DEVELOPING: All Traces of Stadium Forum, Much of TSS Network Wiped

By
Tristan Oliver
– March 4, 2009

stadium_shutdownDreadknux: “Nobody is sadder to see the loss” than him

TSSZ News has just received comment from Svend Joscelyne, the webmaster of the Sonic Stadium, and the damage to the top Sonic website in the world is quite nearly the sum of all fears.

In particular, members of the Sonic Stadium Message Boards will need to look elsewhere to congregate for the foreseeable future.  Their forum is gone.

The webmaster more commonly known as Dreadknux tells TSSZ News that the site fell victim to a sudden and unexpected account deletion.  As a result, all traces of the SSMB were deleted.  There was no backup.

Furthermore, because of the account deletion, the main Sonic Stadium site as well as its network of sites have all been wiped.  Dreadknux tells TSSZ News there is a backup of the site from the middle of February and it will be in that form that TSS will return, presumably without a major rebuild.  However, that backup lacks TSS history dating back to 2000, and Dreadknux is in the process of recovering some of that history, but it will take a while.

It appears a miscommunication involving automatic payments to the Stadium’s web hosting service is to blame for the mishap.  Dreadknux tells TSSZ News plans are already underway to find new web hosting.

Still, there is no clear timetable as to when The Sonic Stadium will return, in any form.

Here is what Dreadknux sent to TSSZ News just minutes ago:

Here’s what’s happened – our hosts have unceremoniously deleted our account. Apparently the automatic payment system that we subscribed to got ‘cancelled’ (even though none of us performed such an act) and, rather than simply suspending the account until the issue was resolved (or even realising the fault was with them), went straight into termination.

As a result, the SSMB Forums have been completely wiped. No backups exist. The Sonic Stadium has a recent backup up until February 13th, which will likely be the first thing people will see return besides a basic forum to replace the SSMB.

Aside from the forum loss – which is five years of hard work from Admins and Moderators, alongside many memories of our friends and fellow Sonic fans too, down the drain – the most important loss is of TSS content created before the change into a WordPress setup. Luckily I have found most of, if not all, of the relevant articles via Wayback Machine, and will re-add all content from 2000-2009 as soon as possible.

Deeply sorry to anyone who’s been having problems accessing the site and wondering where it has gotten too – trust me, I am absolutely fuming over this turn of events, and nobody is sadder to see the loss of one of the longest standing Sonic forums than me. B’man and myself are working on securing a new host, that will hopefully not dick us around this time.

To all our regular readers and visitors, I ask that you sit tight and I hope you will return when the forums and the website comes back. Thanks for your patience.

In addition to the main Sonic Stadium, TSS-run radio station SegaSonic radio is offline, affecting all programmed shows and all DJs. It is presumed TSS video-on-demand service The Sonic Show is also impacted, as is the Sonic Showcase Network area.

As we previously reported, Sonic Wrecks is offering an olive branch to both the Stadium and its forumers until the website fully resumes operation.  ArchangelUK is opening the door to his forums, Entherial Online, for displaced community members.

TSSZ News will continue to bring you all the latest developments regarding the sudden shutdown of Sonic Stadium, and its road to recovery.  For now, though, what was supposed to be another promising day for Sonic fandom is now a dark day for the community, as one of the cornerstones of it falls victim to unfortunate and unexpected circumstances.  The Stadium–for now–has been imploded.

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