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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1317 Posts |
 Posted - 23/07/2026 : 16:23:58
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Many of you have probably wondered how the Norway Heritage project has been progressing. Over the past few years, I have shared my concerns about the project's future and explored various options for ensuring its long-term survival. I now feel that the time has come to provide an update.
During the past two years, I have been working on both a short-term and a long-term solution. The short-term work has focused on a number of modest improvements to the search functionality and the overall presentation of the website.
Behind the scenes, however, I have been working on a much larger modernization project that will fundamentally transform the functionality of the site. Rather than simply updating an aging website, the goal has been to build a new platform designed to support future development for many years to come. As a result, Norway Heritage is no longer at risk of being discontinued. Instead, it is entering a new chapter with a modernized and revitalized platform.
Although the new platform is not quite ready yet, I wanted to let our loyal visitors know that a major update is approaching. It will affect many parts of the website and introduce significant improvements to both its features and usability. While the site may feel a little different at first, I am confident that the changes will provide a much better experience for both new and returning visitors.
While the website itself is evolving, the principles on which Norway Heritage was founded remain unchanged. The project will continue to provide free access to historical information whenever possible and to serve as a trusted, community-driven resource where knowledge about Norwegian emigration, genealogy, and maritime history can be preserved, shared, and continually enriched through research and collaboration. Preserving this history and making it accessible to future generations remains at the heart of everything I do.
The internet is changing rapidly. Social media has transformed the way people discover and share information, and artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape how historical knowledge is searched, interpreted, and presented. These developments create both new opportunities and new challenges for independent websites like Norway Heritage.
More than ever, I believe there is value in maintaining a trusted, carefully curated resource where information is based on original research, documented sources, and the contributions of researchers, family historians, and visitors from around the world. My ambition is not only to preserve Norway Heritage, but to ensure that it continues to serve as a reliable gateway to the history of Norwegian emigration in this new digital landscape.
Many of you have shown remarkable patience and understanding while some of the website's technical features have not always performed as well as I would have liked over the past few years. Rather than investing extensive time and resources in maintaining an aging platform, I chose to focus on developing a long-term solution that will provide a much stronger foundation for the future. I sincerely appreciate your continued support throughout this process.
Thank you once again for your encouragement, your contributions, and your continued support over the years. Norway Heritage has always been more than just a website, it is a shared project built by a community of people with a common interest in preserving the history of Norwegian emigration. I look forward to welcoming you to the next chapter of Norway Heritage.
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Børge Solem |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 23/07/2026 : 16:57:21
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| Exciting times ahead! |
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jwiborg
Norway Heritage Veteran
Norway
4968 Posts |
Posted - 25/07/2026 : 20:02:18
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Where is the like button when you need it?
Found it! 
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Edited by - jwiborg on 28/07/2026 12:33:13 |
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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1317 Posts |
Posted - 19/10/2026 : 16:03:38
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Norway Heritage: A New Chapter Is About to Begin:
A few months ago, I wrote that a major update of Norway Heritage was approaching. That day has now almost arrived. After a long period of development and preparation, the new website is nearly ready to launch. This marks an important step in securing the future of Norway Heritage. Although much of the new platform is already in place, some features are still under development. I have decided to move forward with the launch rather than delay the transition until every detail is complete. There will therefore be a period of adjustment, and I hope you will bear with me while the remaining improvements are made.
Twenty-Five Years of Research Preserved:
One of my main priorities has been to preserve the extensive collection of knowledge built up by members of the Norway Heritage community over the past 25 years.
The entire forum archive is being transferred to the new platform, including more than 7,000 topics, and over 70,000 replies. Nothing is being left behind. The discussions, research findings, and contributions made by thousands of visitors over the years will remain available, just as they always have been. Most existing links to forum discussions and other pages on Norway Heritage will automatically redirect to their corresponding locations on the new website.
A Short Pause During the Transition:
To ensure that no contributions are lost during the final transfer, the existing forum will temporarily be closed to new registrations and posts. It will also not be possible to leave comments elsewhere on the website during this period. This temporary closure is necessary to complete the migration of the most recent discussions and comments, ensuring that everything is transferred correctly to the new platform. The forum archive will remain available for reading throughout the transition. I will announce when posting becomes available again.
Member Accounts and Profiles:
The new forum will initially operate without member login. This means that existing usernames and passwords from the old forum cannot yet be used on the new website. Your old member profiles have not been lost. The membership system is planned for a later stage of development, and the intention is to restore existing member profiles, including registration dates and posting histories.
In the meantime, you will be able to contribute to discussions without logging in. When submitting a post, you will simply be asked to provide your (old) username, e-mail address, and message. If you were a registered member of the old forum, use the same name and e-mail address as before. This will make it easier to associate your new contributions with your existing member profile when the membership system is introduced.
Temporary Moderation of New Posts:
During the initial period following the launch, all new forum posts and comments will require approval before they become visible to other visitors. This means that your contributions will not appear immediately after submission. Depending on how many posts are awaiting review, there may be some delay before they are published. This is intended as a temporary arrangement while the new platform is being established and the remaining forum functions are completed. My intention is to return to a more immediate posting process as soon as it is practical to do so. I appreciate your patience and understanding during this period.
Privacy and Older Forum Content:
As part of the migration, I have also taken steps to improve the protection of personal information (GDPR) contained in older forum discussions. E-mail addresses and telephone numbers that were included in old posts will no longer be displayed publicly. If you come across personal information or other content in an older discussion that you believe should be removed, please contact me.
Some Things May Look Different:
Moving more than 70,000 replies and thousands of discussions from a forum system developed many years ago to a completely new platform is a substantial undertaking. Although considerable effort has gone into preserving the original content, you may encounter some formatting issues in older posts. For example, old smiley codes or quotation markers may appear as plain text, and some links or images may no longer work because the original external websites have disappeared. These issues will be addressed gradually where possible. If you come across something that appears to be broken or incorrectly displayed, I would appreciate hearing about it.
Looking Ahead:
The new forum is only one part of a much broader modernization of Norway Heritage. Additional features and improvements will be introduced as development continues, and I hope the new platform will make it easier to explore historical information, contribute research, and share knowledge with others. While the technology and appearance of the website are changing, the underlying principles remain the same. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the forum over the years, whether by asking questions, sharing research, helping others, or simply following the discussions. Thank you for your continued support, patience, and understanding. I look forward to welcoming you to the new Norway Heritage. |
Børge Solem |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 19/10/2026 : 23:16:23
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| Thanks for the update Borge, looking forward to the modern site. |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 19/10/2026 : 23:28:19
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One thing I might mention that I have noticed over the past several weeks is that during certain times of the day there is difficulty in logging into the site. It usually occurs in mid-morning in middle America. That would be about 5 in the morning in Norway. I do not know if that time is when work is going on or if the delay in posting is caused by some other issues but it does make working on the site a little difficult.
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Edited by - AntonH on 19/10/2026 23:29:40 |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 00:49:36
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| And when I returned to the site two hours later the site is working perfectly. Any thoughts on wha this is happening. |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 00:55:30
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Another issue that causes me to use a work around is this one. There are times when I try and post two quickly after the last post and I get this message
There has been a problem!
Sorry! We have flood control activated.
You cannot post within 120 seconds of your last post.
Please try again after this period of time elapses.
Now I have a the ability to copy the post and just and paste it back into a new Quick Reply box. It would be a plus for the user if this could be changed so that replies did not have a wait time before you can post again.
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Edited by - AntonH on 20/10/2026 00:56:25 |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 01:00:37
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Thirdly is the issue of adding a document as part of a post. The process that I prefer is the one used at Digitalarivet Users Forum. At that site I can select a document by capturing a screen shot of as much of the document as I want. I then have it on my desktop. I then use the program called CUBEUPLOAD.
https://cubeupload.com/login
The screenshot that I have captured is then displayed on the Digitalarkievet User Forum thread.
However when use the same procedure on this site what shows up is not the screenshot but only a url that leads to the screen shot.
I would prefer to use the first process rather than the second process.
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Edited by - AntonH on 20/10/2026 01:06:14 |
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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1317 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 09:16:09
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Thank you for the helpful feedback. Let me address each of your points.
Problems accessing the website at certain times:
This is caused by heavy automated traffic on the server. When I analysed the server logs in early October, I found that the website was receiving around 260,000 requests per day, a substantial proportion of them from AI crawlers. Meta's crawler alone generated almost 60,000 requests in a single day. Another AI crawler, Perplexity, accounted for only 2% of the requests but consumed roughly a third of the server's processing time. There were also sudden bursts of several thousand requests within a single minute.
The problem is made worse by the fact that the old website still relies on Microsoft Access databases. Access uses a file-based database engine that is not well suited to handling large numbers of simultaneous requests. Under heavy load, database operations can slow down considerably, causing pages to hang or stop responding altogether. When this happens, the server may exceed the resource limits imposed by the hosting provider, resulting in an HTTP 503 error (Service Unavailable). In other cases, the website may simply stop responding, causing the browser to display a connection timeout or a message indicating that the server is not responding. This helps explain why the website may be inaccessible for a while and then work perfectly again an hour or two later.
The new Norway Heritage uses Microsoft SQL Server, which is much better suited to handling concurrent requests. It also runs on a server with dedicated processing resources and has measures in place to control excessive automated traffic, including limits on how many requests can be made from a single source within a given period. Together, these improvements should make the new website considerably more stable and responsive.
The 120-second waiting period between posts:
This restriction has been removed from the new forum. There is no longer a mandatory waiting period between individual posts. There is still a fairly generous hourly posting limit to prevent spam and automated abuse. If you happen to reach that limit, your text will remain in the form, and you will be told how long you need to wait before submitting it.
Moderation of posts: Under the new system, your first post will need to be reviewed and approved before it appears. Once that has been done, subsequent posts can normally be published immediately. This should make discussions much more convenient while still providing protection against spam and unwanted content.
Including images and documents in posts:
On the old forum, you can try placing the direct URL of an image between img and /img tags. This should display the image within your post, provided the image-hosting service allows it. The new forum handles external images somewhat differently. Links pasted into posts will be clickable, but externally hosted images will not be displayed directly within discussions for the time being. One reason for this is that an image hosted on another website can be replaced or changed without our knowledge, even after the original post has been approved.
My plan is to introduce direct image uploads to Norway Heritage alongside the new membership system. This should eventually allow you to upload an image or paste a screenshot directly into your post, without having to use an external hosting service such as CubeUpload.
The new forum is still a work in progress, and some features will be introduced gradually. Feedback like yours is very helpful in identifying what matters most to those who regularly use the forum.
Thank you again for your contributions over the years. They are an important part of what makes the Norway Heritage forum such a valuable resource. |
Børge Solem |
Edited by - Borge on 20/10/2026 09:17:10 |
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jkmarler
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
7987 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 13:23:38
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| Thank you , Borge for preserving all the past work with eyes on future. |
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AntonH
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
10004 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 16:02:47
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| Thank you Borge for your response. You wrote "your first post will need to be reviewed and approved before it appears". Can you expand on that. Reviewed and approved by whom? |
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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1317 Posts |
Posted - 20/10/2026 : 16:40:00
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The review and approval will be done by me, as the administrator of Norway Heritage.
Since the new forum does not yet have a login system, the first post from each contributor needs to be approved. This approval establishes a trusted status that carries over to future posts, allowing subsequent contributions to be published without further moderation.
This is a temporary solution until the membership and login system is implemented. The purpose is simply to prevent spam and misuse while keeping the forum as open and accessible as possible. |
Børge Solem |
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An Update on the Future of Norway Heritage
