"Keeper of the Archives" appears to be M.I.A.

I want to start a thread for a lens on the "Lens Sample Photo Archives" sub-forum. I checked and double-checked and triple-checked, and there is currently no thread for the lens I want to start a thread for.

I read the sticky with the rules for starting a new thread in the archives sub-forum. In the rules, it says to PM Mike (In2Photos) when planning to start a new thread. I cannot PM, because my inbox is full, and all of the PMs there are really important to me (tons of advice, tips, personal communication, contact info, etc from other forum members), so I am not willing to delete any of them.

Anyway, in lieu of PMing Mike, I tried to contact him thru his PBase account. But his PBase account doesn't exist anymore. Then I tried to contact him thru his MDSportsPhoto website . . . but that is defunct, too (I got a "this domain may be available" message when I clicked on it). Then when I look at his post history, it shows that he has not made a single post on POTN for three years. 3 years!!!

Anyway, I want to know what to do. I do want to follow and respect the rules, but POTN's limitation of 100 PMs, combined with Mike's disappearance, have made it darn difficult to do so.

Is Mike still "the keeper of the archives". If not, then who is? And how can I contact this person outside of POTN's PM system?

Also, if Mike is not the guy anymore, could the sticky be updated? The last time anything in the sticky was edited/updated was 2010. It doesn't seem like a good idea for stickies to be 3-4 years out of date, and to contain instructions that are long obsolete - especially if POTN users are told that they must follow those instructions before posting.

Pekka, please advise as to how I should proceed with the thread I want to start.

Thank you.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #16978738
Anyway, I want to know what to do. I do want to follow and respect the rules, but POTN's limitation of 100 PMs, combined with Mike's disappearance, have made it darn difficult to do so.

Is Mike still "the keeper of the archives". If not, then who is? And how can I contact this person outside of POTN's PM system?

Mike is not a mod any more so he can not edit posts. I should have changed "Archive Keeper" to something else, and the instructions there, sorry. Been busy with coding.

Any mod can edit the archive index post. Reporting it is the easiest way to contact all mods. Please just explain in report what you need to be added.

About PM box full: I would strongly suggest that you download all your PM's to safety.

In page https://photography-on-the.net/forum/private.​php there is a command

Download all Private Messages as:
XML | CSV | Text

Download in chosen format(s), then make room for new PM's by deleting old.

Two things that are good to know:

1. PM is only way mods can respond to questions arisen from reports.

2. PM's or PM folders are not transferred automatically to new software. This is due to security reasons - the PM storage format of vbulletin is so messy and so different from new storage format I do not want to risk importing wrong PM's to wrong people. Also, PM database is full of PM's that are just taking space (banned and retired members etc). I'll make a personal PM import tool but fate of that depends on security, too.

With AMASS I have decided initially to set no PM limits, later there may be some for insane amounts

Pekka,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response - it is really appreciated.

I will heed your warning about PMs - I certainly do not want to lose them when we switch to AMASS. I have a lot of really valuable info there, info that I refer to on a regular basis.

As far as the thread that I want to start in the lens archive, I guess I will go ahead and start it. If you, or any other mod, has any problem with it (and I can't imagine why anyone would), then you can always remove it. There really is a Canon L series lens for which there is no thread - isn't that hard to believe?!

Tom Reichner wrote in post #16979225
There really is a Canon L series lens for which there is no thread - isn't that hard to believe?!

I see you got it done: https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1383678

Thanks!

I added it to https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=1221712#p​ost1221712

PS. found a very old thread about it: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=3635

Hey, Pekka - thanks for the link to that old thread! You yourself contributed to that thread, and shared some helpful & interesting information via the links. And yes, that is a very old thread - POTN must have been a much smaller place 'way back then.