YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I'm just wondering about the current backup situation here. To do programmed backups of the whole forum content to another server is relatively simple, but has the current site admin actually set it up? Or does the hosting provider maintain full backups as part of their service?

And while I'm at it, it would be so nice to be able to install a (free) spam filter on the forum to get rid of most of the bots...especially the Russian ones.

I am pretty sure the same admin that set up the backups also set up the website email that allowed many years of emails to be dropped with no way to recover, which you may remember Paul talking about

The biggest problem is that if you go back in the history of this forum, tons of engagement when Paul would frequent here, then engagement dropped to practically the smallest trickle when Paul had other obligations. Sadly, there is not much interest in a place to be honest about mental health on a peer-to-peer level, people were only interested in getting near Paul's personal dynamism, which is understandable.

manuel_moe_g wrote: ↑June 10th, 2024, 8:53 am people were only interested in getting near Paul's personal dynamism, which is understandable.

Yes, I can get that. It's funny but I've never missed Paul since I came here after he left.

I feel at a sort of crossroads now: on one hand I like the small community interaction here, and on the other my diary thread doesn't feel as persistent and secure as for example a personal Blogger or WordPress site with more robust servers. Those sites also permit backup downloads of the whole content that one can save locally. Looking back on the personal journey I've shared here, it already feels like something I wouldn't like to suddenly disappear. Maybe my thoughts won't interest anyone else, but at least I'll be able to look back myself if I want to.

Question: how would you feel and what is the policy on republishing my diary thread here on my own blog?

oh, there is nothing you can do (except sign an ironclad contract) where you can lose copyright to your own text. So no permission needed to republish anything you write.

And since Paul G. is the owner, and he is philosophically not maniacal, anything where there is a back-and-forth quoting other posters, you can feel free to republish that anywhere too. It helps that we are all friends here, as well, nobody would mind, I can't imagine any situation where reposting the entirety of your whole thread would cause any hurt feelings.

Reposting someone else's thread might bring up questions of abusing "fair-use", but that is not what you intend to do.

Please let us know where you prefer to host your diary thread, if you prefer back-and-forth there, we would all be pleased as punch to interact in your own blog!

Thank you Manuel,

I'm making some progress with a found Python script that allegedly traverses a whole phpBB forum thread and downloads the text in csv format. I'd only have to add my own images later. I'm still torn about where to continue posting. Somehow it feels like getting off this train (for now) and I'll concentrate on posting about my own art with less "mental" talk on my own blog. I still have the same issues and nothing feels resolved, but I'm seeing the glass half full now.

Gotcha, yeah, I understand

I don’t think I will ever “fix” my mental issues, so my mental health interventions are part of managing it, and I see them as being necessarily being lifelong

But it is all about where best to apply limited energy

Hoping will get to see more of your artwork

Hmm, I've realised it's not practical to use *all* text of this thread on my own blog. Instead I've manually copied some of my own posts and edited them down heavily for clarity. It's painful reading but most of it still stands.

Some other realisations:

• You are all interesting, wonderful, friendly, patient people <3 ...except for that bot that intervened at one time
• I didn't hold back one bit of sex in this thread, and now it feels cringe...though no regrets!
• Things have been difficult for me and they still are.
• Posting and interacting in a forum like this has helped a lot, mentally.

Hugs

Massive hug to you my friend

Hello Troebia,

I'm glad we've all found a bit of mutual help here, even though it's a bit of a backwater.
And I'd be interested in following any artistic and art blogging you may do in the future- keep us posted!

And I'd like to know more about the Python script. Deep drilling on the site, as with all sites set up like this, is tedious though I've done it.
(Endless scrolling with the possibility that you might see an ad or two is the whole point, right? )

Wishing you the best

SD