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Hi All,
I’ve just been told by Surfnet support that the physical server on which the forum software is running will be taken out of service fairly soon. (One can’t complain, it has been running faithfully for years, and is the only bit of the site we didn’t move to the new server last year).
I have three options for the forum. The first would be to try to install the same ikonboard software on a new server, and try to port across all the posts, etc.. The second would be to move to the new php-based version of ikonboard, and see if it is possible to rescue and reimport the posts and usernames etc. The third would be to install a newer and better supported product like phpBB and fit that into the new site layout etc.
There are pros and cons to each of these. I must admit I am inclined to take this opportunity to install a more widely-used product like phpBB rather than fight to install either a very old version of ikonboard (which may not even be possible) or the latest version and try to cross-install all the database stuff to keep the old posts.
So what I’m most inclined to do is to start afresh with a new product. We’ll be able to see the old messages on here for a while, until the server finally gets shut off, but once I’ve got the new system running we can move over to that.
If anyone has a strong opinion on this do let me know… otherwise, will be a shame to lose the history but ultimately a clean start with a newer forum suite might offer more facilities, better support for me, and generally make life easier.
Cheers, Hywel.
I’ve been a member of another forums, big and small, that have changed software. With a very large high traffic forum, not transferring the data wasn’t an option and required a technical team to acheive it. With a forum of a similar size to RE’s, transferring the data wasn’t worth the effort.
I’d say go ahead and start afresh with new software like phpBB or SimpleMachines. If this old forum survives for a little while at the same time (in read-only mode) then that would be handy.
Well… I guess, making a clean cut wouldn’t be a problem.
But I wonder: what exactly would you like to improve?
Spontaneously, I can’t imagine anything that I’m missing, but I guess it won’t hurt to discuss what exactly the RE guests and members would like to see here, before you decide for any of the numerous bulletin solutions.
If I were Webmaster, my three most important points would be maintainability, traffic and performance. I wonder what you have in mind.
Hiya
Sure why not, if its easier to start afresh then do it as I can’t see any critical loss here. It would be nice to see some new features implemented (although I don’t know what..) as a bonus and might even encourage a few lurkers to post.
Who knows, it might even be the catalyst for me to finally sort out a more topical avatar too.. :;):
Cheers
M
As a recent arrival this forum feels very “basic”, but I am used to a fairly up to date phpBB forum at another site.
To be honest there does not seem to be a lot of old, active, threads here to preserve. I have occasionally seen long running (and very long) threads that take on a life of their own, and are worth trying to preserve when moving from an old forum to a new forum.
What matters is the people at a forum, which will of course be preserved.
Technical features of this forum vs newer forums, anyone else try and use the quote button? For me I need to preview my reply before the quoted text makes it into the reply field.
An “inline” quick reply field makes it easier to post a quick and easy reply, which is also missing.
merlin, if you change your avitar how will we know it is you? your current “ooh whats that, can I see?” picture seems quite apt to me 🙂
Have to be honest and say I haven’t really strong opinion on this. I guess given the choice, and were it simply done, then you would try to preserve the history of the site but if losing it is unavoidable then so be it. It is, after all, a rare day that I go looking through the history of the forum for a particular thread – having said that it might be good if somebody could still gain access to the past posts as there have been occasion when we have needed to look back (we recently asked who started the Ariel/princess nonsense for example).
Most of all, and in agreement with the others, I think it is the people who make this and any other forum and so I am sure as long as the move is painless, such that we don’t loose anyone in the process, we will be fine with whatever Hywel thinks best.
CD
Ps – Any chance of a spellchecker facility in the new forum?
Oh and it is a bit of a shame we might loose our total post count – though I notice that Merlin is thrashing me at the minute so maybe the move will enable me to redress that balance!
Greetings from Texas,
Personally speaking, I would hate to loose the back material from this forum. I enjoy being able to trace old topics. Also; to get the address to vote for Restrained Elegance on the awards site I had to go back and find the link. I would like to see the older postings saved somehow.
For what it’s worth.As someone whos been a member of the site for a while (albeit on and off) I’ve seen it go through various changes all with the bare minimum of disruption to those who use it.
Hywel, to be honest given all that you have to do for the site, and the shoots my humble opinion would be to do whatever is easiest for you.
@cavalierdriver wrote:
Ps – Any chance of a spellchecker facility in the new forum?
swap to the Firefox browser, this has a built in spell checker, and it works wonderfully on this forum. I know this, I have been using it, and relying on it, for quite some time now.
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