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Forum: Stones Forum
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
Respond to: Stones Mailing List Closure
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Squonk
Joined:
23-11-2001
Messages: 6
from Leicester, UK
 OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2007-10-20 16:34
Just a quick status update.
Last night I managed to make an image of the server's disk that kind of partially booted! I was able to at least view a proper subscriber list.
As I type I'm creating another image of the disk to try again. I have the feeling that I should be able to recover at least *something*. Where do we go from there? Well, let's see exactly what I can recover first. I'll post updates here as I have them!
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Squonk
Joined:
23-11-2001
Messages: 6
from Leicester, UK
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2007-10-18 21:46
Well, it's good to see some old friends here  And I've now tripled my number of postings here in a matter of a few minutes!
I will be around, and believe me, this is not the way I wanted this to end. It was what I'd been fearing for quite a while, but it's not what I wanted. It was too special a community to end like that.
Ironically, about 3 days before the server became toast, I started having thoughts of virtualising the server. My biggest worry was always that the server would croak big time, and having it virtualised would have removed any problems in just dropping it onto new hardware. Alas, I thought of it too late to be able to take any action.
As stated elsewhere, I am working towards recovering what I can of the mailing list. I can't promise anything, but I can try bloody hard!
Just also wanted to pass on big, big apologies for the way this has happened. Not at all as I would have wished it.
Cheers for now,
Chris
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TheCaptain
Joined:
30-10-2003
Messages: 1482
from near Bristol
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2007-10-18 17:23
I was a late comer to this interwebnet thingy, so claim no credits at all for this stuff.
In the year 2000 I was seconded to work in Toulouse for the year, and I discovered that they too had ancient stones out there, some of which i visited on days out at the weekends. Trying to find out anything at all about them seemed impossible, and nobody seemed to have any interest in them whatsoever.
When I got back to England, I had decided I needed a pooter, and looked on the internet to see if I could find anything out about the old stones, and to be honest, it was still pretty much impossible. Nothing much to be found at all, except the very occasional small reference to one or two sites if the local village had a website with somebody interested in history running it.
But I did find the megalithic portal and stone pages, which showed me not only that there were other poor souls out in the world with this strange interest, but i also learned of so many more stoney sites than I ever knew existed, even close to home.
This was exactly what I was after, a girt big encyclopaedia of all these ancient places with pictures, maps etc etc. I decided to share my enthusiasm here at the megaportal, and the rest, as they say, is history.
So many thanks to those like Chris and Andy who started this whole thing off. You have cost me many thousands of hours of my life, and many thousands of pounds, including giving up work to look for a few old rocks. Where would I be without you !!! 
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kelpie
Joined:
15-02-2001
Messages: 283
from Pickering, North Yorks
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2007-10-18 16:46
Indeed thanks go to both Chris and Andy. I was part of the Stones list from very near the start (I can't claim to be the first) and from there got to know (cybernetically) many of those involved in all things stoney. Web sites on the topic were few, my first being on Easynet, where Andy had his too.
Things have developed a long way from creaking 14.4 modems and dropped connections but it was fun. Not all the developments have been positive but look at the superb collection of data we now have at our fingertips. So, thanks again guys for being there at the start.
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Andy B
Joined:
13-02-2001
Messages: 6998
from Surrey, UK
 ON-Line
| New Message Posted!2007-10-18 01:37
Well let's not this get too self congratulatory (blushes) but thanks go out to you too Chris for getting us all started on the concept that we could form a virtual community of stones enthusiasts. It was your site and Stone Pages that got me inspired to get something going myself. Things have splintered rather into different sub-interest groups since those early days where everyone knew everyone else but that's inevitable with the exponential growth of numbers since 1996.
It felt strange recovering those e-mail addresses (I finally found a use for my Python - oo-er missus), it was as if performing last rites on the fondly remembered Stones Mailing List.
According to my early notes the Stones Mailing List did start almost exactly 10 years ago, which is a very strange co-incidence.
http://www.megalithic.org.uk/mm/whatsnew.htm
In 1997 the regulars of the Stones Mailing List gathered at the Rollright Stones for a get-together, the first of many as it turned out.
http://www.megalithic.org.uk/mm/eng/rolltalk.htm
We also met up in 1999 for an amazing walk with Terence Meaden, Gerald Ponting, Gail Higginbottom and others.
http://www.megalithic.org.uk/mm/eng/aveb.htm
and in 2000 at which our special guest was Paul Devereux,
http://www.megalithic.org.uk/mm/eng/rollri.htm
I will have to 're-master' those talks as MP3 as they are still of interest I think
So R.I.P Stones Mailing List, and long live its spirit!
[ This message was edited by: Andy B on 2007-10-18 01:38 ]
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Andy B
Joined:
13-02-2001
Messages: 6998
from Surrey, UK
ON-Line
| New Message Posted!2007-10-18 01:14
As sent out by Chris T:
Firstly I would just like to apologise for the impersonal nature of this email. Unfortunately this was the best way I could think of to get in touch with as many subscribers to the Stones Mailing List as I could at this time.
At some point on Monday 15th October my mail server suffered a major failure. It seems that we had some kind of a spike on the mains which took out the mail server, my dekstop PC and the UPS that they were both connected to.
At first I thought it was simply a case of a blown power supply on the server, but it soon became clear that the system was totally fried, as was my desktop PC. Strangely my Mac Mini, connected to the same UPS, was totally fine.
I did have backups, and I have salvaged all of your email addresses from these backups, although I have no idea whether those email addresses represent only current subscribers. My apologies to you if you left the list and are getting this message all the same.
I had been running the Stones Mailing List for just over 10 years, starting off initially in the days of dial up with a shareware mail server package running under Windows. After a few years of that Alastair Carty (Alligator Descartes) took on the physical hosting of the list. He had a leased line and was very generous to allow me to use that and some server space to host the list with an always on connection for the first time. Again a few years passed by and then I had a broadband connection at home and felt able to take the hosting back 'in house'. Finally I moved away from the Windows software and onto a Linux server. It was this Linux server that went up in smoke (very almost literally) on Monday.
There are many of you who I would like to thank for your participation on the list over the years. I know that some of you have been there a very long time (some of you right from the very start) and without all of you there would have been no Stones Mailing List. So Thank You!
I would like to single out Andy Burnham of the Megalithic Portal (http://www.megalithic.co.uk/) for extra special thanks. Without Andy I think the mailing list would have died a death years ago. The list was originally spawned to aid communication between myself, Andy, Alastair McIvor and Paola and Diego at Stone Pages after I was startled to find that my own web site dedicated to megalithic monuments was not quite alone! Without help from Andy I would not have been able to extract your email addresses from the backups in order send this message out, and I so wanted to at least explain what happened, even if I was unable to get things back up and running.
Things have changed a lot since the list started up. Ten years have gone by and there are now all kinds of more user friendly ways for people to communicate with each other on the Internet, and countless web sites dedicated to megaliths and prehistory.
So, with some sadness, I have decided that the death of my server will mark the end of the Stones Mailing List that I started ten years ago. It would take more time and resource than I am willing and able to commit in order to get the thing back up and running.
I can only apologise that this is the way that the mailing list has come to an end - not the way that I would have wished it.
Once again, many thanks to you all for many years of informative and entertaining correspondence. I think we had something pretty unique in the Stones Mailing List and it will be something that I will always remember fondly.
Wishing you all the very best for the future, and hoping that I will bump into some of you again at some point, somewhere, whether that be in the Real World or Cyberspace.
Kind Regards,
Chris (Squonk! remember that?!?!)
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