E-sangha news

[David N. Snyder]

We already have a thread about e-sangha updates, but I thought I would start another here to reiterate some important messages:

All posts disparaging e-sangha will be removed. Some of you who responded to those posts (in other threads) may also see your posts removed. This is not anything against you, just to keep the flow of discussion on topic and your post may no longer be relevant since the disparaging comments will be removed.

PLEASE keep all comments about e-sangha toward your ability or not to log-in, updates you might have from Leo or another admin. over there, or for suggestions on how we might be able to help them get back online!

Thank you!

On another matter, we have many new members who have joined us who were regular participants at e-sangha. You are most welcome here! We would like for you to even stay and participate in our sites here and over at e-sangha, once it is back up again.

But for those of you who practice and post mostly in Vajrayana and Mahayana forums, this is a primarily Theravada forum. You are still most welcome, just keep in mind that topics should be related to Theravada, Theravada and Mahayana comparisons, and General Buddhism discussions. Topics and posts which are stricly Vajrayana, Mahayana, Zen, etc. with no relation to Theravada or the Pali Canon will be removed.

We have a sister site set-up which is for the discussion on the Dharma of the Mahayana and Vajrayana over at:

http://www.dharmawheel.net/

Please post any topics that are strictly Vajrayana, Mahayana over there. Thank you!

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Latest news from Leo (aka Teyes) from E-Sangha...

http://www.e-sangha.com/
We need your help to restore E-Sangha site.
How can you help E-Sangha - If you are an expert in recovering lost data or you are working in a professional data recovery centre, please do email me at esangha@gmail.com . Our hosting provider refuses to take responsibility for the massive loss of data in E-Sangha. If you are an attorney or know any attorney who can represent us out of goodwill, please do email me. Thanks.

Metta,
Retro.

[LauraJ]

Thank you for the update Retro

To reiterate what David wrote, he and Retro set up a really nice place for us Mahayana folks. Not that we can't post here, but it's a cool Mahayana forum. Dharma Wheel

See you there I hope!

[Su Dongpo]

Greetings,

I was posting to e-sangha on a more or less daily basis when it went down, then switched to the Buddhist Community website for a week or so. I quit that site last week after malware warning from my security software (Avast) kept alerting me to a trojan jumping off that site as well. I alerted other members and Leo, but after a week of no responses, decided to play it safe and quit for the time being.



I suspect there is something wrong at www.buddhist-community.com as well as e-sangha -- have no clue if these would be related -- but since no other members at Buddhist Community reported similar problems, and since Leo seems to have his hands more than full at the moment, it may just be a problem with my computer(s), although I did scan and check and found nothing problematic. I am not enough of a techie to know one way or the other, however.

I hope these problems get ironed out soon. In the meantime, I am happy to discover so many of you here at "The Wheel".

Best regards,
heybai

[David N. Snyder]

Hi heybai,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel!

I think there might be something with Buddhist Community too. I notice that none of the recent members, going back about two weeks or so have any avatar pictures. All the members' pictures you see are the "old-timers" who uploaded pics. before the problems.

[Su Dongpo]

Hi David,

The avatar problem may be a separate issue. Leo posted a message about ten days ago explaining that that function wasn't working and that he does not have time at the moment to fix it.

heybai

[Ben]

Welcome Heybai!
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel!
Ben

[davcuts]

I tried to join the Buddhist Community twice and had no success. The email that was supposed to be sent to join never came. I checked to make sure I had entered the correct email address and I had. I believe there is something wrong with the Buddhist Community. It seems someone has intentionally attacked both e-Sangha and the Buddhist Community. I hope Leo can trace who hacked into them and take legal action. I know a lot of people dislike e-Sangha but to intentionally attack it is just wrong. I miss e-Sangha and I am sad Leo is having to go through all of this. The fact that someone intentionally attacked e-sangha makes me sadder. E-Sangha is my sangha, and it is for a lot of others as well who have no access to teachers. It's a shame someone had such hate in their hearts they felt the need to harm it.

[Ben]

Hi Davcuts
Indeed, the outage of e-sangha is a great tragedy for many Buddhists worldwide.
Feel free to hang out here at Dhamma Wheel, and I hope that until e-sangha rises from the ashes, we can support you in your practice.
metta

Ben

[christopher:::]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

[tiltbillings]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

[Annapurna]

I hope Leo can trace who hacked into them and take legal action. I know a lot of people dislike e-Sang ha but to intentionally attack it is just wrong. I miss e-Sangha and I am sad Leo is having to go through all of this. The fact that someone intentionally attacked e-sangha makes me sadder. E-Sangha is my sangha, and it is for a lot of others as well who have no access to teachers. It's a shame someone had such hate in their hearts they felt the need to harm it.

I hope you'll feel at home here too, Davcuts.

[Annapurna]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

Would it not perhaps be better, to make a brandnew start? Soon?

While taking legal action?

[poto]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

Would it not perhaps be better, to make a brandnew start? Soon?

While taking legal action?

I would also have thought that restoring from an older backup would have been the next logical step, but maybe there weren't any older backups being kept. I don't know. Since it's been down so long, I can only assume that the only working database they had is toast. A fresh install might be the only option at this point.

As to legal action against the hosting provider. Nothing will come of this. It's the webmaster's job to backup their own data unless the host specifically provides that service. Most hosting Terms of Service do not allow you to sue for lost data. The only possible legal recourse would be against the hackers, if you could find them.

[David N. Snyder]

As to legal action against the hosting provider. Nothing will come of this. It's the webmaster's job to backup their own data unless the host specifically provides that service. Most hosting Terms of Service do not allow you to sue for lost data. The only possible legal recourse would be against the hackers, if you could find them.

And then if the hackers are in one country, such as Russia and Leo is in another, Singapore and the server and hosting is in the U.S., it would be difficult if not impossible to sue since there would be no venue or jurisdiction for the court.

I think part of the reason for the delay may be that it is just so heart-breaking for Leo and the administrators to start all over from scratch. It was the largest English language Buddhist forum (that I know of) that ever existed. It had something like 1.4 million posts and about 60,000 members. Can you imagine how long it will take to build that base up again? So they are probably still searching for ways to restore it to the level it was at.

[Annapurna]

Wasn't e sangha already down in summer?

Was that also a hacker attack? Perhaps a dress rehearsal? By the same?

And didn't they lose some threads, but only back to the last 'safety copy' ?

Anyhow, I am sure e sangha will rise again.

[Paññāsikhara]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

My understanding is that there was one, but then the host over wrote it with a corrupted copy.
It's curious that the Way Back Machine archive also can't pull out older archives of it, either.

[Jechbi]

I don't mean to be insensitive, but isn't this a good opportunity to practice detachment and come to a better appreciation of the impermanent nature of all phenomena?

destroyed.jpg (69.63 KiB) Viewed 2618 times

[tiltbillings]

Hi all. I may have missed a post about this, but don't they have an older version (a few months old maybe) with Esangha data available that they could re-boot with?

One would think so.

My understanding is that there was one, but then the host over wrote it with a corrupted copy.
It's curious that the Way Back Machine archive also can't pull out older archives of it, either.

Odd that a back-up was not stored separately from the original as a precaution against just this sort of thing. As far as the Way Back Machine is concerned, that was a problem I noticed months ago. I tried using it to look at threads that had been deleted from ES and I found that threads and sections that I knew still existed were not accessible via the WBM.

If this was malicious hack by a disaffected user(s) - and gawd knows they are out there - I hope this is an opportunity for the ES powers such as Leo and Namdrol to reflect upon past policies whether they are able to recover the old data base or are going to have restart from scratch.

[Jechbi]

Interestingly, it looks like some people who have had issues with E-sangha might be in a position to help, if some reconciliation could occur. From here:

We have also downloaded substantially all of the archives of E-Sangha ...

Time to try to bury the hatchet?