Gary

Hi,

Shetlopedia was hacked and they really made a mess of the website; also shetlanddictionary.com was affected.  Unfortunately a lack of time and expertise has meant that the website didn't get back up and running; although we still hold the backups for the website and we're keen to get it back.

We're looking at the possibility of getting it back online very soon; and then we'll be looking for people to help as administrators on the website.  We'll also be looking for people with the expertise to prevent similar sort of hacking happening again.  It may be that we have to pay a company to host the site for us and to take responsibility for the security of it; or we may find someone willing to help us out. 

Shetlopedia and ShetlandDictionary.com have always been free from any sort of advertising or income, and we're planning to continue that way; although we have considered the possibility of allowing limited advertising with the income going directly to one or more Shetland based charities which would be chosen by Shetlopedia's members.  I'd be interested to hear peoples thoughts on this; and how they would see it working.

A budget has been set aside to get Shetlopedia and ShetlandDictionary.com back online and hosted securely.  It now just requires some time and effort to make it happen.  

You can contact me (Gary Johnson) on the Shetlopedia admin email address (admin  -  at  -  shetlopedia . com) and let me know if you have any questions.  And if you're interested in volunteering in any capacity (administrator, contributor, marketing, website security expert) then please get in touch and let me know.

We're hoping that the website will be back online by the end of the year; and open for people to edit.

Many thanks,

Gary Johnson

It seems that Shetlopedia was hacked by some fairly persistent hackers. The logs show that the IP addresses involved were working on it for some time; and that they were finally succesful.

The website was taken down for maintenance recently, and that involved freezing the website so that no edits could be made and new user creation was disabled. This was a response to the spam attacks we've been suffering on the website over the past few months. We upgraded to the latest PHP and Mediawiki versions, but continued to have some issues. The recent spam attack was more serious though, and appears to be the hackers taking advantage of a vulnerability in the recent MediaWiki build.

The website has been rolled back to the pre-hack stage. We have also locked it down completely so that no access by the hackers can be made. We're reviewing the website security to prevent this happening again. We're also investigating the possibility of paying for a specialist, managed MediaWiki service to host Shetlopedia. A company that will handle all software installations, upgrades and security.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused. We hope to have Shetlopedia back online as soon as possible, but only when we're happy that the website is once again secure.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns regarding Shetlopedia or ShetlandDictionary.com, then please email us on admin (at) shetlopeida (dot) com.

Regards,

Gary

Hi Malachy,

Thanks for letting us know about the problem. Sorry for the delay in replying, but I only saw the message today.

I'm not seeing the same issue, but I'm looking into it. I'm not sure why you'd get an adware warning, there is definately no adware on the website. Could you please email me (admin at shetlopedia.com) with the exact error message so I can look into it for you?

It's worth trying Ghostrider's suggestion of deleting the cookies in your browser in case one of them has become corrupted. Please let me know if this works.

I've tried going through Firefox and it works fine for me. I also have Spyware Doctor installed as well. I'll look into it though and I'll try to replicate the problem; but so far I've had no luck.

Let me know how you get on with deleting the cookies. Also, could you try going directly to

http://shetlopedia.com/Main_Page

and see if that works.

Thanks,

Gary

Thanks Islandhopper. Sadly that's how it is.

A number of articles from Shetlopedia have been copied on to Wikipedia with a comment on the bottom along the lines of

"This article incorporates text from the article on Shetlopedia"

In most cases 100% of the article is copied and pasted from Shetlopedia, with no changes made by the Wikipedia 'author'; not even internal page-link corrections in some cases. No mention of the Shetlopedia author or authors names are provided. As Wikipedia seemed to be copying new articles every few days, eventually there would be nothing left on Shetlopedia that you couldn't find on Wikipedia or one of its many mirror websites. We didn't want Shetlopedia to be lost amongst all of this, so we stopped them from copying.

Fjool,

thanks for your comments. The change to the copyright was made on Friday to prevent a weekend of Wikipedia copying. We're now looking at suitable licenses for Shetlopedia, and talking to some people who know a little more about copyright law.

Regards

Gary

Freyr,

The decision to change to 'all rights reserved' was made last week in order to prevent the copying of Shetlopedia content onto other websites. So much of the Shetlopedia content was being copied that we decided to make this change. The contributors to Shetlopedia have done a lot of work over the past year, and it would be disappointing for other websites to take the credit for their work. For that reason we made the change to the licensing.

Contributors retain the copyright of their own articles and photos. The new license being worked out at them moment will show that the author/photographers will retain the copyright. Anyone who wants to use any of that work will have to get permission from the authors first. Shetlopedia will not own the content, the people who write it will.

Shetlopedia is a non profit website run by the people who contribut to it. We do not display advertising, and we do not raise money in any way.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Best regards

Gary

it would mean they'd end up making 5 to 6 spam posts rather as just one just so they could get their links in.

Maybe, but human spammers will concentrate on websites that make it easy for them. If you make it a little bit more difficult for them to post their links, they're more likely to bother someone else instead. If they have to register a new user and then post a few posts (without being deleted first), before they can post their links, then it might put some of them off. You can also install a mod that prevents them from posting links until they've been registered for a period of time specified by the website. A combined approach like that might work. They have to post 10 messages before being allowed to post links, and they also have to wait a week. By that time you would have hopefully recognised their messages as spam and deleted or suspended the user. This would be less inconvenient for everyone than manually approving each registration.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

Bryan,

I will PM you the details later on when I'm back at my own PC.

There is also a mod that prevents new users from posting website links on the forum until their message count reaches a certain level. So if they do manage to register their account, they can't immediately post website links.

Spam has been a problem recently on the websites, but a few recent changes has almost stopped it. I'm sure the spammers will find away around it soon, but we'll just have to try and stay one step ahead of them.

Cheers

Gary

Bryan,

The Shetlopedia forums were getting a lot of spam for a while. We tried different captcha's and plug-in's but none of them were much use. We were getting around 20 new spam registrations each day, and an occasional posting from them. A few months ago I found a photo-captcha which displays a few photos when registering, and asks the user to tick the box of any photos containing animals. If the incorrect boxes are checked then the registration fails. The photos are randomly displayed, and you can replace the standard photos with your own. Since installing it we've had no spam registrations, and users registering manually have still managed to register. I can see in the logs that we sill have these spammers trying to register, but so far none of them have been succesful.

The Shetland Amateur Radio forums (http://www.gm3zet.org/phpBB2/index.php) have also installed this plug-in, and as far as I know it's helped them prevent the automated spam. If you want to get rid of the spam registrations (the automated ones at least) then this is the only thing that has worked for us. You can download this from the PHPBB website, or I can email it onto you if you're interested.

By the way, the new-look Shetlink is looking good. Well done.

Cheers

Gary

Wolfgang,

It's almost there now, but having problems with the images.

Do you see the website now?

Cheers

Gary

We've had some big problems with the hosting of Shetlopedia and ShetlandDictionary. On Wednesday the hosting company just closed down and disappeared, no warning from anyone. It's not just Shetlopedia and ShetlandDictionary that were affected, but a few hundred other websites as well. I've spoken with the owners of a few of them, and they're all in the same position.

The hosting company wont respond to emails and they wont answer their phones. I have an address for them which I'll be visiting next week, but I don't expect to find anyone there.

The good news is that I had taken a backup of both websites last Saturday evening. We've still lost the work done on the wiki's between Sunday and Wednesday, but those were very quiet days for the websites anyway. It's unfortunate, but unless we can get the backups from the hosts, then we'll not be able to recover those changes.

I spent a couple of days finding new hosts, making sure that the new hosts were well established and had good references. I am restoring the backups onto these new servers just now, and hope to get it completed by tomorrow.

If you go to http://www.shetlopedia.com, you should see the temporary front page for Shetlopedia. (if you don't then refresh the page). This has a link to click on which will take you to Shetlopedia.

There are a lot of things still to restore, a lot of settings that were changed on the old site and lots of files to upload. Hopefully this will be completed by tomorrow.

After Shetlopedia, I'll be restoring ShetlandDictionary.com.

Apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

Gary

http://www.shetlopedia.com and http://www.shetlanddictionary.com should now both be back online, and a new hosting company in place.

Cheers

Gary

I've been busy finding a new host and I'm hoping to move the websites today and tomorrow. The other hosts messed up, and then went away for Christmas without sorting it out.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone on Shetlopedia, ShetlandDictionary, Shetlink and everywhere else.

Cheers

Gary

http://www.shetlopedia.com and http://www.shetlanddictionary.com are both down at the moment.

There are some server issues just now which are being looked into. The hosts attempted to upgrade to the latest version of php, but instead they've stopped any website that uses php from working. They've assured me that they will sort this out very soon, or they will roll-back to the latest version of php.

Gary

I have a Samsung YP-K5

It's only 4GB and it's a bit chunky, but it has a built in speaker, FM radio, alarm clock and sleep timer. The sound from the built in speaker is surprisingly good.

I'd recommend it, but only if you find the built in speaker useful. I use it when I'm travelling. If you wont use the built in speaker, then get something more compact.

http://www.samsung.com/Products/MP3Player/MP3Player/YP_K5JABXAA.asp

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/innovations/story/0,,1871472,00.html

I also have an Archos AV500 100GB Multimedia Player

http://www.amazon.com/Archos-AV500-Multimedia-Player-DVR/dp/B000AQDOKM

Great for watching films on when you're travelling, also has a built in speaker.

Gary

There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't

I have just spent a few minutes trying to find the link to my website under Shetland Businesses - it used to be there and if you search, it is but not coming up on the page.

 

I cannot find anyone to ask to help. I do not understand the way it is set up as i do not speak fluent HTML.

Frances144. I've checked, and your website has never been added to Shetland Businesses. You added it to the Shetland Websites page on the 9th July but you did not add it to Shetland Businesses. If you look at the Shetland Websites page, that's where you will still find your entry.

JASTEWART has now added a page for your business, and I've added some information against it. It is now listed in the Shetland Businesses section. You might want to go on to this page and add some information of your own, to do this click on the EDIT button at the top of the page and there you can add your own text. No HTML required.

If you need help on the website, there are a number of places to find it. You can click onto my name (or any of the other contributors) and click the 'Email This User' option. Or you can use the online Help pages (http://www.shetlopedia.com/Help:Contents). You can also go to any page, click on the discussion tab and ask your question there. As well as that we have a discussions forum that can be used to ask questions (http://www.shetlopedia.com/forums/). Your comment does highlight to us that there is no 'Contact Us' section, so we'll go ahead and add one in.

We're also trying to develop input forms, so if someone wants to add a new business they get a form to complete with the business name, address, description, website, etc and Shetlopedia creates the page itself. This will be used in different parts of the website and will make things easier for inexperienced users. We just have to find the time now to develop these input forms.

It is a load of sharn, IMHO, and I am seriously pissed off. I want to ask someone what I am doing wrong, but there is no where to look and no one to ask. the organisers just assume everyone understands the concept and I, for one, do not get it at all. A waste of cyber space.

Well you're entitled to your opinion, but I think you're being unfair. Shetlopedia.com is run by volunteers, no-one makes any money from the site and we're just doing what we can in the time available. We're all busy with work/study, etc. and Shetlopedia and ShetlandDictionary.com are both big projects. It will take time to get right, but we're putting a lot of effort into doing that. I think that we've got a couple of pretty good sites so far, and with some tweaking they'll be even better. You have your own opinion though and I respect that.

With regards to your business, if you google for your business name, you will find that apart from the your own website, the only link you get on google comes from Shetlopedia.com. If you think Shetlopedia is "A waste of cyber space" then that's your opinion, but it is the only website out there to mention your business name and help promote it.

LerwickJigger writes

Ive been on Shetlopedia several times and have found very interesting. i think in principle it is a good idea but needs to have more intuitive navigation to help find all the information that is on the site. There is a lot of information on the site but they don't tell you anywhere what information there is.

We're aware of this problem. The website has grown very quickly (over 600 pages now) and so the navigation we set up is out of date. It's more difficult to find your way around the site than we'd like and we're discussing ideas about how to improve this. We've started this by trying to categorise as many pages as possible and we'll be working on a few site changes over the next few weeks.

Ghostrider writes

I've had a quick look a half dozen or so times since it started, the last being a few days back, it's difficult to get interested though when most of what you read you already know.

Well the site is in its early stages but it's growing quickly. The content takes time to build up, but it's getting there. If you have content you'd like to add then please do so.

Thank you for all your comments, we're happy to hear them so we can use them to develop a better website. If you have any comments/suggestions/criticisms about Shetlopedia.com, you can post them on the forums page of Shetlopedia http://www.shetlopedia.com/forums/, or you can email me directly on admin at shetlopedia dot com, and we'll do our best to help out.

Gary

Shetlopedia.com have launched a sister site ShetlandDictionary.com to continue their succesful Shetland Dictionary Project. Created and managed by the Shetlopedia.com team, ShetlandDictionary.com was created to record the Shetland language and make it available to everyone.

ShetlandDictionary.com is an online dictionary which anyone can edit. As with Shetlopedia.com, the website is built using Mediawiki. This allows users to go onto the website and add their own words, images and recordings. We have created a Shetland to English version of the dictionary and we're currently working on an English to Shetland version as well. Both versions are available now through ShetlandDictionary.com. We're also making recordings of the words and sentences being spoken so visitors to the website can listen as well. (any volunteers to record a few words?)

Yesterday, Radio Shetland announced that the Shetland Folk Society are planning a similar website to be launched towards the end of this year. We want to make it clear now that neither the Shetlopedia.com team, or the Shetland Folk Society have copied the idea from the other group. We were unaware of their intentions and it seems unlikely that they were aware of ours.

We do think that it is a wasted effort having two competing sites, and that both groups have a lot of enthusiasm and experience to offer this sort of project. So we will contact the Shetland Folk Society and discuss how we can work together.

The Shetland Folk Society website is still not live, so ShetlandDictionary.com will continue as planned, collecting and promoting Shetland words. At last count we had over six hundred words in the dictionary, and it continues to grow quickly. We hope that words from both sites can be merged into one site in the future. The Internet gives Shetland a unique opportunity to preserve and share its language, something that no other media can compete with. We should use this opportunity when we still can.

If you are interested, take a look at the website http://www.shetlanddictionary.com, and if you know of any words that we've missed, please add them in, or post them as a reply to this message and we'll add them.

We are continuing to improve both websites. ShetlandDictionary.com will soon display a new page for each word in the dictionary, with images, recordings of words and sentences, and where possible details of where the word comes from (Scots, Norn, etc). Shetlopedia.com now has over 450 pages of content and over 200 photos so we're categorising and indexing pages to make it easier to find articles of interest.

If you have any questions then please contact me through either of the websites, or private message me through my Shetlink account.

Regards

Gary

Thank you Nautim,

I'll be trying it out tonight.

I've asked my Granny for the recipe a few times but she never measures anything out. She says things like 'A hand foo o dis, an a sprinklin a dat. Mix it all up and den add in some oh dis and a bit maer oh dat'. I always end up with too much of one thing and not enough of something else. I'll try your recipe tonight and maybe give what's left to the people in the office tomorrow.

Thank you again.

Gary

Does anyone have a good recipe for bannocks. I'm in Moscow for a few weeks and have a craving, will try to make some tonight if anyone can tell me how...

Thanks

Gary

BigMouth Wrote:

Mine are hitting me in my mid-forties. I am a little stiffer every morning

Reminds me of a joke I once heard.

A frail 90 year old man goes see his doctor and the doctor asks him how he's feeling.

"I am stronger today than I have been at any other time in my life" replies the old man.

"Really?" asks the surprised doctor.

"Yes, when I was 18 and I had...."

Nah better not.

JAStewart.

I'm looking into this. It is likely to be an problem with your ISP. I'll send you an email with some info.

Cheers

Gary

peeriebryan Wrote:

From Shetlink's point of view, there really is nothing to clear up

Thank you. It seems that Shetlink and Shetlopedia can work well together, so we may as well both take advantage of it.

Free webspace eh!

I run a few websites, and found that I was spending so much money on hosting them, that I was better off setting myself up as a web hoster. Now I can host as many sites as I want to, and it doesn't cost me any extra, and I have complete control over them. So to run Shetlopedia on my servers, costs me nothing more than the domain names and my time. I generally use the webspace myself, I don't sell web hosting, but I have given it away to a few friends who want their own website, or maybe just a domain name for their own email address. I also have a couple of small businesses hosting sites with me.

If you ever want to test a website, or part of a website, without going live on Shetlink. Let me know and I can allocate you some space. If you don't have spare a domain name then I can give you access to one, I've got a couple of spare test sites that I use.

I was worried that it was being 'hoovered up' by someone who was going to sit on it without using it. There are tons of great Shetland related domain names which have been registered by people who haven't used them, and may have no intention of using them (you know who you are!) It's a real pain for folk who genuinely want them

I agree. I've noticed this myself, and I it was probably a wise move for you to take the .co.uk name.

I'm more than happy to pass on the .co.uk to shetlopedia

That's very kind of you to offer. I'll drop you an email so we can come to some arrangement.

http://www.shetlopedia.com/index.php/Shetlink

Cheers min. I've had a look-see. I'll get working on it ASAP

Thank you, I'll keep a watch on the page.

I reckon the potential synergies are endless. We'll have to get our heads together on this one

Maybe discuss it over a beer. I think there's plenty we can do to help each other.

I'll be back in Sunny Shetland in a week or so, and I'm planning a Shetlopedia.com night out in town. You're all welcome to come along and make it a Shetlink-Shetlopedia night out.

I'm up for that. Any excuse!

Good. I'll be posting up a notice on Shetlopedia, and I'll do the same on Shetlink. Still waiting for confirmed dates to come home though, but I have to be in Shetland by the 23rd July (Granny's 80th).

We can easily run a poll for you on Shetlink. It's all ready to go (personnaly, I reckon drop the .com. We did after a month or two. If you're sick of it now, it won't get any better!)

I think you're right. No-one calls it Shetlopedia.com now, everyone calls it Shetlopedia. We'll probably change it now before we develop the logo's any further.

If you need a logo or banner done, give Njugle (one of the Shetlink moderators) a shout. I doubt you need any help with Wibby on board though

Wibby has said that he'll do a logo, hopefully it'll be ready by the time I'm back in Shetland. If he doesn't have time though, then maybe I'll give Njugle a shout.

Thanks very much, and we wish you all the best in return. The community members are the real ones to congratulate though

I agree with that. The sites really taken off since the press release. We did a lot of early work on the site, creating pages, testing things, etc. But it's the content that makes the site work. Thanks to everyone who's been adding content.

I look forward to a working with you in the future, Bryan

And I look forward to working with you. Hopefully it can be beneficial to both sites.

Cheers

Gary

JAStewart Wrote

Its the ONLY website that isn't loading for me.

I have no idea why you, (and only you) were unable to see the site.

It's all working now, so let me know if it happens again and we'll look into it.

Maybe I am wrong on this but arent the birds in this picture fulmars

Thank you for pointing out my mistake here. I've made the change, you can now see the image at

http://www.shetlopedia.com/index.php/Image:Shetlopedia.com_Shetland_Fulmars_Mallies.JPG

Or on the Eshaness page

http://www.shetlopedia.com/index.php/Eshaness

Yup, they are Fulmars, Mallies (I hope dey will pit da Shetland names alang wi aa things dey can.)

Definately. We want to reference both Shetland and English versions of words wherever possible.

Cheers

Greetings from Moscow

Just a quick post to clear a few things up.

I discovered Wikipedia back in May this year. Understandably, Wikipedia don't want detailed information about Shetland place names, people and stories, etc. So I thought I'd set up a site that did. The name was originally a choice between Shetlapedia.com and Shetlopedia.com. After talking to a few people, we agreed on Shetlopedia.com. We did not know that this name had already been discussed by anyone else.

Had I known that Shetlink were considering such a site, I would probably have donated them some free webspace, volunteered to help them set it up and been glad that someone else was doing all the work. Shetlopedia.com will not have advertising, and we're not trying to make any money from it. I created the site because I thought it would be interesting.

I registered the name Shetlopedia.com on the 24th May. On the 27th May when waiting in Moscow airport for a flight to London, I spent an hour surfing the Net. I was looking for Shetland sites that might link to Shetlopedia.com. That's when I first discovered Shetlink. I became a member, sent an email enquiring about the cost of advertising (although didn't mention what I wanted to advertise), and later received a reply from Bryan. So I'm sorry if anyone still believes that the idea was taken from Shetlink. It really wasn't.

Shetlopedia.com has been up and running for over a month now, but was officially launched last week. The launch has been a success, but there's still a lot of work to do. I don't think we realised how much work would be involved, but it's been an interesting learning experience.

Shetlopedia.com has a Shetlink page, and has done since the beginning (although we recently changed the page name from Shetlink.com to just Shetlink). User JAStewart has made some updates, but there's plenty of room for more to be added. Please take a look and use it to promote Shetlink.

http://www.shetlopedia.com/index.php/Shetlink

There has been some suggestion of synergies between the sites, why not? There's nothing to stop Shetlink members adding pages and/or links back to Shetlink. If there's something on Shetlink that you want to link back to, then go to shetlopedia.com and add the link. That's what the site is there for, to gather information and promote all things Shetland.

I've been reading some of todays posts, and I like the ghost thread. I have added a link back to it from the Shetland Folklore pages on Shetlopedia.com.

See http://www.shetlopedia.com/index.php/Shetland_Folklore

I think your suggestion of a collection of ghost stories on Shetlink is a great idea, and we'll be happy to link to each of the stories from Shetlopedia.com. Why not collect them all together and get them published in time for halloween? I'm sure the Shetland Times would go for it, and it would raise some funds for Shetlink.

I'll be back in Sunny Shetland in a week or so, and I'm planning a Shetlopedia.com night out in town. You're all welcome to come along and make it a Shetlink-Shetlopedia night out.

By the way, we're thinking of changing the name to just Shetlopedia, getting sick of adding the .com at the end everytime. Wikipedia.org is known just as Wikipedia. Should Shetlopedia.com be known as Shetlopedia? I'm adding a poll to Shetlopedia.com (if I can get the plugin to work). But welcome your views as well.

Bryan, now that Shetlopedia.com is up and running, I'll be in touch again about advertising. Still waiting for a logo to be designed, but once that's done we can create an ad banner.

I want to add my congratulations to the Shetlink team. What you have here is a very nice online community. I can only compare it to a Chiswick site that I sometimes use.

http://www.chiswickw4.com/default.asp?section=community&link=http://nnet-server.com/server/app/forum/default.asp?site=1

Use it if you want to talk about organic vegetables, nannies or Ant and Dec shopping in Sainsbury's.

Their website www.chiswickw4.com may give you some ideas. It's a very popular site in Chiswick. People even chat about it in the pub.

I have to work now, but I'll check back this evening to see what's happening. If you have any questions then the best way to contact me is by email. I'll not post the address on the site, but if you go to Shetlopedia.com, click on the Users List (under special pages), you can click on my name (Garywiki) and send me an email from there.

I hope this clears things up.

All the best

Gary