Hi folks. Over the last week or so, myself and Guod have been trying in vain to get the old EECH Central revived, but it looks like the original content is lost.

It will be possible to have a new EECH Central created, but we need content and volunteers.

So this is a call out to the members of the EECH community for help with providing the content and for a few to become editors to help get it set up initially. I know there are a few members that have their own EECH sites, and if possible we could use some of the content from them.

The goal will be to have a site that has everything you'd ever need to know about playing or developing EECH.

http://archive.org/details/wiki-eechcentralcom_wiki

http://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/

Or it already known resource?

It's already known, and it's not a full archive. The archive only has index.php, but each other page of the archive was the index page with a tag on it for the relevant page e.g. index.php?gameplay, which loaded a page from a database. Without the database, there is no other content. The archive has really only archived the images.

You might get more volunteers if you reassured people that regular backups will be taken of the database going forward.

Just saying.

Dare I ask what happened to it? All I saw was a redirect to a site on a different IP so I had assumed it was a typo on some hosting control panel somewhere, a nice easy fix, though I had wondered how it was taking so long!

For what it's worth, I do have a copy of the Manual Engine Startup page and the Mi24v Hind Cockpit page, if those would be any use.


Though I'm guessing that any scribblings I made on bits of paper here about the old 8-bit PCM sounds are probably now rated as 'somewhat obsolete'...

That goes without saying. There's also measures being taken to ensure that the site is not controlled by one person.

The reason we're having to start again is that Werewolf, who owns the eechcentral.com domain and had access to the web host and therefore the database files, cannot be contacted. We've tried various emails and methods, short of actually writing to him.

Guod has kindly offered to host the files on SimHQ, so it will then be held within this site and not by one person.

Doctor_Wibble - that would be a start as we'll have to try to recreate the content from scratch. Could you PM me with it?

A generous offer - and there's a fair amount of information in threads/pages here that could potentially be used as starting points or at least inspiration.


Yup

Edit: yes, two whole pages - I was sure I had more somewhere (I have a habit of saving reference pages just in case I can't reach a site) but I can't find them so I may well have been imagining things...

Thanks! We now have 3 pages of content

messyhead, looks like you know not much about Wiki engine (no offense!). It supports export database to xml file due to engine version compatible. So, you can install MediaWiki on any webserver and import EECH wiki data. I done it on local webserver and it works just fine - I have access to many pages (900 if you will believe import script), but were is bad category import and pages are quite chaotic. I never been on EECH central, but I think wiki was valuable part of this site.

Hmmm. I've not installed a Wiki myself before, although I have created quite a few database driven sites. I was just going on what I had been told by Guod after his technical had looked at the wiki archive. But now that I've opened the xml file in a web browser, there is a lot of content. So I'm just about to set up a web server myself and try it with MediaWiki.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I just installed mediawiki on my own web server, and right enough, all of the content can be imported. It needs some work with the styling and uploading images, but it looks like a complete archive.

I've contacted Guod about having it hosted.

Great news

I hope everything will be ok and we will see it online soon, until then I will use offline backup. I'm sure it will be helpful for other newbies like me >> EECH WIKI << . Sorry for EXE web viewer - MHT&CHM can't show image pages correctly.

Thanks. I've been updating the wiki locally until I know where it can be uploaded to. I've updated the new update links, and removed some pages, like the donate page which is no longer needed.

Hopefully it won't be long till it's online.

I've registered eechcentral.info as the URL which will forward to the SimHQ subdomain once it's set up.

I'm sorry to hear that the original site went down. I can only assume that, perhaps, the guy who owned it has passed away. That would explain why he can't be contacted and why the website disappeared - the subscription may have expired. Does anybody know different?

The same thing happened a few years ago with a guy who had a Longbow 2 website. Luckily I had backed-up his small site in its entirety and now host it myself, at a different web address though.

I've noticed in recent months that a lot of the previous core modders for EEAH/EECH have left, and there's a lot of new names floating around. It's always good to get new interest, but unfortunately a lot of unreleased stuff also gets left unfinished and unpublished.

Please take extra care with the new website. I am a webmaster myself so I know how much work it can be, keeping everything up-and-running smoothly. Always keep 'local' copies of all files and don't just rely on 'remote' hosting as the primary source.

That's just my bit of advice. I wish you guys all the best!

I don't think he's passed away as he posted on one of his other websites just after Christmas. The domain was also renewed until 2014 recently, so the domain isn't controllable until then.He has his website listed as an address at one of his own domains, but it's not working and about 4 or 5 other emails I found for him don't work either.

So for whatever reason, he's not responding.

But I have a full backup online locally now, and it's hopefully going to be hosted at a subdomain of SimHQ so there shouldn't be any problem with it going offline in the future.

I think he just quit his project and nobody can't judge him. I saying so because I done exactly same thing several years ago, but I wished good luck to all before leaving =)

OK, cool.

I find it curious that www.eechcentral.com now redirects to www.sofurry.com. I'd say that is his website and he's hijacked the domain name for his own purposes.

I hate it when people start something, lose interest and then just clear off and stop communicating... holding everyone to ransom in the process. He could have at least had the courtesy to tell you what his plans were, give you the opportunity to takeover the domain name and to offload all his assets to you.

I'm not going to start having a go at him, and I don' think anyone else should start. He was on just at the end of last year still posting about getting the commserver setup and moving the wiki. But for whatever reason that didn't happen.

The main thing is that the archive exists, is usable, and should hopefully be available soon.

I'm happy to announce that eechcentral is now back online, and hosted right here on SimHQ.com.

http://eechcentral.simhq.com

The link will always be posted at the top of the EECH forum.

Everyone should give Messyhead a big thanks for his efforts getting this back online! WTG bud!

There are still some warts and clean-up to do. Be patience while he dissects the gazillion pages. It was literally recovered from the bin, so it will take some time.