If I went under a bus....

[JonT]

A recent post by Mike made me stop and think about where we stand in terms of my role running the forum and all of our tools. It struck me that we are in a bit of a precarious position.

In general, I am the only person that has access to the majority of the working of the site. I also have exclusive access to the code for all of the tools (don't worry there are multiple backups). The hosting account is registered in my name and paid for by me annually. Our domain name is registered to me, paid for annually and linked to the hosting account. You get my drift.

I think we need to contemplate a way to share access and knowledge with at least one other person so that if anything were to happen to me (hence the post title) everything wouldn't grind to a halt. We have lots of redundancy in our systems, but not in the people running them.

To give those who are interested a bit of insight:

- the main forum and website is hosted by a hosting service. They store all of our code, web pages, forum posts, images and databases. I am the only person with access to this service. It is rare that I need to access it, but there is no way to publish certain changes and fix bugs without this access. It would be useful for someone else to also have full access if it were ever needed. This service doesn't come cheap, but I am happy to keep paying for it for now.

- the forum itself is built on the phpBB software framework. We run the latest(ish) version. The software is fairly intuitive, and most things can be done just as a regular user or as a moderator (we have a small number of these squirrelling away in the background). But some actions require you to be an administrator. I am the only one of these as far as I know (I should check). The admin can remove users, upgrade the software....well, do pretty much anything really. Another admin would be a good thing to have.

- the trickiest part of the website is all the tools. The Meterboard deserves special mention. Like all our tools, the Meterboard is written in PHP. The data is stored in MySQL databases on our server. The code has evolved over many versions and iterations. It is huge and very, very complex. There is no documentation at all. There are almost no comments other than things like "This seems to work, not sure why". All of the code is stored on our server (obviously), my local storage which is backed up daily, and also in a GitHub repository to help with version control (I have to confess I'm not great at version control).

- the other tools such as the Nonathlon, CTC and Metanonathlon analysers are also written in PHP, are much simpler (though not trivial) and are also completely undocumented, but there are a lot more in-code comments.

-I should also mention that we actually have two sites running at all times. One is the one you see and love, the other is a clone which I use to develop and test changes before they are moved to the live site. In theory they are 99% identical. In practice there are always annoyances where I have forgotten to keep them in sync - a fairly manual process.

Ideally we would have someone else who has programming experience who could become remotely familiar with the code, but I realise this is a big ask. I had no PHP knowledge when I took over the site, but I did have a reasonable background in coding, albeit not used since I completed my PhD, which was more about calculus than coding to be honest, and was also many moons ago.

If we don't fill these gaps with one or more people (one would be far simpler) then we continue to be exposed. In reality, if the bus was on top of me, life for the Free Spirits members would go on. It would be a shame not a crisis. But we do run the risk that nobody would be able to do anything about anything unless we at least grant access to systems to someone with a rough idea of how things work.

I’d be interested in thoughts and also whether anyone feels remotely willing and able to start to learn how all of this hangs together.

[plummy]

100% agree with everything you say Jon, and although "pushed to the background" in my mind, the exposure to disaster if the No.98 veers left instead of right and uses you as a parking spot is all too plain to see.
I, like most here, haven't the foggiest clue as to how to code or run the websites and that's why we are always in your debt re the work you do for the team.

Your post is well said and hopefully there are one or two who are able to help and/or be on standby.

P.S. In my view, you should not be paying anything out of pocket to host this site for us apart from a fair, equal fraction of the running cost shared by all who enjoy the amazing work you hold together for us.

[Caratacus]

This xkcd comic comes to mind:

[Iain]

Thanks for the update Jon. We all appreciate and make use of your amazing developments. NO idea what this is worth, but given a complete lack of ability to help, I am happy to pay for at least the last year's costs. It is far too long since I made any contribution, so please PM me the cost and an option for payment.

[JonT]

This xkcd comic comes to mind:

Brilliant. But maybe more like...

[fkoene]

Hi Jon, being a DBA who (ages ago) started out as a Cobol programmer I do have more then average coding experience. I'm willing to give it a shot, no idea about how complicated it is, but reading (and understanding) code without documentation is something I've done before. No experience in PHP, probably not in other site related stuff as well, but with you're guidance I think I should be able to help out.

[JonT]

Hi Jon, being a DBA who (ages ago) started out as a Cobol programmer I do have more then average coding experience. I'm willing to give it a shot, no idea about how complicated it is, but reading (and understanding) code without documentation is something I've done before. No experience in PHP, probably not in other site related stuff as well, but with you're guidance I think I should be able to help out.

That would be great Fred. I'll send you a PM.

The most important thing is that we get someone else registered for some of the key services so that we have some kind of human fallback. The rest can be done at a very gentle pace.

[Wolfmiester]

Jon/Fred... as a side note, I've only just spotted this thread, and the others in this section of the forum.
So perhaps the sections needs to be more visible?

[fkoene]

I think for now things have improved for Jon. I still need a bit more explaining how everything works, but the immediate bus-danger should be covered soon.