SMF? (New Forums?)

[pr0c]

What do you guys think about switching to Simple Machines Forum (SMF)? I am hating phpbb more and more every day.. having to be super paranoid about exploits is driving me nuts!

SMF appears more secure, has better features and is supposed to be very easy to skin and mod. Performance is supposed to be better too... All existing users and posts would remain intact.

Thoughts? What do you think Ben / bluemonkmn?

[Dr Obvious]

So do yall just like to annually move to new forums to make things that much more fun for people that are having a problem and want to look back through old thread to see if someone had the same problem?  

[durnurd]

See what he said above:  All of the users and posts would remain intact.  I assume this means that they would persist in the new forum so that wouldn't be a problem.

[bluemonkmn]

Sounds good to me.  I'm not terribly attached to the themes on phpBB, so I wouldn't mind giving them up.  Would we be able to keep the avatars?

[pr0c]

I'm not sure what all transfers exactly, I can setup new ones for testing and leave these here, see if we like them. If we like them then we can really move; I am new to SMF too.

I noticed on the SMF website that their users have lots of cool avatars, I think they have additional features related to that than phpbb.

Re: Old data. I didn't word that clearly at all, sorry. I meant that all the data would transfer from old forums to new, not just leave old ones up.

[bluemonkmn]

So do yall just like to annually move to new forums to make things that much more fun for people that are having a problem and want to look back through old thread to see if someone had the same problem?  

Well, I switched forums once in July, 2002 and the next time I switched was in March 2005.  Not quite annual, but you make a point.  However, this time the forums won't be in a new location and won't be separate from the posts already in these forums.  I suspect it will effectively look to the users almost like a new theme for the current forums (same address and login and everything, right pr0c?), and shouldn't have too much impact beyond that.

There have been good reasons behind each move.  The first time was because SourceForge forums lacked many features, including some basic ones, like the ability to post code and remember who you are from session to session.  The next switch also had a lot going for it (lucky timing too because EZBoard had major data loss shortly thereafter).  EZBoard never was a great forum to start with -- pop-ups all over, bugs especially in searching, performance and reliability issues.  But I didn't have any better option at that point until the comdel option came along and saved me.  The step up was well worth one more upset to the well-known location of the forums.  Fortunately, it doesn't sound like much of any upset will be necesssary for this upgrade.  If I had had the comdel option to start with, it certainly would have been nice to be here all along, though.

BTW, I for one am willing to accept the burden of fielding questions that have been answered elsewhere.  If you don't want to search the old forums for your answers when you don't find them here, feel free to post a question.  It will save everyone with the same question from having to search the older forums too.  Once the question is asked the keywords are here for others to search on and I can just link to documentation or older posts or whatever if the question's already been answered somewhere else.  Indeed it would be nice to have one place to go to search for answers to all your questions, so don't worry about repeating topics here that have been discussed outside this forum.

[bluemonkmn]

I'm not sure what all transfers exactly, I can setup new ones for testing and leave these here, see if we like them. If we like them then we can really move; I am new to SMF too.

I want to avoid confusion between multiple forums as much as possible, so in the interest of that, lets keep any trial period short and relatively quiet (see steps below).  I wouldn't want any period of time where real posts might be showing up on a test/obsolete forum that won't last.  I'd suggest the following process if it's not too much trouble (my many thanks to you for your efforts):
1) Trial transfer -- try copying the data over to the new forums without affecting the existing forums.  Try it out locally and make sure things look functional.  Maybe I could take a look too, but don't make them too public because we don't want to risk regular members posting in the test forum and losing their posts or anything like that.  (Perhaps a link to the new forums buried in this thread would be "private" enough as long as its clear that the new forums are not live yet.)
2) Set a date when the forums will be migrated and let us know to allow a chance for regular visitors to be aware that the forums may be unavailable for a short while
3) "Take down" the current forums to avoid new posts getting lost in the process of transferring live data.  (If possible put a "temporarily unavailable" message up at this address.)
4) Re-transfer current data from the current forums to the new forums.
5) Bring the new forums online at the same address as the old forums.  Bye bye old forums.

If transferring data twice is too much of a pain, maybe we can arrange a time to be online at the same time so I can get a quick look at the new forums (at a temporary/private address?) while the old forums are offline to determine whether to go ahead and bring the new ones online or to back up and reconsider.

[pr0c]

Also, I know there have been reliability problems with these forums as some of you may have noticed... that has been due to movement and poor choice of hosts both of which are obviously my fault. I am still trying to find a perfect host.. while hosting these forums I have moved them 4 or 5 times!

So Far I have used...

(Dedicated servers)
Ezzi - Worst service and billing issues!
LayeredTech - Not bad at all but 1 bandwidth provider
Ev1 - Machines low-end otherwise good
ServerBeach - Mediocre and getting worse, my first host.
I think I am missing someone...

In between hosts I have used shared hosting until I could decide on the next choice and I've used 4-5 of them..

Anyway, I do not plan on moving anything until next year everything should be stable for quite some time. This shared hosting sure is driving me nuts already though!

BTW, suggestions for my next datacenter are appreciated. I may colo instead of rent a server too.

[pr0c]

I'm not sure what all transfers exactly, I can setup new ones for testing and leave these here, see if we like them. If we like them then we can really move; I am new to SMF too.

I want to avoid confusion between multiple forums as much as possible, so in the interest of that, lets keep any trial period short and relatively quiet (see steps below).  I wouldn't want any period of time where real posts might be showing up on a test/obsolete forum that won't last.  I'd suggest the following process if it's not too much trouble (my many thanks to you for your efforts):
1) Trial transfer -- try copying the data over to the new forums without affecting the existing forums.  Try it out locally and make sure things look functional.  Maybe I could take a look too, but don't make them too public because we don't want to risk regular members posting in the test forum and losing their posts or anything like that.  (Perhaps a link to the new forums buried in this thread would be "private" enough as long as its clear that the new forums are not live yet.)
2) Set a date when the forums will be migrated and let us know to allow a chance for regular visitors to be aware that the forums may be unavailable for a short while
3) "Take down" the current forums to avoid new posts getting lost in the process of transferring live data.  (If possible put a "temporarily unavailable" message up at this address.)
4) Re-transfer current data from the current forums to the new forums.
5) Bring the new forums online at the same address as the old forums.  Bye bye old forums.

If transferring data twice is too much of a pain, maybe we can arrange a time to be online at the same time so I can get a quick look at the new forums (at a temporary/private address?) while the old forums are offline to determine whether to go ahead and bring the new ones online or to back up and reconsider.

Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks!

[bluemonkmn]

Are there still plans to upgrade?