Hello there! We're just getting into the season a day earlier with a reminder of spring cleaning...

Six years ago, we moved away from an outdated resource-intensive shop system and into our current system. At the time of the change, a tool was offered to move items from the outdated "legacy shops" and into the new shops. We plan to permanently retire this tool on June 19th, 2022, and at that time, all legacy shops and galleries and their contents will be unrecoverable. No compensation will be offered for lost items after that time.

You will know you still have a legacy shop or gallery if it has a ! next to it under Your Shops. If you click on a legacy shop, it will also take you to a page reminding you that the system has retired. If your shop doesn't have a ! next to it, OR you created your shop(s) within the last six years, you don't need to worry about this message!

We urge you to please migrate your legacy shops, if you still have any, to the current system as soon as possible. You can find the guide for migrating the content of your legacy shops at this link EDIT although some information may be outdated as some options have been deprecated over the years. As an extra step, we also suggest making a list of the contents before you move anything. Please don't hesitate to reach out via the Ticket Center if you encounter any problems while moving anything over. Thank you for your understanding!

If your shops are more than six years old, check for a ! next to them under Your Shops. If you click on a legacy shop, it will also remind you that it's from the retired system. If it's a newer shop than that, you don't have to worry!

It was last opened in September 2021, and we generally try to keep 10~ months between re-openings so we don’t flood the market.

If we did it automatically and people lost items in the transition, they'd be upset when they came back. As well, it'd take programmer time for (at this point) an old feature. In terms of programmer time, it's not really worth the trade-off.

Fortunately the guide has examples, and I did link it in the post!

Thank you for asking for clarification!

If we do an automated process that misses items, some users are going to be upset the process wasn't perfect. It can easily become 'why didn't you let users handle it'? Which...we have, for six years.

Something that shoves things into people's vaults across all legacy shops would also be resources-intensive, AND would take programmer time to put together. The choice between a messy transfer that could lag or break the site for people who haven't checked in for six years, versus a clean break, is one we have to make. I am going to ask about the suggestion from , though.

An automated process also doesn't encourage people to check in with Subeta as we're changing. I'm going to be putting this on Twitter as well, but we WANT people interacting with the site. We want older users to come back. Put the word out! Let your friends who used to play know that they need to do this! We'd love that!

I promise it's not a jerk move by anyone, we'd like to be able to keep the information or have the time and resources to completely automate the process. But, much like having to work with what we have for the Donation Center so that it worked for everyone and didn't lag the rest of the site, we have to balance various needs. We understand people had various reasons not to get to this immediately, and we want to give people the chance to transfer things over. There is a reason we're giving three months warning. There is a reason we put this on the front page. But it is six-year-old code that was already retired, and it is not going to get easier to work with over time.

My apologies for the delay, I was actually following up on which parts of the code/process had been deprecated to be able to give the best answer. If you do think of anything you had anything that didn't make it over, please file that ticket anyway!

Yes, my apologies, see above. At this point the only option is moving items to vaults, so there is no way to make a list currently and the guide is outdated. I'm editing both the news and my first post to reflect that.

We appreciate you having worked on transferring items over already, we realize for the big shops it was/is likely a process. But because of programmer resource time a process done by staff isn't going to happen. Nor is it going to be any better to wait. However, if you do think something is missing after moving the remainder of your stock, staff is not going to get upset at a ticket to replace anything, promise!

Ah, please file a ticket including, if possible, a screenshot of the error you're having or what the screen looks like?

The tool is as safe as we can make it. It's ultimately your choice on whether to do it or not. I understand your point of view but it's not going to get any easier to work with it over time, for the site as well as the users.

That would require more programming, working with buggy deprecated code, with no guarantee it even worked, with potential ramifications to the site. You said it yourself, 'however much time it'd take', and that doesn't include the resources such as server time or database lines. Part of the reason for the new system was because of just how intensive the old system was, and it would not be a win for servers or database or active users of Subeta if something broke in the process.

Losing the shops and galleries belonging to deceased users will hurt. There's an IT term, 'bit rot'; it's the degradation of information or software over time. Data formats that can't be read because of different code, information that doesn't get backed up or reposted and is lost, literal tiny electromagnetic changes to the storage medium. It is a fact, despite our best efforts. There's not always enough physical space or resources in the world to encompass all of what people mean to us, or what they leave behind. There is so much we all wish we could keep, I know. That's no different for anyone, staff included. But we have a continuing responsibility to the world here and now with the resources we have.
For the people we wish were still with us...live, speak (or write) their names, and make their memory a blessing. Talk about the things they loved and why. The light they made in the world is not gone so long as we do that.

That's really not practical for reasons outlined in previous posts.

If there are things that stand out, items that you know you had in there for value or specific sentimental reasons, try an account search for the before and after and please file the ticket for reimbursement if they don't show up.

I understand that you're proud of what you've achieved on Subeta, and the contents of your legacy shops and galleries reflect all the time and effort you've spent with us. We're happy and proud to have you, and all the people who have stuck with us through the years! But times and technology change, again sometimes despite our hopes. We have the migration tool and I suggest that if you give it a shot and file a ticket if anything stands out as missing. For other items, even if bit rot gets them, the experiences they represent still remain with you and we hope you'll stay with us for more.

There was a hope at one point that code could be done to automatically migrate things to vaults but, for various reasons, the project never came together. And, unfortunately as more changes need to be made and code gets upgraded over time, it's not going to get any more practical or possible.

FYI, if you've been having trouble with your shop showing up on the dropdown, please check again! Keith just pushed a fix for something that was affecting a large number of legacy usershops.

Hm, that is a tricky one. We appreciate you trying the tool, but if it's not showing your shops please file a ticket. I know the UAs have been trying to make this as painless as possible.

Yes, I was looking at doing one earlier but was checking with the UA team and with Keith to see if there was anything else I should include.

Mostly still what it says on the tin, er, first post, but I am adding something from the reminder here since it's new:

If you have not gotten to this yet or you know someone who won't be back before the legacy shop retirement, Keith has put together a tool that will automatically move remaining shop items to vault and till sP to on-hand as a step of dismantling the old shop system. Please keep in mind, though, that if you let the automatic migration tool take care of it, we will not be double-checking logs for missing items or sP after the fact unless you actively file a ticket with details. So we do urge you to review your legacy shops, if you still have any, before the 19th if you want to have more control over the process!

Thank you!

You should be fine! If you're worried there is one that isn't showing up, you can file a ticket and the UAs can dig into it and give you a definitive answer.

If your legacy shops are not showing up, you can file a ticket. The automatic process should still be able to help as well in getting the items and sP back, too, if you end up waiting.

EDIT: Ah, looks like you found it, excellent! Good luck on the sorting, think of it as a chance to remember old times.

Legacy shops are shops using older coding, from before six years ago. They had different parameters, such as allowing more items stocked but also ran on different code that is/was very resource-intensive in terms of database and server impact. We switched over to a new shop system, but wanted to give people time to work through their old shops on a timely basis.

Unfortunately, though, as Keith codes more features or has to streamline old ones, even retrieving the information for those shops and maintaining that old code at all gets trickier for staff and users alike. So we set this end date for the feature and Keith added the automatic migration tool as part of the sunsetting.

Keith actually put in some code that should have sent the contents to your vault and the sP to your on-hand as part of the retirement, check and see what's in your unsorted category!