Submitted by Arancaytar on
PPP4 was codenamed "PPPX" for a long while, because it was intended to be open-ended. The era began early in 2007, and was the first to include continuous updates rather than a single run. The archive was kept up to date with the boards.
Well, one of the tasks of an archive is to assign a unique, permanent identifier for all content it retains. Ideally, the identifier is directly generated from the identifier that the original forum used for it.
Normally, this can be done without a problem. However, UltimateBB has some rather unique database design practices. The software upgrade of the Spiderweb forums has completely reset multiple significant primary keys, including that of users and topics. Even though the old content has largely been retained, this means the Spiderweb forums are now incompatible with these archives (PPP1-4), because of colliding identifiers.
I cannot reassign my identifiers to match Spiderweb, because I have content it no longer possesses. I will not generate my own identifiers in defiance of Spiderweb, because that makes it ridiculously impractical to match content on Spiderweb with archived content.
Instead, these archives are now declared CLOSED. PPP4 started on May 14 2007 and ended on May 14, 2008. PPP5 will use an entirely new database schema that will be more compatible with the new version of the Spiderweb forums. I will do my best to retain these archives side by side, but in all honesty it is probably easiest to split the site entirely.
Well, one of the tasks of an archive is to assign a unique, permanent identifier for all content it retains. Ideally, the identifier is directly generated from the identifier that the original forum used for it.
Normally, this can be done without a problem. However, UltimateBB has some rather unique database design practices. The software upgrade of the Spiderweb forums has completely reset multiple significant primary keys, including that of users and topics. Even though the old content has largely been retained, this means the Spiderweb forums are now incompatible with these archives (PPP1-4), because of colliding identifiers.
I cannot reassign my identifiers to match Spiderweb, because I have content it no longer possesses. I will not generate my own identifiers in defiance of Spiderweb, because that makes it ridiculously impractical to match content on Spiderweb with archived content.
Instead, these archives are now declared CLOSED. PPP4 started on May 14 2007 and ended on May 14, 2008. PPP5 will use an entirely new database schema that will be more compatible with the new version of the Spiderweb forums. I will do my best to retain these archives side by side, but in all honesty it is probably easiest to split the site entirely.