  This step and all following ones become very technical from this point on.

NEXT STEPS

-  analyze the new development enviroment with all the website files included
-  analyze how the upgrades affect our website's functionality
-  providing the damage isn't too extensive, we'll have to recode the sections that are affected

-  during the recoding, we'll need members to test the website as we make changes to the code

Again, we're really sorry about all this uncertainty.  We'll keep informing you as we move along in these processes of our attempt to rescue PB.  For my part, I will do my best to not get too technical, but this phase is all technical stuff.  I'll try to keep it simple :-) 

We'll be back with more soon...

Isabelle 

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08 Sep 2019

Answer to your comments in the comment section below.

Isabelle

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07 Sep 2019

Hi everyone,

It's with a heavy heart that we must inform you PoetBay has once again reached a crossroad as experienced in 2009. 

In 2009, a great amount of volunteer work (labor of love) had to be put in to meet the demands of the latest Internet standards.  With a few tweaks along the way, PoetBay has surprisingly had a good run.

But here we are now in 2019, finding ourselves in a position where a major amount of work has to be done once more to meet the current Internet standards. 

We're open to any thoughts from the community about this situation...

Sincerely,

Isabelle & Anna

Hi everyone,

For the next two weeks (but at all times, really), we welcome your personal picks as to the texts you would like to see featured on the Home page of PoetBay. 

They can be recent or older texts that were posted on the site (2005 to 2018) - you decide!

To nominate a favorite, you can either let us know in the comments below or send us a PM, and we will make the picks from your nominations!