Ten Years of RAFCommands 2.0

[Jagan]

https://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sh...of-RAFCommands

TL;DR : Its been ten years since Ross decided to take a break and decided to transfer RAFCommands, and with I took over the management with the contributions (Both financial, material, information) from members here.

Has it been Ten Years already??? Wow!!. how many of you would really thought this would still be continued the way this was envisioned for the next ten years? I hope we have a thread like this in another ten years..

Seems only yesterday that Ross mulled about handing the forum over and it was on a whim that I volunteered with the condition that others chip in with the funds. At that time 20 members stepped forward to contribute towards the expenses. And I had to turn away a few more as we had reached the limit of what was required. So once again thank you to all those who stepped forward at that time. You know who you are.. (And I have that list with me still). Since then it has been a part of my life and I hope I will be able to continue building this with the same focus.


The forum:

14844 threads prior to the transfer of the forum. 15195 threads after the transfer
89621 posts prior to the transfer of the forum. 90477 posts after the transfer (6000 roughly are from Jon Heyworth!)

Since Ross managed the first 6 years of the forum in the "vbulletin" format . and the second set of numbers come from the next ten years, one might be tempted to think the forum participation has gone down, but it can be explained that many of the answers from ten years ago are now answered via the database, so not many new posts may be coming up.

PS: Ross ran the site since 1999 and various forums since 2001 , Stats from those are not easily available..

Our Top Contributors since then have been. (Posts > 1000)

6072 jonheyworth
4965 paulmcmillan
4224 wwrsimon
4119 COL BRUGGY
3577 Alex Smart
3110 Resmoroh
2634 malcolm_raf
2367 CZ_RAF
1767 HughAHalliday
1587 PeteT
1544 Jagan
1479 Lyffe
1347 dennis_burke
1284 Steve Smith
1117 vrajm
1057 alieneyes
(Thank you all of the above and many who are not listed here, but made 100s of posts over the years participating in these forums)

The Database

I added my own bit of value to the the legacy left by Ross in building the database section which in a way has become one of the most visited sections of the site along with the forum.

Henk's vision was kept alive (Thanks to this guy) by keeping the unaccounted threads going, but we took that vision it to the ultimate version with the RAFCommands CWGC War Deaths database. What started out as a "Search" tool became the "go-to" database that is recommended even by CWGC. While I always knew that Henks data needed to go into a database, I admit, I never thought we would go beyond 92-93% but to be knocking on the doors of 99% was never truly in question. Thanks to everyone who contributed on the forum and the db directly and also this guy who joined the party late but is keeping it going!

The serials database is the next highly visited section of the database. it started out as mere serial search query tool but ended up becoming a real database.. One fine day we will have all the Accident Cards, Movement Cards, Loss Cards... (i can dream - cant I?). But I have help here as well!

And we fixed the other DBs and integrated them as well. POW DB, Evaders DB , AIR81, AIR27 and the Awards DB - All of these are the only one of their kind on the net. The contributors to these DBs are listed on the DB Page

It gave me an outlet for my own "pet" projects - the LG Index, the SEAC Losses, the Hurricane DB

All in all , the databases over time have 1.5 million individual records (385K serials, 370k gazette entries, 124k CWGC, 100k awards etc)..

Among other things that RAFCommands 2.0 bought out

The old forum archive is more readable at https://www.rafcommands.com/archive/index.php

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And finally a big thank you to Ross, even though he gave up the management, he has been providing the encouragement and support needed to ensure we are going down the right path.

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Enough of the self-congratulations, I am gonna go pour myself a scotch , kickback and bask in the immense satisfaction all this work has bought me over the years.

[CZ_RAF]

Well done Jagan, thank you for all your hard work - keeping the site going on and all the innovations.
I am proud to be one of the "old time" members and I am pleased I was allowed to help to make this forum and DBs more informative and helpful.
I was also able to make quite a lot "online" friendships and some of them are lasting many years.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped to make the RAF Commands as it is now.

Pavel

[Alex Smart]

Wow, I remember using the old forum as a newbe but had no idea how far back it was . Well done to ALL those who keep the forum working so well and also to all the members past and present who have contributed so much over the years.
Also I would like to personally thank all of you that have helped me over the years.
May the forum continue for many years to come.
Perhaps it might be worth producing for sale discs or chips of the different databases to members so as to get some financial reward for future use ?
Happy Anniversary ������

[PNK]

Although I am not a prolific poster, being mainly concerned with bombing ranges, this forum has been so useful over the years.

Lets hope it remains useful in the future, as the likes of Facebook and Twitter (X!!!) etc. and their likey likey formats seem to take over.
You couldn't run this type of interaction on Facebook as it doesn't seem to allow subject based posting and most comments are lost in the mass.

As I am now fast approaching 70, how many members are under 50 or indeed under 30?

[PeteS]

You've done a cracking job Jagan, well done ! I remember the changeover and throwing a few quid into the pot but hadn't realised it was that long already. Your searchable databases have made a very major improvement for my research, the continuation of Henk's Unaccounted project, the work by Paul, Andy and Jon and the material on AIR 81 releases are superb achievements.
thank you
PeteS
https://630squadron.wordpress.com/

[JDCAVE]

Thanks Jagan and others for your hard work on maintaining this forum and its databases. I go to RAF Commands "General" first thing every morning to see what's new. Many on this forum have contributed to my reference material collection. I would have none of this material or new contacts and friends without this important site.

Jim

[jonheyworth]

Id collated a lot of info over the years, but to be honest it was ONLY worth adding to this database as no where else had the searchability function and made it so easy to successfully add into.

[Don Clark]

A commendable achievement.

For well over over 20 years, through two owners, software and hosting changes, this most useful information source and discussion db has been on line, entirely free, and open for all to at least read.

All thanks to the hard work of Ross McNeill and Jagan Pillarisetti (for the site) and to contributing members (who provide so much of the content at a high standard of accuracy and sourcing).

Plainly over that period and today, this sort of forum format is indispensible for posting, finding and adding to content. Nothing in current "social media" can match it.

I too hope that Jagan can carry the site forward in this form for many years yet.

In the longer term, I hope the site can be fully archived.

The USA Internet Archive https://archive.org for example, does not in fact archive forum posts at all.
While "takes" of rafcommands.currantbun.com and rafcommands.com exist from 2000 to 2023, only summary forum pages are shown: following topic title links invariably results in
"The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL"

The UK Web Archive run by the British Library http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa
seems to keep just one 2014[!] copy of the RAF Commands site.
The UKWA restricts copy access to Reading Rooms of UK Legal Deposit Libraries, so it's impossible for any of us elsewhere to tell whether even that copy extends to the individual posts of the forum/s.

Are there any plans to look into widely accessible archiving options for the whole site, including posts?

[Jagan]

Don's point about site archival - The archival sites work well with static sites, not with database driven dynamic sites like ours.

The fact is if I try to generate static website out of this, it will be a couple of millions of static pages out of those 1.5 million database records. And another 100,000 pages from the forum (maybe more).

One option I am exploring - Technology is progressing enough that in the future , we can share 'snapshots' of the databases that anyone can borrow and stand up their own site server for cheap. so trusted archivers who will continue to offer the service for free can be given these snapshots to stand up their own sites/databases. This does require one to be IT savvy enough to run their own server.

PNK asks a great question.. How many active members here are below 50 if not below 30.. i suspect not many. This area of history is fast becoming niche and just like other conflicts, interest may wane over the years.

I remember the changeover and throwing a few quid into the pot but hadn't realised it was that long already

Yes Pete. seems just like yesterday. If I didnt know better I always felt it was about three years ago.. not Ten!

[JDCAVE]

This thread reminds me of those dear members who are no longer with us. Bill Walker and Pete Tresadern come to mind. God bless them!

Jim