So I spent a few hours this morning writing a script to assign TwistyMegasite messages to their author's new TwistyPuzzles accounts and came up with a nasty problem.

I only have one real way of identifying which messages belong to which people: matching their user name and/or their e-mail address on TwistyMegasite to their new user name and/or e-mail address on TwistyPuzzles. Actually, I wonder if I could look into their IP addresses saved in the TM database... that might help a little too... but this is getting bloody confusing!

I'll use long-time forum poster Michael Cote as my example, if I may. There are a LOT of messages in the TM database that have "Michael" or similar as the poster:

Count - Name - EMail
22 - Michael - michael.cote@TWISTYBLOCKsympatico.ca
3 - Michael - shinzaho@TWISTYBLOCKdca.net
2 - Michael - wearetheborg@TWISTYBLOCKdca.net
3 - michael - mtc32@TWISTYBLOCKcolumbia.edu
144 - Michael -
1 - Michael - mtc32@TWISTYBLOCKcolumbia
1 - Michael - michael.cote@TWISTYBLOCKympatico.ca
4 - Michael Cote -
1 - Michael Cote - michael.cote
1 - Michael Cote - michael.cote@TWISTYBLOCKsymaptico.ca
14 - Michael Cote - michael.cote@TWISTYBLOCKsympatico.ca
178 - Michael -
2 - Michel -
1 - Michel - michael.cote@TWISTYBLOCKsympatico.ca

Some of those are obviously him, and some may or may not be. This new database format doesn't store the e-mail or IP address with the message like Wayne's did, so these e-mail addresses were NOT added to the TwistyPuzzles.com database, which means I can't use them to help me search and replace. That only leaves me with the NAME, and unless the name is different and unique from all others, I can't just do a mass search and replace using the tool I built. So I was only able to search and replace all the "Michael Cote" messages, which only added up to 20... far fewer than the hundreds of messages Michael has written on the forum over the past three years.

Believe me, I'm going to keep working on this to try and figure out a better solution which incorporates the original e-mail address and hopefully the IP address too. A solution which won't absorb some one-time-poster Michael's message into Michael Cote's account.

Sandy

Thanks for all your hard work on this new forum Sandy. I don't know where you find the time, but again thank you. I kind of like the ranking feature. It is nice to know who has been around and active in the forum and who to ask if you have a question.

I am very impressed by their work!
Thank you

I got down to #39 in the Memberlist today. If you have been missed, don't worry. It's probably because I haven't been able to easily match up your new name / e-mail address to your old one. I will private message you within the next few days to ask for your help in sorting it out.

Sandy

Sandy, there is something strange with the old postings. As you account old messages and link them to particular person, the forum shows that the topics had been opened by Guest. In other words, the authors of the topics disappear and become Guest. Inside the topic, however, first message does have the author. For members that you have not converted yet, the forum still shows the topics as being opened by TM-. So it must be the way your script works.

Yeah, I noticed that a few days ago. I know how to fix it, but I haven't written the script to do it yet. Since the script will have to be run after each time I attribute the old "TM-" posts to the new TP accounts, I'm going to wait until after I update the post counts of everyone whom I haven't gotten to yet. Hopefully later today.

Sandy

Thank you, Sandy, for your hard work. Maybe you'll get to mine today
Really, though, don't worry about rushing. We're all rather patient people and already love what you've done. Excellent work!

Finished attributing messages for most people in the Memberlist, although about a dozen have been skipped cause I couldn't find them in the DB. I will PM (private message) you all shortly.

I also fixed the thread problem Aleksey mentioned. The headers for old topics started on the TwistyMegasite by people who are now fully "attributed" TwistyPuzzle members will now appear correctly.

I'm sure there's a better way to explain that, but forget it... I'm moving on to the next issue.

Sandy

Thank you so much!

I'm a 2x2x2 now

Great job, Sandy! Thanks!