Shutting down e-watchman

[watchman]

Hello everyone

As I mentioned on this forum a few days ago, I have lost the services of my webmaster. Which means that I must either find someone else who can do the html stuff or stop publishing on the site. I have decided to use a blog platform instead.

It has also come to my attention that because the e-w site has been dormant for so long that Google has dropped it from it's search results. So, in order to revive the domain I am going to point it to a new blog, which means everything on the present site will go offline and a new blog will come online with the e-watchman.com url.

I am porting over certain essays and commentaries and hosting them on the new blog as PDFs. But all of the mailbag archives will be gone, as well as many of the commentaries. Fortunately a lot of the material is the basis for the book anyway. I am also pulling the plug on the e-w.co.uk blog and JW news blog as well. Starting sometime next week everything I publish, including podcasts, videos and whatever else, will be on the e-w dot com blog.

As they say in the cheesy late night going-out-of-business commercials: "EVERYTHING MUST GO!"

So, if you want anything on the e-w sites, from essays to mailbag questions, graphics, you might want to grab them now. I think I might take a screen shot of e-w for sentimental reasons. Next week the site will be gone.

watchman

[Molly]

Hi Robert-

In some ways this is sad news. It is the site where I had the big revelation with regard to the Watchtower. On the hand, while change is sometimes hard to swallow, it often results in unforseen progress. Perhaps this is the way things need to go.

Thank you so much for your insight into the prophesies. I am sure the blog site will help to encourage many others in the future.

Molly

[arimatthewdavies]

ive read stuff from other site that say this site and e-watchman are apostates looking to get j.w to drop their faith and join up ive been here a month or so whats with the lies about this site? yes we discuss a bunch of what ifs, blow off steam, and general yak, yak, but i dont hear nobody whispering hey lets quit and form our own beleif system, if any thing this place is a gym with paded walls and foam ruber boxing gloves,i feel 150% better after ive been here i no longer feel like bringing a super soaker full of green slime to the hall and blasting elder joe, beside id get arested! and disfellowshiped too i think this place searves a useful.purpose ,besides that who here feels like going out in service so we can preach some rouge ideas? not me! the cheetoes and cartoons are a calling lol

[arimatthewdavies]

watchman are you really from the devil? come on nobody spends the time and energy that you do talking about jehovah.not even the president from the society.

[Steadfast]

Dear Robert,

Just a suggestion. You put years of work into your essays and commentaries. Wouldn't it be possible to archive them in some way for anyone interested in reading them?

Love,

Steadfast

[shikinah]

I guess nothing stays the same, i could feel a change of some sort coming but this is a surprise. I pray that Jehovah provides a continued place of contact, as i have to say it has been very inspiring and encouraging sharing scriptures and various insights. Thank you Robert for providing that opportunity.

Its all in the good Lords hands.

Shikinah

[Steadfast]

I'm happy to see you are saving them in PDF format, Robert. :D

Love,

Steadfast

[dgibson]

I'm mad, mad mad mad.....I just hate watching all this hard work going to a waste. I feel very strongly, that satan is to blame. Somehow he knew what would silence a part of you, and now he did it. You watch how, after shutting down, losing all that hard work, there will either be a webmaster available, or your old one will be freed up again and ready to help. Save what you can in case you start it back up. I'm sick in my heart at all your wonderful work being cast to archives. The mailbag has some very interesting answers. All the time you spent reading it for mp3 downloads etc.

Save save save, if you can E-W. Never know how fast things might change back in your favor.

Maybe you ought to bundle it all up and send it to the FDS. Maybe they could use it for something new? Nah! They'd probably throw it away, like people who take the literature just to be nice, and toss it as you leave.

[LonelySheep]

Robert,

Thanks for renewing my sense of hope in the future. You cannot imagine how dark things were as I tried to get my head around WT teachings the minute I started to reason on things ..and I've been in the 'Truth' for over 20 years.

Anycase, the reason for writing now was to suggest using a program to save the entire site. I googled 'saving websites' and there were plenty of programs.

I guess you thought of this already and cost my be prohibitive. However, I would be more than happy to contribute towards such a program if need be. I'm sure others would as well. Just a thought.

[billy2]

Hello Robert

will this discussion board be gone too?

thank you for providing this site - it has really helped me deal with coping with the wtbs

[watchman]

Now Gib, It is not as bad as all that. As it turns out I can save the whole site to my computer. Then I can sit down and sort through everything and pick out what I want to repackage and post on the new site. Actually, the more I think about it this is actually a positive move. Posting exclusively on a blog gives me more freedom and control. I am looking forward to getting it going in the coming days. As it stands now I will roll out the new site along with the book, which could be next week. I won't bore you with the details of why it has taken so long and what it hanging things up presently. I will admit to being a perfectionist when it comes to my work. But I am happy to report that I am plodding on...



I'm mad, mad mad mad.....I just hate watching all this hard work going to a waste. I feel very strongly, that satan is to blame. Somehow he knew what would silence a part of you, and now he did it. You watch how, after shutting down, losing all that hard work, there will either be a webmaster available, or your old one will be freed up again and ready to help. Save what you can in case you start it back up. I'm sick in my heart at all your wonderful work being cast to archives. The mailbag has some very interesting answers. All the time you spent reading it for mp3 downloads etc.

Save save save, if you can E-W. Never know how fast things might change back in your favor.

Maybe you ought to bundle it all up and send it to the FDS. Maybe they could use it for something new? Nah! They'd probably throw it away, like people who take the literature just to be nice, and toss it as you leave.

[watchman]

Hello Robert

will this discussion board be gone too?

thank you for providing this site - it has really helped me deal with coping with the wtbs

No the board is not going anywhere. I am going to take over admin duties. There is supposed to be a upgraded version of this board available in a few weeks. I am told it will be easier to administer. So, after the webmaster installs it I will try and get up to speed on everything. Hopefully there will not be too many glitches during the transition period. :cool:

watchman

[shikinah]

No the board is not going anywhere. I am going to take over admin duties. There is supposed to be a upgraded version of this board available in a few weeks. I am told it will be easier to administer. So, after the webmaster installs it I will try and get up to speed on everything. Hopefully there will not be too many glitches during the transition period. :cool:

watchman

Oh thats great Robert i thought the board was going too, was getting pangs of distress lol :D

[elihu]

thanks Robert

for everything you have provided for us all.
when i browse your essays and commentaries and read the depths to which you have searched Gods word to produce them, and in such a relatively short period of time, i know Jehovah has been by your side.

not a fellow brother but a grateful friend

elihu

[Utuna]

Dear Robert,

Are you one of the members of the faithful-and-discreet-slave class who gave his brothers the appropriate food at the proper time and who will be appointed over all Jesus' belongings when he returns soon to inspect his temple?

It's obvious to us all that you love your spiritual brothers as yourself, your own spiritual flesh as yourself, just as our Lord loved his own spiritual flesh, "to the end" (John13:1) !

Your predecessors planted (1Cor3:6), you and others are watering and God keeps making it grow... but our Lord Jesus reaps it all in the end (Mat25:26).

Your deeds and achievements speak for yourself (Mat7:16, 20). No matter how, may God's Holy Spirit guide you in every ways so that you may be able to keep "fighting the fine fight of the faith" (1Tim6:12).

Brotherly love,

---------------------------------------------------
"Le sectarisme des jugements pauvres lui tenait quelquefois lieu de volonté" - Hervé Bazin
"J'ai pétri de la boue et j'en ai fait de l'or" - Charles Baudelaire
"S'il m'a été donné de voir un peu plus loin que les autres, c'est que je me tenais sur les épaules de géants" - Isaac Newton

[Desert Blossom]

http://www.exisoftware.com/news/save-website.html

That's a free program, which can also be downloaded at download.com spyware-free:

http://download.cnet.com/Extreme-Picture-Finder/3000-2379_4-10070685.html

Apparently you can use this program to copy a whole website to your hard drive. You can even specify what kinds of files you want to copy, so if you only want the .pdf files you could copy only those.

Robert, how large is the e-watchman website? In other words, if someone wanted to use this program to copy the site, how many gigs of space would be needed on a hard drive?

Thanks,
DB

[anzwertree]

If anybody wants to keep the website themselves, I know of a good open source application for downloading an entire website. You can set it to grab anything or everything. It's really nifty.

http://www.httrack.com/

http://i34.tinypic.com/119lzpi.jpg

[anzwertree]

http://www.exisoftware.com/news/save-website.html

That's a free program, which can also be downloaded at download.com spyware-free:

http://download.cnet.com/Extreme-Picture-Finder/3000-2379_4-10070685.html

Apparently you can use this program to copy a whole website to your hard drive. You can even specify what kinds of files you want to copy, so if you only want the .pdf files you could copy only those.

Robert, how large is the e-watchman website? In other words, if someone wanted to use this program to copy the site, how many gigs of space would be needed on a hard drive?

Thanks,
DB

I have about 12 TB spanning multiple drives. I'm downloading the site now. If Watchman doesn't know, I'll let let you know the final size when it's finished on my end.

[Desert Blossom]

I have about 12 TB spanning multiple drives. I'm downloading the site now. If Watchman doesn't know, I'll let let you know the final size when it's finished on my end.

Thank you so much! I have several external hard drives, but need to know if they are big enough, or if I should buy one just for the e-w site.

[anzwertree]

It's been running for almost an hour now. This whole process can take awhile depending on the website. Definitely a couple hours. The videos and podcasts will take the longest. I set it to grab everything. Nothing is ever lost forever in this digital world. Maybe it will be resurrected someday. Just in case I make it into the next system, I'll put it on a flash drive and hold on to it. Here's a current rundown.

Status: 40 minutes
links scanned 133/616 (plus 463+)
70+MB (so far)

[steff]

Hello everyone

As I mentioned on this forum a few days ago, I have lost the services of my webmaster. Which means that I must either find someone else who can do the html stuff or stop publishing on the site. I have decided to use a blog platform instead.

It has also come to my attention that because the e-w site has been dormant for so long that Google has dropped it from it's search results. So, in order to revive the domain I am going to point it to a new blog, which means everything on the present site will go offline and a new blog will come online with the e-watchman.com url.

I am porting over certain essays and commentaries and hosting them on the new blog as PDFs. But all of the mailbag archives will be gone, as well as many of the commentaries. Fortunately a lot of the material is the basis for the book anyway. I am also pulling the plug on the e-w.co.uk blog and JW news blog as well. Starting sometime next week everything I publish, including podcasts, videos and whatever else, will be on the e-w dot com blog.

As they say in the cheesy late night going-out-of-business commercials: "EVERYTHING MUST GO!"

So, if you want anything on the e-w sites, from essays to mailbag questions, graphics, you might want to grab them now. I think I might take a screen shot of e-w for sentimental reasons. Next week the site will be gone.

watchman

Hello,

thank you Robert for your work, you helped me out. Really.

steff

[SlaveForJah]

Hey Watchman,

I had an idea. Since the E-JW discussion board isn't going anywhere...what would you think about putting up a separate section on the forum, maybe titled "E-W archives", or something of that nature.

And then, under that section, you could place each type of your published works, i.e., "E-mailbag Questions", and "Essays", and "Commentaries", "Blog Entries", and so on and so forth.

Again, under each of the previous headings would come the individual works themselves. For example, under "Commentaries" you would find threads entitled "Do You Believe the Lie?", "The Myth of the Fall of Babylon the Great", etc.

You could then just lock the threads, so that no one can post on them...just like many of the threads in the "Administrative" section of the Forum are now. But then they would be readily available to all, and wouldn't have to disappear from the internet, and still be associated with the Forum here.

Then, you could add any new essay, commentary, brochure or what have you as a new thread posted to its appropriate section sub-heading. I'm not too technically savvy, but if I am not mistaken, once it's set up, it would be just like any of the other sections of the forum, and, like the "Administrative" section already is, it could just be set to locked, so that only you could add new threads.


I pray you take this idea to Jehovah in prayer. Your writings have been so instrumental to so many. And, I realize that you may be currently being presented with a new opportunity, to take your ministry in a new direction. But I feel it would be a shame for all your years of labor to simply disappear into the cyber-void.


Agape

SlaveForJah

[JB]

I personally really really like that idea Slave for Jah I second that motion:)

[anzwertree]

Thank you so much! I have several external hard drives, but need to know if they are big enough, or if I should buy one just for the e-w site.

under 1GB. It didn't grab everything it was supposed to, but it should come out under 500MB. There isn't as much data on e-Watchman as I thought. You might have to grab the videos manually, though.

[Desert Blossom]

under 1GB. It didn't grab everything it was supposed to, but it should come out under 500MB. There isn't as much data on e-Watchman as I thought. You might have to grab the videos manually, though.

Thanks! I already have most of the commentaries/essays. It's the podcasts, videos, and mailbag that I'm missing.

[Desert Blossom]

under 1GB. It didn't grab everything it was supposed to, but it should come out under 500MB. There isn't as much data on e-Watchman as I thought. You might have to grab the videos manually, though.

I don't know if this turned out right. I had 153 errors, don't know if that's a problem, or if it corrected itself. When I go to browse the e-watchman site, the home page looks like this:

file:///C:/MyWebSites/E-Watchmansite/www.e-watchman.com/index.html

But when I click on any links in the menu, the next page looks like this for example:

http://e-watchman.com/commentaries/

Which makes me think all I did was copy the home page and links on the home page, and once Robert takes the site down none of those links are going to work anymore.

So then I tried to copy the page where the essays start on and got an error message, along with rude sounding audio alert! I deleted that project.

Do you think I did this wrong?

[Orchid]

I'm really sad to read this, I must insist that there be some kinda of archive. I don't think anything that would help someone be removed. Everything you have done has helped me so much.

I definitely agree that... it should be archived somewhere. If the need may be, my husband is a web developer, I could ask him for some help, I also have html coding experience. Honestly I think you could something simple and clean inside a wordpress, I think that would be perfect.