An update on the migration situation
As per much IT stuff, it has been more complex than first meets the eye. But progress is being made. I’ve been investigating two potential paths.
Path A: Simple export of our categories and users.
While this hasn’t been technically too hard to rehearse, a lot of stuff gets left behind:
- Images (especially profile pics)
- Personal data including history and bookmarks
- Tags
- Likes, etc
- Personal Messages
- Users who haven’t posted
I’m really not happy with this. Fortunately, HiNZ has provided us with some funding to pursue Plan B:
Path B: Complex merger
This involves taking a copy of the Digital Health Networks, stripping out the unwanted content, and using a rough and ready scripting tool to merge it with HFNZ.
- It retains all of the lost content above
- Brings along a bit of additional unwanted mess.
This has required the additional support of a Discourse migration expert. It turns out that it isn’t performed very often, so it is a learning curve for him too.
So far, two attempts at the complex merger have had to be abandoned due to technical difficulties. We’ll make another on Wed am, and I am hopeful that we’ll nail it this time.
Cc. @pacharanero @jhoeksma