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Upgrading our aged vbulliten forum


Best Theme  

9 members have voted

  1. 1. Which theme (skin) do you like best?

    • IP. Board
      0
    • Modern
      8
    • Bordeaux
      0
    • Simply Blue
      0
    • Bulletin
      0
    • Memory
      0
    • Graphite
      0
    • Music theme
      1


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  • 2 weeks later...
**** IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING OUR FORUMS ****Hello everyone;As you know we upgraded to the new VB5 version of Vbulletin. The install went fairly well although it has been a massive struggle with the many bugs in the system since then. We are at the point of putting in place our Exit Plan and dumping the current Bulletin Board and going with a new system.JohnnyV and Krank (Jim) have done a pile of research on the new system and we have their blessing on moving forward to the new format.One issue that may affect some of you: the new Bulletin Board will import everything from our current board but will not bring over and PM's (Private Messages) you have in your message box. We will need each user to go in to their PM's and archive the messages to your local computer with whatever data you want saved.This is 4 weeks warning to download your PM's as the install date to the new forum is scheduled for Feb 7th weekend.Thanks.
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I'm curious what new features a complete change will bring over the previous forum? It sounds like there's a lot of work ahead, while I felt the previous software was completely competent. I used to read a lot of forums, it's just a way to put text on screen and include pictures or links to various things. I don't need it to do much else, but I do want the option to use multiple paragraphs. ;)[new paragraph] Maybe a slightly newer but still-proven version of the current software can bring back the previous functionality and add a few nifty features? [new paragraph] My question boils down to: Are we changing for the sake of change or is there some benefit to forum users over the previous software?

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Nope. Not just another coat of paint. The problem of the missing CR/LF is but one of more than a dozen defects with this version of vbulletin. Apparently the company itself seems to be going down in flames after an ownership change. Most of the top programmers that were in the middle of developing this version bailed. No support, missing items in the code itself, just too much to try and salvage.

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Understood that there are many issues with the current software. What issues are being fixed from the previous software? Maybe this is more obvious to others' date=' I'm just missing the point.[/quote'] Our previous software was archaic and was NOT up to date with security patches and basic tools like human verification. There are hundreds of spam users that were created and I believe the last count was over 2,000 spam PM's. There was also a large hole in the old programming in PHP from a service provider perspective that could have been easily exploited if we weren't watching it pretty much daily. The entire server could have been added to SBL Blacklists shutting down hundreds of sites. Basically either upgrade the old forum or shut it down. As you can imagine this decision didn't come lightly as there is a pile of time involved, time that we would all rather spend working on race cars. I apologize if I wasn't clear previously on our justification, I'll try to be more forthcoming going forward but nobody thought it would be this much brain damage.
Nope. Not just another coat of paint. The problem of the missing CR/LF is but one of more than a dozen defects with this version of vbulletin. Apparently the company itself seems to be going down in flames after an ownership change. Most of the top programmers that were in the middle of developing this version bailed. No support' date=' missing items in the code itself, just too much to try and salvage.[/quote'] Krank is bang-on. Unfortunately there are many holes in the scripting of this BB. Just now I was trying to do two 'quotes' in this post and needed to shut down the browser and open it again before it would let me. One of many incidents that didn't evaporate.
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What he said' date=' actually I tried to post almost the same thing but I got shut out twice and gave up.[/quote']HA! I know what you mean. We're moving forward. Too bad about the PM's not being updated otherwise we could step up the install date.
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How do we export our PMs now? I can't find the button anymore.

I don't believe there is an actual export function, sorry for my poor wording. What you will need to do is copy/paste the info out of the PM's and in to something like Outlook for archiving. Are you able to forward a PM to an email address? Or is it just to another user? I already cleaned out my PM's so I can't experiment.
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Not gonna lie...i used to check the forums most days, but with the new "upgrade" i have stopped due to the fact that it's not as easy to just view what's new and happening since my last visit. Used to have more colour and was more engaging i thought. I understand there are big improvements on the back end, but visually all i see is Vbulletin at the top and nothing that makes me feel like this is the club forum makes it lose some of the attraction. I look forward to the cosmetic changes that are coming, but still find it harder to navigate and definitely shortens my time on the page...Good luck guys in fixing it all up, and we appreciate your dedication and hard work to keep us current!

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Not gonna lie...i used to check the forums most days' date=' but with the new "upgrade" i have stopped due to the fact that it's not as easy to just view what's new and happening since my last visit [/quote'] Yep, you're right. Me too. Krank did do some work and was able to bring back a "New Post" like button on the main page at the top under the word Forums it says "Today's Post" and it starts listing posts from today and moving backwards. Much better than no button at all.
Used to have more colour and was more engaging i thought. I understand there are big improvements on the back end' date=' but visually all i see is Vbulletin at the top and nothing that makes me feel like this is the club forum makes it lose some of the attraction. [/quote'] Also thanks to Krank he was able to bring in some other visual skins instead of the vanilla VB Blue one. If you scroll to the bottom you will see what style is running under the pull down menu, you can change that to what you want. I'm running the "Default vB5 Style" which has the WSCC logo on it. It will get better, I promise. Just need to wait out the time limit for everyone to grab their PM's. Thanks .
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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello everyone, I know this weekend is d-day for the forum upgrade although we have hit a snag. I'm waiting for a response from helpdesk. I'll keep you posted although if it works then this forum will be shutdown and you will be fired up on the new forum when it's going.BTW - at first glance, the new test forums work very well, damn fast and good looking. Thanks.

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