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Scottish Hills

Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Sgurr » Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:01 pm

Some of the stuff lost is stuff that I had come to think of as memorial to people who weren't here any more. "Cuillin" was a sort of site patriarch, even though he wasn't particularly old, he had an old fashioned courtesy, but is now, alas , in the grips of early dementia: he told me he could barely bring himself to go to his Graham compleation as he sensed that there was something amiss. "Tundraboy" was another member who would unfailingly comment on others' reports and you could tell he had followed you on the map and make well judged remarks that were a pleasure to get. He fell to his death in wild weather off Sgaoth Aird in Harris: a railway man he was so looking forward to his retirement when he would move to Scotland. "Doogz" was an early adopter of the emoticon on site. All his hill were "SOOPERB" :clap: :roll: :shock: :lol: and no trip more so than his visit to Skye in consistently appalling weather, guided by Graeme Patterson. He battled his way up each hill with his hair rain-plastered to his head. He needed that courage in his long losing battle against a brain tumour. So I feel robbed when I can no longer dip in to their reports.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Coulags » Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:30 pm

Very well put Squiz .
Sad news about Cuillin - I used his reports a lot . And I was lucky enough to walk once with Doogz .
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Sunset tripper » Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:58 pm

Sgurr wrote:Some of the stuff lost is stuff that I had come to think of as memorial to people who weren't here any more. "Cuillin" was a sort of site patriarch, even though he wasn't particularly old, he had an old fashioned courtesy, but is now, alas , in the grips of early dementia: he told me he could barely bring himself to go to his Graham compleation as he sensed that there was something amiss. "Tundraboy" was another member who would unfailingly comment on others' reports and you could tell he had followed you on the map and make well judged remarks that were a pleasure to get. He fell to his death in wild weather off Sgaoth Aird in Harris: a railway man he was so looking forward to his retirement when he would move to Scotland. "Doogz" was an early adopter of the emoticon on site. All his hill were "SOOPERB" :clap: :roll: :shock: :lol: and no trip more so than his visit to Skye in consistently appalling weather, guided by Graeme Patterson. He battled his way up each hill with his hair rain-plastered to his head. He needed that courage in his long losing battle against a brain tumour. So I feel robbed when I can no longer dip in to their reports.



I agree with what you say Sgurr (Squiz). Some great reports lost. It's the curse of the digital world. Several Scottish hills users had reports also on walkhighlands and went in the cream puff and deleted them. I kinda wish WH didn't give them that courtesy. Now that Scottish Hills is off air they will get little exposure.
Next to nobody sees those individual blogs compared to Scottish hills and especially walkhighlands. You put a Web search in they are still hard to find.

Hopefully Scottish hills comes on air again.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby gman » Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:55 am

It maybe highlights a couple of things - if there are any posts, trip reports etc on WH that you have a sentimental attachment to it might be worth taking a back up copy.

Secondly, I would assume that recently Scottish Hills hasn't been the most secure site on the planet and your user data (email address, password etc) may have been breached. If it's a password that you've reused on multiple sites, I'd change it. If you got to SH just now you're getting php source code files downloaded, which is interesting!
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby gav777 » Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:41 am

That's a shame - joined there right at the start and proved an invaluable resource over the years.

From what the poster above says though - I would change any password that you shared there - esp lazy (and I include myself here :wink: ) passwords with the phrase hills in them ...

Shills from memory was a php template forum site that you could customise. Once a backdoor is found in the code for one - any site using these is susceptible to attack.

I would hope that the email/password tables are secure and encrypted but it's better to be safe in this regard.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Sgurr » Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:34 am

gav777 wrote:That's a shame - joined there right at the start and proved an invaluable resource over the years.

From what the poster above says though - I would change any password that you shared there - esp lazy (and I include myself here :wink: ) passwords with the phrase hills in them ...

Shills from memory was a php template forum site that you could customise. Once a backdoor is found in the code for one - any site using these is susceptible to attack.

I would hope that the email/password tables are secure and encrypted but it's better to be safe in this regard.

I don't think it has gone down as a result of an attack, but becase the host would no longer accept the coding it was built on. Still, there is no harm in changing passwords frequently, though I am always going away from home and finding an old password built into my phone for this site, and when I go through the rigmarole of changing, can't get back on my desktop.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Booga » Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:04 pm

Just a thought, I knew of someone who self published all his own walk reports (and those of others with permission) and they could be bought as paperbacks or e-books on a well known website beginning with A (other websites are available). Could something like this be done with some of the reports on Scottishhills? Perhaps be made available as collections of reports by certain users that can be bought/downloaded.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby malky_c » Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:31 pm

Booga wrote:Just a thought, I knew of someone who self published all his own walk reports (and those of others with permission) and they could be bought as paperbacks or e-books on a well known website beginning with A (other websites are available). Could something like this be done with some of the reports on Scottishhills? Perhaps be made available as collections of reports by certain users that can be bought/downloaded.

He also published reports of many people who didn't give permission (and weren't even aware it had been done) so maybe your report it already available!
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Sgurr » Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:40 pm

Booga wrote:Just a thought, I knew of someone who self published all his own walk reports (and those of others with permission) and they could be bought as paperbacks or e-books on a well known website beginning with A (other websites are available). Could something like this be done with some of the reports on Scottishhills? Perhaps be made available as collections of reports by certain users that can be bought/downloaded.

A member of Scottishhills did this without permission. His business model was to ask for permission, which most people ignored (I sent a refusal and didn't get mine "published") then either to charge for a link to the original site, or to print them up rapidly and charge for them, without either the permission of the owner, or handing over any cash. The titles were eerily reminiscent of popular titles. One particular member who was treated like this keeps going onto his facebook page and ranting that he will keep on visiting and ranting until the books for which he provided the material are withdrawn from sale. I don't see any on Amazon, so it may now have pulled the plug on him but there are references if you look hard enough https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11282153.Simon_N_C_Grove I used to visit his Amazon page from time to time and post in the reviews that these were all stolen without the owner's permission, but I could scarcely keep up.


The upshot of all this is, I doubt if many people would give their permission. They may not even have copies elsewhere, though apparently Chris says it is possible to get at some of the data.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby nigheandonn » Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:06 pm

I will definitely miss being able to think of any ultra-obscure hill and see what Sgurr said about it!

I would support a mass import of your reports (support practically, too, if there was anything I could do to help), but I see the point about overloading the forums...
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Booga » Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:21 pm

Sgurr wrote:
Booga wrote:Just a thought, I knew of someone who self published all his own walk reports (and those of others with permission) and they could be bought as paperbacks or e-books on a well known website beginning with A (other websites are available). Could something like this be done with some of the reports on Scottishhills? Perhaps be made available as collections of reports by certain users that can be bought/downloaded.

A member of Scottishhills did this without permission. His business model was to ask for permission, which most people ignored (I sent a refusal and didn't get mine "published") then either to charge for a link to the original site, or to print them up rapidly and charge for them, without either the permission of the owner, or handing over any cash. The titles were eerily reminiscent of popular titles. One particular member who was treated like this keeps going onto his facebook page and ranting that he will keep on visiting and ranting until the books for which he provided the material are withdrawn from sale. I don't see any on Amazon, so it may now have pulled the plug on him but there are references if you look hard enough https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11282153.Simon_N_C_Grove I used to visit his Amazon page from time to time and post in the reviews that these were all stolen without the owner's permission, but I could scarcely keep up.


The upshot of all this is, I doubt if many people would give their permission. They may not even have copies elsewhere, though apparently Chris says it is possible to get at some of the data.


Ah I wasn't aware this was what he was up to and on such a large scale. I just remember seeing him get booted off another forum for constantly plugging "his" books.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby gav777 » Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:37 pm

I don't think it has gone down as a result of an attack, but becase the host would no longer accept the coding it was built on.


That's better, I suppose. Wonder he can't just change hosting, although possibly because the php template has potential security issues, maybe others aren't wanting to use that infrastructure.

If the main database is still there, potentially the reports could be exported as PDF's ... but, that could be a lot of work depending on how easily it could be scripted. Plus, what do you do then with all the PDF's .. .shame when you have put so many man hours into something and control is taken (to a degree) out of your hand.

He also published reports of many people who didn't give permission (and weren't even aware it had been done) so maybe your report it already available!


I'm glad it was just me who felt 'aggrieved' with this :wink: .... thought it was seriously questionable from a variety of angles. Found the poster in general to be a bit intolerable although that was maybe the style of his trip reports.

I used to visit his Amazon page from time to time and post in the reviews that these were all stolen without the owner's permission, but I could scarcely keep up.


:clap:

Thankfully they seem to have long gone now - maybe due to a complaint although I know Amazon clamped down on a lot of the self published stuff due to it clogging the Kindle section with

"my day trip to Tesco - a laugh a minute riot of a read about my weekly shop" -
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Paul Webster » Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:11 pm

It is sad to see Scottish Hills go, but if anyone does want to post their (own!) old reports or move their accounts to Walkhighlands we're very happy to have them. Old reports are valuable as people read them from the hill pages when researching / planning walks.

Several Scottish hills users had reports also on walkhighlands and went in the cream puff and deleted them. I kinda wish WH didn't give them that courtesy. Now that Scottish Hills is off air they will get little exposure.


I'm not quite sure why that happened, but from our perspective your trip reports always belong to you so you can edit them or blank them if you want to.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby Sgurr » Tue Aug 09, 2022 6:38 pm

At what pace can you cope with them? I have 300+ Trs that were Scottishhills only, and I imagine you don't want an avalanche. I put one up about Ben Aden last night as a memorial to Shills, but when should I put up the next, tonight, next week, next month? There may be a lot of people who would like to, but I don't know how many have kept copies in their own computer.
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Re: Scottish Hills

Postby matt_outandabout » Tue Aug 09, 2022 7:36 pm

I hadn't really frequented that forum.

I do think the current social meedja phase is going to reduce soon. I've cut back on mine, I'm fed up of it all.

I find somewhere like here much more useful, and the 'barrier' that having to put effort into a report means that the quality is here in a way that some crappy Facebook group it isn't.

I already pay pro membership of two other forums - Singletrackworld and Song of the Paddle. For the amount of time and pleasure it brings me, is great value.

I personally need to donate/contribute financially here perhaps. 🤔
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