Author Topic: The End of Shrinemaiden As We Know It (Read 100138 times)

Alfred F. Jones · « **on:** February 13, 2020, 08:07:55 AM »

As you may have seen recently, our head admin, TSO, has died. With her passing, the staff has now had to confront some sobering realities. Not the least of which is that none of us have a login with root access via linode, our service provider. 7HS and Edible have been in contact with linode, but all we can do is pay the site's bills as a stopgap measure, which I have taken care of this month.

However, it's not a matter of paying bills alone. Without root access, the site cannot be maintained; if there is a forum error or disk space issue (which happens regularly), nothing here will be recoverable.

In other words, our days are numbered, and if you have anything on this site you'd like to keep, I would like to advise you to back it up to your own storage as soon as possible.

Attachments will definitely be gone when the forums go under. Artists, please make sure you have everything you want to keep. Writers who have fanfic here, please make sure you have a copy of it; I have several AO3 invitations I would be glad to hand out if anyone needs them for backing up Touhou fanfic or keeping track of authors. Karisa says that HME and the RaNGE/Touhou Projects section have documentation about fan games/patches that might not be posted anywhere else, so if there's anything from those sub-forums you want, grab them now. The old Gensokyo replay sites actually are backed up, at Maribel's and Tom's. If you have any friends, members or not, who may be interested in saving something from here, please get in contact with them and let them know.

MotK staff will be updating you on this situation as best as we can, but please keep in mind that this community is currently on a slow-moving train of a site and we know the tracks end somewhere up ahead. We're not sure exactly where the tracks end, but we know it could be sooner rather than later, and everyone should plan accordingly.

Keep an eye on this space for updates. MotK staff may not have all the answers to your questions about where this site is going, but we can at least find out together.

Edit: One of our longtime moderators is working on a replacement forum. While we won't be able to migrate posts/accounts over there, it should serve as a worthy successor. A few ancient users here will know this isn't the first time we've moved to a new forum/domain, so hopefully this should be simply another chapter in a very long book.

Edible · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2020, 01:12:09 PM »

So long, and thanks for all the fishgirls.

Kilgamayan · « **Reply #2 on:** February 13, 2020, 01:29:48 PM »

Silent Sinner in Scarlet · « **Reply #3 on:** February 13, 2020, 04:19:30 PM »

I do have an idea regarding this current site's root access, but given this is a public forum, I cannot discuss it here. I can only discuss it in a Discord DM channel.

HakureiSM · « **Reply #4 on:** February 13, 2020, 06:46:31 PM »

Okay, so I guess everyone's seen this coming, and it seems you lot have figured out most of the issues and answered most of the questions.

I have a potentially dumb question, not having interacted with a traditional forum in a few years, and having forgotten how some stuff here works despite my time here: do we have a backup tool of any kind? That is, a way to log and save our posting history, PMs, etc? I have over 11 thousand posts here, and while most of that isn't relevant per se, I wouldn't know how to pick and choose from them all the ones I'd like to keep, the conversations we've had that were meaningful, the fun and sad moments, etc.

Also, I'm pretty glad someone already grabbed the torch and is working on a new platform. This place has always been at the frontline of the western Touhou community, and a spiritual successor is a wonderful idea.

Edible · « **Reply #5 on:** February 13, 2020, 07:05:27 PM »

Nope. Any preservation will need to be on your end.

FinnKaenbyou · « **Reply #6 on:** February 13, 2020, 08:08:28 PM »

Thanks for the warning. I've grabbed a copy of the DRK thread for safekeeping.

One relevant question - as far as I'm aware, TSO was also the owner of the IRC over on PPIRC. Some of us are still using the s-l channel to hang out. Do we know if anything's going to happen to that?

Edible · « **Reply #7 on:** February 13, 2020, 09:08:00 PM »

PPIRC is owned/operated by others and will remain functional.

HTFCirno2000 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 13, 2020, 09:27:12 PM »

Ok. So the past 2 weeks I have actually been going through the Wayback Machine, and it turns out that this is not the first time something like this has happened to MoTK. There is a lot that i found, apparently the current iteration of shrinemaiden.org seems to go back to April of 2009.

A much better written account of the past than I could ever write.
https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=8592.0

A completely condensed version of what I found in the Wayback Machine:
Originally, in April of 2004 was the first iteration of Maidens of the Kaleidoscope, made by someone named Katchura under the domain shrinemaiden.com. Sometime in either 2006 or 2007 the original site got hacked and the entire database was wiped clean so they had to remake the forum using Simple Machine Forums. Sometime later, shrinemaiden.com expired and the domain parker wanted an exorbitant amount of money for it, that was when shrinemaiden.org was made. Between then and 2009, i'm not entirely clear on the details but sometime around 2009, it was decided to upgrade the website from SMF 1 to SMF 2 so, they had to migrate over to the website we currently have now.

In conclusion, MoTK has this habit of resurrecting itself, like a phoenix. I'm not sure what the admins do actually have planned, but either way MoTK has had a long run, and this is it's longest iteration yet. Kinda a shame it had to happen like this tho

One more thing: I do have this example of what MoTK looked like back in the far past of 2005:

Karisa · « **Reply #9 on:** February 13, 2020, 10:36:02 PM »

MotK has a long history. I found myself looking into the history on archive.org a year ago, when the site was having its major errors and I thought it wasn't going to be renewed. I've come to consider this version of MotK from 2007 onward, by helvetica and Seventh Holy Scripture, to be MotK v2. It was long before my time, but it shows recreating the site as MotK v3 is doable, as inconvenient as this is. I've become more hopeful since hearing the news two weeks ago.

I wonder if anyone will be able to create a tool that arbitrary members could run to archive their PM inbox and sentbox, perhaps into text files? I've manually saved the HTML of mine, personally, but it was a little tedious to save, and even more so to look back at the archives.

Archiving posts feels like higher priority, though.

Kilgamayan · « **Reply #10 on:** February 14, 2020, 12:49:54 AM »

bofh had a thread crawler once upon a time. Dunno if he would use it again, but it's worth asking.

Sparen · « **Reply #11 on:** February 14, 2020, 12:58:11 AM »

I had a hunch that nobody else had the passwords and it seems I was right, unfortunately.

Is there any form of timeframe we have before the forum collapses? From my own experience, manually backing up and converting even single posts into HTML (with images and links and all) was an excruciating process and it seems this is my last chance to make a complete backup of important RaNGE content.

Aya Reiko · « **Reply #12 on:** February 14, 2020, 01:08:00 AM »

Quote from: Sparen on February 14, 2020, 12:58:11 AM

I had a hunch that nobody else had the passwords and it seems I was right, unfortunately.

Is there any form of timeframe we have before the forum collapses? From my own experience, manually backing up and converting even single posts into HTML (with images and links and all) was an excruciating process and it seems this is my last chance to make a complete backup of important RaNGE content.

In addition to that, who owns the domain name? And about when does it expire?

Silent Sinner in Scarlet · « **Reply #13 on:** February 14, 2020, 01:48:36 AM »

All my core postings on this forum were either music postings referencing my own YouTube & Nico Nico channels or GIF postings referencing my DeviantArt & Pixiv channels (all of them at Alice?s Art Atelier). I have no need to back up such postings since I still own my art/music media on my HDD and on my afore-mentioned creative outlets.

Barrakketh · « **Reply #14 on:** February 14, 2020, 01:58:47 AM »

Quote from: Aya Reiko on February 14, 2020, 01:08:00 AM

In addition to that, who owns the domain name? And about when does it expire?

It looks like it'll expire on April 22. I'd naively assume that TSO owned it, but assuming the whois record isn't BS it claims the registrant is in Ontario, Canada.

Quote from: Sparen on February 14, 2020, 12:58:11 AM

From my own experience, manually backing up and converting even single posts into HTML (with images and links and all) was an excruciating process and it seems this is my last chance to make a complete backup of important RaNGE content.

You can copy the generated HTML with the developer tools included with Firefox/Chrome. I just tested it with your first two posts in this topic and it worked pretty well.

Karisa · « **Reply #15 on:** February 14, 2020, 02:00:59 AM »

Quote from: Aya Reiko on February 14, 2020, 01:08:00 AM

In addition to that, who owns the domain name? And about when does it expire?

Seventh Holy Scripture, April 22. 7HS is here again, and as the first post mentioned, tried to contact Linode.

Edit:
By the way, you can view the forum on a simpler theme by adding [monospace]?theme=16;[/monospace] to the end of a url. For example:
https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,29584.0.html?theme=16;
To switch back, use [monospace]?theme=14;[/monospace] instead.

It hides signatures, profile sidebars, and other data that's not necessary to the post. It might help if anyone's trying to archive posts automatically.

WishMakers · « **Reply #16 on:** February 14, 2020, 03:38:19 AM »

Some of us in the Land of Codes and Apertures server are getting a scrape of as much content in RaNGE that we can. Hopefully we can scrape the attachments too.
I want to extend my personal thanks to all the staff who kept the forum alive for so long - it's honestly a miracle that the site has stayed alive as long as it has, especially with the SSL cert stuff.
Here's to the next Touhou haven.

Lebon14 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 14, 2020, 05:06:18 AM »

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Please find a way to save the website. Please please please please.
Why can't the host be able to make a copy of what's on the server if they are hosting it? Is it encrypted?
Please there must be a way to keep the website alive. Somebody contact archive.org if they could run a crawler to save everything, scripts included.

There MUST be a way to save the forum. The stories... the patches... the role playing... the secret santas... the help provided and solutions found... all... everything... no... a website that I love disappearing is my preservation needs' biggest fear.

Please somebody... find a way to backup the forum database...

At least... somebody... tell me there's a Discord server at least where we'll all be...

HTFCirno2000 · « **Reply #18 on:** February 14, 2020, 05:17:50 AM »

Quote from: Lebon14 on February 14, 2020, 05:06:18 AM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Please find a way to save the website. Please please please please.
Why can't the host be able to make a copy of what's on the server if they are hosting it? Is it encrypted?
Please there must be a way to keep the website alive. Somebody contact archive.org if they could run a crawler to save everything, scripts included.

There MUST be a way to save the forum. The stories... the patches... the role playing... the secret santas... the help provided and solutions found... all... everything... no... a website that I love disappearing is my preservation needs' biggest fear.

Please somebody... find a way to backup the forum database...

At least... somebody... tell me there's a Discord server at least where we'll all be...

The forum software is running on a virtual machine hosted in the cloud on a provider called Linode. This virtual machine is like a virtual computer inside another computer. All Linode does is provide said virtual computers and hosts it on their network. Meanwhile, the operating system inside of it is completely self-managed by whoever has actual console access and root login to the OS running inside the virtual machine. If the admins don't have any login credentials to the OS inside the virtual machine, then there isn't a way to actually get to the internal file system to get to the website. Even then, last i remembered reading, the website is hosted using 2 virtual machines, one having the forum software, and the other housing the actual database with all the posts. So it's not just sufficient to get to the server running the website, but also the database behind the website.

Only thing us outsiders can really do is either:
Manually download posts of interest using the browser's built in save function (takes forever)
Setup a script to download the website verbatim (would be a MASSIVE task that could very well exceed hundreds of gigabytes with a large percentage of floof while the actual content would be a smaller portion of that).
Make a web crawler that can parse what and where the actual posts and content are, and store that into a new database. (Hard, would take a lot of coding and algorithms, but theoretically doable)
(EDIT 2/17/2020: Someone ACTUALLY did the last option. Thank you Infy♫ for proving it is actually doable. He has provides a .CSV database of the entire MoTK Corpus later in this thread.)

Either way, it's a monumental task. IF anyone has the hardware, software and time to do it, there's a good chance they might very well archive it.

Lebon14 · « **Reply #19 on:** February 14, 2020, 05:29:27 AM »

Quote from: HTFCirno2000 on February 14, 2020, 05:17:50 AM

The forum software is running on a virtual machine hosted in the cloud on a provider called Linode. This virtual machine is like a virtual computer inside another computer. All Linode does is provide said virtual computers and hosts it on their network. Meanwhile, the operating system inside of it is completely self-managed by whoever has actual console access and root login to the OS running inside the virtual machine. If the admins don't have any login credentials to the OS inside the virtual machine, then there isn't a way to actually get to the internal file system to get to the website. Even then, last i remembered reading, the website is hosted using 2 virtual machines, one having the forum software, and the other housing the actual database with all the posts. So it's not just sufficient to get to the server running the website, but also the database behind the website.

Only thing us outsiders can really do is either:
Manually download posts of interest using the browser's built in save function (takes forever)
Setup a script to download the website verbatim (would be a MASSIVE task that could very well exceed hundreds of gigabytes with a large percentage of floof while the actual content would be a smaller portion of that).
Make a web crawler that can parse what and where the actual posts and content are, and store that into a new database. (Hard, would take a lot of coding and algorithms, but theoretically doable)

Either way, it's a monumental task. IF anyone has the hardware, software and time to do it, there's a good chance they might very well archive it.

I know what's a VM - I just didn't know the website was running using them, let alone 2.
I know that saving a forum is a long and arduous process. I just hope that multiple people will be able to archive what's most important.

Is there an official MotK Discord or will there be one?

PX · « **Reply #20 on:** February 14, 2020, 05:56:01 AM »

Welp, it's been fun. See you on the other side.

Branneg Xy · « **Reply #21 on:** February 14, 2020, 06:52:31 AM »

Quote from: HTFCirno2000 on February 13, 2020, 09:27:12 PM

Ok. So the past 2 weeks I have actually been going through the Wayback Machine, and it turns out that this is not the first time something like this has happened to MoTK. There is a lot that i found, apparently the current iteration of shrinemaiden.org seems to go back to April of 2009.

A much better written account of the past than I could ever write.
https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=8592.0

A completely condensed version of what I found in the Wayback Machine:
Originally, in April of 2004 was the first iteration of Maidens of the Kaleidoscope, made by someone named Katchura under the domain shrinemaiden.com. Sometime in either 2006 or 2007 the original site got hacked and the entire database was wiped clean so they had to remake the forum using Simple Machine Forums. Sometime later, shrinemaiden.com expired and the domain parker wanted an exorbitant amount of money for it, that was when shrinemaiden.org was made. Between then and 2009, i'm not entirely clear on the details but sometime around 2009, it was decided to upgrade the website from SMF 1 to SMF 2 so, they had to migrate over to the website we currently have now.

In conclusion, MoTK has this habit of resurrecting itself, like a phoenix. I'm not sure what the admins do actually have planned, but either way MoTK has had a long run, and this is it's longest iteration yet. Kinda a shame it had to happen like this tho

One more thing: I do have this example of what MoTK looked like back in the far past of 2005:

Thanks kindly(and to TSO/helvetica *praying in words&actions* ,7th Holy Scripture,all Mods!Staff,Wordsmiths,Artists and mors) for the Timeline and Hopeful Resume of the "Previous Resurrecting Shrine Maiden Sites" al... There are references and commenting ,dated 2009,alongside "a few content signs" of a interrupted web databato those mostly-sudden and with data-loss transitions as well among the first Rpg/CyoA Stories in rhe Section of " Rumia's Party Games (very often by " Purvis ")...
Well there is quite some intense and laborious situation & engagement ahead but for helpful starters there iare already,see beginining post and post starting from previous one on 3/02/2020 at around 20:00 pm( MotK's timestamp date on the Replies within this Thread)some feasible advices,alongside actual copy-download-plans-for- future-reupload-recovery actions or even (Art n' Music) "Core Posting as References made from External-to-MoTK sites( Youtube,Nicovideo and Deviantart,,Pixiv) being Created Personally Created+Backuppes Data ( the User " Silent Sinner in Scarlet ") to external-copy from and/or prepare from each own memory drive and then post and or post-by-resume or by-joining..but...!

Branneg Xy · « **Reply #22 on:** February 14, 2020, 07:05:53 AM »

Quote from: Branneg Xy on February 14, 2020, 06:52:31 AM

Thanks kindly(and to TSO/helvetica *praying in words&actions* ,7th Holy Scripture,all Mods!Staff,Wordsmiths,Artists and mors) for the Timeline and Hopeful Resume of the "Previous Resurrecting Shrine Maiden Sites" al... There are references and commenting ,dated 2009,alongside "a few content signs" of a interrupted web databato those mostly-sudden and with data-loss transitions as well among the first Rpg/CyoA Stories in rhe Section of " Rumia's Party Games (very often by " Purvis ")...
Well there is quite some intense and laborious situation & engagement ahead but for helpful starters there iare already,see beginining post and post starting from previous one on 3/02/2020 at around 20:00 pm( MotK's timestamp date on the Replies within this Thread)some feasible advices,alongside actual copy-download-plans-for- future-reupload-recovery actions or even (Art n' Music) "Core Posting as References made from External-to-MoTK sites( Youtube,Nicovideo and Deviantart,,Pixiv) being Created Personally Created+Backuppes Data ( the User " Silent Sinner in Scarlet ") to external-copy from and/or prepare from each own memory drive and then post and or post-by-resume or by-joining..but...!

Not to double-post but about 'Recovery Advices,Planning Actions'' I would like to quote and highlight this offer for backup on https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=23214.new#new (page 14)

[[size=78%]quote author=Raikaria link=topic=23214.msg1439682#msg1439682 date=1581351395][/size]
Firstly; I feel like this should be brought up.With the passing of Helvetica; the main admin of the site, this somewhat throws the future of the forum in the air. [Paying for it; ect]. It's being discussed, but I think it is worth bringing up. I have an idea for a backup plan, but hopefully it doesn't come to that.

I am going to post over there and PM as well, to help out bridge it out to and from " Raikaria" since he has already warned( on First Post of Rumia Quest Revival) he needs more time-off between Forum Activity then before : on MotK there are examples of Rumia Quest,Elly Quest,Daiyousei Quest,Wriggle Quest and such).

niektory · « **Reply #23 on:** February 14, 2020, 08:46:02 AM »

Okay, I'm trying to scrape what I can. Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to focus on.

Karisa · « **Reply #24 on:** February 14, 2020, 10:15:27 AM »

Quote from: Lebon14 on February 14, 2020, 05:29:27 AM

Is there an official MotK Discord or will there be one?

Sort of. I've been running Sea of Tranquility (HME-affiliated Discord), which I've seen some people call the MotK Discord. Lately I've been considering trying to expand it beyond the gameplay community into a full MotK Discord, since it already has a starting point.

LunarSpotlight · « **Reply #25 on:** February 14, 2020, 12:42:10 PM »

Hello there, it's been a while since I've been around. I'll keep things relatively short.

The thing I've enjoyed most about this community at large is the incredible amount of talent and dedication that comes from everyone who is or was ever a part of it. I'd hate to see this kind of history lost to time.

To combat that, I am running a full sweep of the forums, at least as far as my account can see, using an automated, systematic approach. It's slow (intentionally delayed to reduce server impact) and so will take time, but I intend to give what I can towards the effort. At the moment, images and attachments are not covered by my process, so do take care to save what matters to you. If others are backing some things up, whether selectively or completely, that's probably not a bad thing. I'll be happy to work with whoever the torch is passed to in order to either help restore or maintain over a decade's worth of irreplaceable history.

- Lunar

Fulisha of Light · « **Reply #26 on:** February 14, 2020, 12:54:51 PM »

It sucks that on my side the site still crashes on desktop due to the expired certificate and Firefox outright ignoring my attempts to bypass it, but I can at least see everything on my phone and save stuff from there thankfully.

I always keep archives of my art nowadays, so there's no issue with the sprites and junk I made and posted here getting wiped. I'll most likely reupload them elsewhere like the new forum or DeviantArt/Tumblr/etc. So to the people that used my stuff don't worry, it'll always be around c:

I'll try to archive some stuff on archive.is and grab a couple of images that I personally want like Dark Kitsune's sprites (which were the ones that inspired me to make my own, but it seems they've been lost due to TinyPic closing down D: damn)

If there ends up being a new forum I hope there'll be a link to it here or something. I'd hate to lose contact with the community here D:

N-Forza · « **Reply #27 on:** February 14, 2020, 01:12:06 PM »

Welp, looks like it's time to make use of that "download PMs" feature at last.

Infy♫ · « **Reply #28 on:** February 14, 2020, 03:52:27 PM »

Welp... Thanks for the good times, everyone.

Karisa · « **Reply #29 on:** February 14, 2020, 04:49:03 PM »

Quote from: N-Forza on February 14, 2020, 01:12:06 PM

Welp, looks like it's time to make use of that "download PMs" feature at last.

Where is that feature? I can't seem to find it. If there's a built-in method of downloading your PMs, I think it belongs in the first post.

Edit:
It was recently been brought to my attention that there's a Danmakufu Wiki hosted on this site. Has it been archived?