Question: What sort of data back-ups does Obsidian Portal currently run? How often?
I for one would feel much more comfortable spending hours upon hours working on my campaign here knowing how dependable the backups are. It would be horrible to lose weeks or even months worth of work due to a server hardware failure, or software issue.
Additionally, as a request, I would feel completely comfortable using the service if there were a way for me to at will grab a backup of my data (maybe limit to once/day per account to resolve any server-strain issues).
I’m thinking maybe just a delimited text file dump of all campaign data. That would be a good way to ensure users of data-source redundancy (since they themselves would be the redundancy).
Additionally just state up front that data recovery (imports) from backups will only be granted in the case of Obsidian Portal failures. This way no request come through with “I messed up, can you re-import my data?”
We keep nightly backups (7 days worth), weekly (1 months worth), and monthly (1 years worth). So, if there's a snafu or crash, we can restore to anytime in the previous week.
In the case of a monstrous failure that goes undetected for several days or weeks, we can go back a couple weeks or even months. In reality, thought, that would probably kill the site. Nobody would come back if we said, "Oops, your data from the past few weeks was lost. Please re-enter it."
Still, what you ask (downloadable backups) is a really great idea, and I have puzzled over it. I'm not too worried over server strain, but rather that the data be in a useful format. I'll put it on the list and see what I can come up with.
That’s good info to know! It makes me a lot more comfortable using Obsidian Portal knowing there are frequent backups, and thanks for adding the request to your list.
yeah, this was also reassuring to learn as I wondered about hours of entries getting lost. may want to put the info about backups in the 'About' section under "Host your campaign- safely!"
I think I'll just stick to my copy-paste to notepad backups that I do. I like to have my campaign data with in at all times, even when I can't get access to the 'net. Its not really a hassle to do manual saves of your stuff either.
Now, don't read that as an excuse to not allow downloadable backup data. Just a "What to do in the meantime" comment. :D
Coming from wikispaces they had an option to do batch backups where the user can pull down a text backup of all their stuff in case something happens or the user decides to migrate, like I am doing to your site. Would that be available at some point?
I'm relieved to hear this as well. I've been creating hardcopies of NPCs and other things, but during our sessions I spend more time looking at this site than the binder...
This would have helped me today - my power was out most of the night, and my cable & internet were out all the way up until about 15 minutes before it was time to play, with loads of prep yet to do...
On the idea of downloadable backup: Wonderful idea! I was just thinking of that when I saw the announcement that there was going to be a restart and to back up my data. I thought: wait, this website _is_ the backup!
@ Micah - I agree that the download wouldn't have to be perfectly edited word docs. Maybe it just spits out all your pages in a single txt?
Hey all! Bringing this thread back up from the bowels of ... well, page 4?
I'm new to the site and I don't know if something like this has been implemented yet or not, but I would really like to have a local backup of campaign data not just for peace of mind but because I'd like to have my game's information at my fingertips when I'm running and I know that not every place I'll be playing will have internet available, so a local copy would make so much more sense in my situation, and I don't think I'm alone on that one.
Thoughts? Comments? Has this already been done and I just don't know about it?
I would like to second the google gears(-style). That capacity would be awesome. Being able to work on my wiki on a laptop that's offline and then upload my edits, in addition to having a full download/local copy would be a great addition.
At the least, the export should be paired with an import for quick uploads. One could make templates for future games that way very easily, and make them available to others if they like.
I'll toss an interesting thought towards backup developments for those who are in charge and working hard to help!
The Ethereal Realms HTML RP Software for which several online text style RP sites run, have their rooms, characters and such set up with boxes in set areas that produce the complex coding for just that section - I believe its coded in perl and is useless without having the ER Environment to set itself up, but it is a savable file, and a great way to snapshot part or all of the info quickly.
I know that it has been a while since anyone has really looked at this thread but I wanted to comment that I would really like the ability to easily make offline backups of the all the data that is written to my campaings. As a current paying member who is in the process of evauating the real value of the "montlhy" charge, adding an offline backup feature to the paid version would be enough of a reason to maintain the payments.
My thoughts for the backup system are to allow me to click "backup" on an active campaign's settings page and have it generate a single ZIP file that is made up of an image folder with all images uploaded to the site, folders for each tab with, at a minimum, a text file that represents each page in that tab including all of the textile and HTML that was entered. At best rich text format of each page or a working HTML version of the whole campaign.
I notice it's been nearly 3 years since Micah indicated that he thought
this was a good idea, but it doesn't seem to have been implemented yet.
Is this going to happen, as I'm reluctant to commit to Obsidian Portal, (i.e. pay for
it and enter all my notes), if I have to manually backup each page.
I'm not sure how easy this would be, but could we have two options for campaign backups?
- One that includes everything, which the GM can download (the current version, I believe)
- One which excludes GM secret and Player secret sections, which players can download
It's nice sometimes for players to have an offline references. Also, as is the case in my main current campaign, the GM isn't necessarily the one updating things and keeping the closest eye on the site. I would consider buying my GM an Ascendant membership to encourage it, but I'm not sure he's actually got the time for it anyway.
No suggestions, it is what it is. However, it is valuable... lost my site early on, and it saved my butt.
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
Duskreign's "COTM for November 2011":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
Comments
I for one would feel much more comfortable spending hours upon hours working on my campaign here knowing how dependable the backups are. It would be horrible to lose weeks or even months worth of work due to a server hardware failure, or software issue.
Additionally, as a request, I would feel completely comfortable using the service if there were a way for me to at will grab a backup of my data (maybe limit to once/day per account to resolve any server-strain issues).
I’m thinking maybe just a delimited text file dump of all campaign data. That would be a good way to ensure users of data-source redundancy (since they themselves would be the redundancy).
Additionally just state up front that data recovery (imports) from backups will only be granted in the case of Obsidian Portal failures. This way no request come through with “I messed up, can you re-import my data?”
We keep nightly backups (7 days worth), weekly (1 months worth), and monthly (1 years worth). So, if there's a snafu or crash, we can restore to anytime in the previous week.
In the case of a monstrous failure that goes undetected for several days or weeks, we can go back a couple weeks or even months. In reality, thought, that would probably kill the site. Nobody would come back if we said, "Oops, your data from the past few weeks was lost. Please re-enter it."
Still, what you ask (downloadable backups) is a really great idea, and I have puzzled over it. I'm not too worried over server strain, but rather that the data be in a useful format. I'll put it on the list and see what I can come up with.
Now, don't read that as an excuse to not allow downloadable backup data. Just a "What to do in the meantime" comment. :D
Just a reminder: we do nightly database backups, so if anything went catastrophically wrong, at most you would lose a single day's worth of edits.
@ Micah - I agree that the download wouldn't have to be perfectly edited word docs. Maybe it just spits out all your pages in a single txt?
I'm new to the site and I don't know if something like this has been implemented yet or not, but I would really like to have a local backup of campaign data not just for peace of mind but because I'd like to have my game's information at my fingertips when I'm running and I know that not every place I'll be playing will have internet available, so a local copy would make so much more sense in my situation, and I don't think I'm alone on that one.
Thoughts? Comments? Has this already been done and I just don't know about it?
At the least, the export should be paired with an import for quick uploads. One could make templates for future games that way very easily, and make them available to others if they like.
-S!
The Ethereal Realms HTML RP Software for which several online text style RP sites run, have their rooms, characters and such set up with boxes in set areas that produce the complex coding for just that section - I believe its coded in perl and is useless without having the ER Environment to set itself up, but it is a savable file, and a great way to snapshot part or all of the info quickly.
My thoughts for the backup system are to allow me to click "backup" on an active campaign's settings page and have it generate a single ZIP file that is made up of an image folder with all images uploaded to the site, folders for each tab with, at a minimum, a text file that represents each page in that tab including all of the textile and HTML that was entered. At best rich text format of each page or a working HTML version of the whole campaign.
Just my 2 cents
I notice it's been nearly 3 years since Micah indicated that he thought
this was a good idea, but it doesn't seem to have been implemented yet.
Is this going to happen, as I'm reluctant to commit to Obsidian Portal, (i.e. pay for
it and enter all my notes), if I have to manually backup each page.
And to thank the mods and developers who implemented this feature.
THANKS../bows deeply.
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
- One that includes everything, which the GM can download (the current version, I believe)
- One which excludes GM secret and Player secret sections, which players can download
It's nice sometimes for players to have an offline references. Also, as is the case in my main current campaign, the GM isn't necessarily the one updating things and keeping the closest eye on the site. I would consider buying my GM an Ascendant membership to encourage it, but I'm not sure he's actually got the time for it anyway.
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
Duskreign's "COTM for November 2011":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
Just trying to help out.