Members of the message board:

A few days ago, during the transition converting culteducation.com to culteducation.com, a backup failure at the ISP (Intenet Service Provider) led to the loss of two years of data base files at this message board. This included individual posts, entire threads, archived private messages, membership approvals, everything from September 2011 to August 2013.

I am deeply sorry for this system administration failure.

Everything was done in an effort to retrieve the lost files, but it has proven to be an impossible task and the files cannot be restored.

Anyone who registered from September 2011 to August 2013 will have to register again to become a current active member.

Members that received pre-approved status to post without moderation will have go through that approval process again, which will be done as soon as possible.

There are some general backup archives accessible through the Internet on the World Wide Web where some of the lost posts and information from this message board may still appear.

See [archive.org]

For example see [web.archive.org]

Searching through this Internet Archive may yield some of the lost material and information, which might then be copied and placed back into certain threads and/or used to create new threads.

This message board is now part of the Cult Education Institute online Web sites, formerly known as the Ross Institute of New Jersey.

The Cult Education Institute, which is an educational tax-exempted charity, is a member of the American Library and New Jersey Library Associations.

By changing the name of the institute and its domain address people searching for information about cults can more easily find related information here.

A great deal of work is being done now to modernize and generally update the look and functionality of the Cult Education Web sites.

Please be patient and you will see positive changes in the coming weeks.

I have been assured by the hosting system administrator at the ISP that there will be no more problems with backup.

This backup failure was an isolated event, no other such failure has ever occurred at this message board during its more than decade long history, nor at the larger archives launched in 1996.

For those that shared and cared by posting here, in the hope that you might help others with useful information, I can only say again how deeply sorry I am about the loss of files here due to the system failure.

My hope is that you will move on through this transition and continue sharing important information about destructive cults, controversial groups, movements and related topics of interest.

There are few resources online that the general public can access with such information.

This message board has played a pivotal role in informing the public by often exposing abusive groups and leaders, which has at times led and/or contributing to media reports, law enforcement and/or regulatory action.

Thank you for your concern and participation in this process.

Please continue to participate and express your concerns here.

Sincerely,

Rick Alan Ross, Executive Director
The Cult Education Institute
www.culteducation.com

I tried the web.archive.org suggestion and it worked! I was able to find most of one of my previous threads.

All the lost date was restored.