Site Upgrade or not?

[Macrosill]

The time has come that the old vB4 forum is no longer compatible with current versions of php and other server software. I have to make a choice and am looking to the community for input.

Do we keep the forum as is and lose all the icons on https protocol or upgrade to a different forum software and lose some functionality and the DIYC Theme? With the missing icons half, if not more, of the DIYC theme is already gone!

What do you think? I made the poll active for 15 days.

 

[Aurbo99]

If you upgrade to v5Bulletin, how difficult will it be to develop a v5 update to the DIYC theme?

 

[Macrosill]

IDK as I do not know how to do it. The current theme was put together by a member back in 2012. I have reached out to him a few years ago and he didn't have the time to develop a theme for vB5.

If we do upgrade it probably will not be vB5. I am thinking xenforo.

 

[dirknerkle]

Themes aren't horribly difficult to create in vb5 and you have access to quite a few to use if you like. The process of converting over to vb5 is a bit challenging from 4.x but doable. You need php8, and updated mysql engines as well. And after that, you have to try to figure out why it seems to run slower....(arrggghhghh)

Don't ask how I know this.....

 

[algerdes]

I understand the need to change with the underlying programs (PHP, etc.) moving on. (I run a bunch of websites - non Blinky related.)
My concern is when. As this is the "high season" for everything "Blinky", it seems to be not-so-good of a time to be making changes.

When I opened the site tonight, being greeted with "Go to first new post ..." spelled out on every thread gave me yet another reason to just turn of the computer and take up knitting. One more thing in a whole pile of things trying to get ready for this year's display.

Changing in the spring makes so much more sense to me.

 

[Macrosill]

I understand the need to change with the underlying programs (PHP, etc.) moving on. (I run a bunch of websites - non Blinky related.)
My concern is when. As this is the "high season" for everything "Blinky", it seems to be not-so-good of a time to be making changes.

When I opened the site tonight, being greeted with "Go to first new post ..." spelled out on every thread gave me yet another reason to just turn of the computer and take up knitting. One more thing in a whole pile of things trying to get ready for this year's display.

Changing in the spring makes so much more sense to me.

Timing is always key and largely considered.

 

[WebberLights]

I have used Xenforo for alot of fourms related to diffrent topics, and I feel like it would work pretty well on this site. I have developed custom themes for them before, and i know the ins and outs of the software lol. The only downside is that old posts here won't transfer over.

 

[P. Short]

The only downside is that old posts here won't transfer over.

That is a big downside IMO.

 

[dirknerkle]

I would have preferred to try different software when I converted diychristmas.org from 4.x to 5.x but retaining the old posts was the overriding reason why I went with vBulletin again. I thought that the main reason for a forum is to retain the older information.

And, actually, the early versions of 5.x had a lot of problems, but most of them have been fixed. vBulletin 5.7.5 patch 2 (or whatever we're on now) is much, MUCH better than the early versions.

BTW, vBulletin 6 is just around the corner. I have no idea what that's all about.... Jon Chuchla is in charge of diychristmas.org now and whether to upgrade to it is entirely his decision.

 

[Macrosill]

I have used Xenforo for alot of fourms related to diffrent topics, and I feel like it would work pretty well on this site. I have developed custom themes for them before, and i know the ins and outs of the software lol. The only downside is that old posts here won't transfer over.

From what I am reading Xenforo support importing data from vB 3 through 5. What good would an import be if it didn't import the old posts?

Obviously anything done on the live installation would be done on a separate domain in a test migration first.

 

[MartinMueller2003]

I have used Xenforo for alot of fourms related to diffrent topics, and I feel like it would work pretty well on this site. I have developed custom themes for them before, and i know the ins and outs of the software lol. The only downside is that old posts here won't transfer over.

Those old posts are important. I refer to them regularly.

 

[P. Short]

From what I am reading Xenforo support importing data from vB 3 through 5. What good would an import be if it didn't import the old posts?

Obviously anything done on the live installation would be done on a separate domain in a test migration first.

Not much good. But does that data include the old posts, or just other data (such as user names and passwords, locations, join dates, lists of banned users, etc)? Hopefully that would become clear before too much effort is expended on a test migration.

 

[Keith R]

Brian,
The biggest thing I see is that during the last upgrade, many links and pictures were lost. Hopefully those are archived before and can be re-linked after the upgrades and migration are completed. I have been on here a while and it is disappointing to see a link I remember from years past doesn't work and I didn't save it to my own drive..

 

[jchuchla]

BTW, vBulletin 6 is just around the corner. I have no idea what that's all about.... Jon Chuchla is in charge of diychristmas.org now and whether to upgrade to it is entirely his decision.

I would strongly recommend looking into the vbulletin hosted forum solution. This would help offload your maintenance to their team. The downside is that the hosted option doesn't allow any 3rd party plugins, and it is for the forum only. You'd still need to host the wiki separately.
The only reason I didn't move diychristmas.org over to the hosted solution was because the usage is too low to justify the ongling costs. I'd be willing to bet that the economics work out differently here.

 

[Macrosill]

Thank you for the input. It seems an upgrade is in our future. Now to decide which forum software to go with. The 2 packages being considered are vB5 and Xenforo. I am currently leaning to migrate over to Xenforo.

 

[Macrosill]

Those old posts are important. I refer to them regularly.

Martin, I agree. I would not consider a software package upgrade that did not include the old posts. The site as a resource would be lost.

Not much good. But does that data include the old posts, or just other data (such as user names and passwords, locations, join dates, lists of banned users, etc)? Hopefully that would become clear before too much effort is expended on a test migration.

I agree Phil and a testing would be done before anything is done on the live site to confirm.

Brian,
The biggest thing I see is that during the last upgrade, many links and pictures were lost. Hopefully those are archived before and can be re-linked after the upgrades and migration are completed. I have been on here a while and it is disappointing to see a link I remember from years past doesn't work and I didn't save it to my own drive..

I could not agree more with you Keith. The only time I can remember links not working after a site upgrade is when we moved from phpbb to vBulletin back arouns 2008 or so. We have been with vB since then.

I would strongly recommend looking into the vbulletin hosted forum solution. This would help offload your maintenance to their team. The downside is that the hosted option doesn't allow any 3rd party plugins, and it is for the forum only. You'd still need to host the wiki separately.
The only reason I didn't move diychristmas.org over to the hosted solution was because the usage is too low to justify the ongling costs. I'd be willing to bet that the economics work out differently here.

John,
Supporting Memberships are declining rapidly. We currently get enough to barely cover the cost of hosting fees. Once the revenue dips below the costs the site will be shut down so any decisions to add costs is not taken lightly.

 

[dirknerkle]

I didn't vote in this survey because I faced this dilemma 3 years ago and finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade diychristmas.org to the latest vBulletin software. My thinking was that the new version of vBulletin provided the best chance for retaining all the old data. Plus, since I actually purchased a new copy, I had the added benefit of using the vBulletin tech support people should I run into any problem during the upgrade process.

The upgrade went fairly smoothly, all things considered. The new forum software utilized an all-new design from the bottom up and it took us quite a while to get familiar with it. We had the new system running the same day we started the upgrade. Yes, we ran into some problems; the primary issue was performance. Compared to the older and leaner vb4.x version of vBulletin, the new system's internal architecture proved to have overhead we didn't anticipate. It still does, but updating the forum software along with the versions of PHP and MySQL on the server helped quite a bit. The upgraded site's slower performance probably has caused many users to no longer log into diychristmas.org, and while we're sorry about that, there's no going back to the old software because commercial hosting platforms no longer support the old versions of PHP, MySQL and etc.

We lost our integrated chat room in the process, but as it turns out, that hasn't proven to be a problem as few people used it on a regular basis anyway. As a workaround, we set up a public chat room on digwdf.org, but access logs show that it sits idle for months-on-end. FWIW, digwdf.org runs on a Dell server here in the old DIGWDF lab... so the annual cost to keep it running is essentially the cost of an ORG domain (peanuts...) and the cost of electricity to run the Dell computer (just a few more peanuts...) I use NOIP.COM for the domain registration and the other 3 web sites that reside on the Dell server for my own personal use. I've never put a pencil to it my expenses probably total less than $150/year.

Forum software doesn't generally break very often, as long as its host server is kept up to date with good security software. When a forum does break, it's always a bit of a surprise and tends to use up most of your day(s) until the problem is mitigated. I'm sure Jon would concur as he's been the owner of diychristmas.org for 3 years now and has had to tend to a few of those "bumps in the road." His comment about using vBulletin's cloud hosting option are well-intentioned and certainly well-considered. I support any direction he wishes to go.

 

[jchuchla]

John,
Supporting Memberships are declining rapidly. We currently get enough to barely cover the cost of hosting fees. Once the revenue dips below the costs the site will be shut down so any decisions to add costs is not taken lightly.

I can certainly understand this. It seems like many people have moved on from traditional forums to the more modern social channels. The value proposition to having a paid membership has also declined. When I first started my paid membership many years ago, the big benefit was participation in group buys. Those have completely gone away. Perhaps you could claw back some of that lost value by partnering with some of the bigger vendors in the hobby and find a way to offer discount codes at these vendors stores to supporting members.

 

[ChiefWarrant]

Thank you for the input. It seems an upgrade is in our future. Now to decide which forum software to go with. The 2 packages being considered are vB5 and Xenforo. I am currently leaning to migrate over to Xenforo.

I know there are people out there who think that those more modern social channels giving offering them "free access" is the greatest thing, but it's just not for me.

If one of the ultimate soulutions to gin up support is working with bigger vendors for a discount, an idea could be to roll the discount code into a group buy. So the code could not be shared with non-supporting members. A vendor may be more incentivized to participate on a 5%-10% discount knowing they are going to be able to sell 10 items at once rather than 1-2 items. If I were a $20 supporting member and was going to buy a $300 controller anyways, a 10% discount already covers the supporting membership cost. From a "group buy" perspective, the vendor would ship directly to the "group buy participant," so no one has to sit in the garage sorting out items to pack/ship.

Personally, I would like to see actual group buys come back. One of the things that drew me to this hobby was the Do It Yourself aspect. You gained a certain level of satifaction when you built everything from the PCB up.

I cannot count the number of times that I have found solutions to problems in the forum. If I cannot find a solution in the forum, the answer is generally only one question away. Being a useful tool (with/without group buys), I will continue to be a supporting member and hope the forum contiunues into the future.

-Tony

No Facebook=Happy Life!

 

[Keebler]

Brian,
For my two cents worth, I think that the forum SHOULD be updated, but stick with the VB platform. I feel that it is the only one that can virtually guarantee the archive is solid. As you and other members have pointed out. the archive is where much of the value of the site is garnered. With the information on their website, it look like the learning curve would be minimal. and the V6 portal looks very familiar to other Christmas hobby sites. (I could not find where the V5 is even a reasonably purchasable option - the cheapest licensing I found was $249)(https://www.vbulletin.com/en/checkout/cart/configure/id/21769073/product_id/28/)

It looks like the primary goal of xenforo is monetization. the paywall does not seem to permit non-paying member access to much if anything other than perhaps viewing the site - non-participation.
"User upgrades# User upgrades are one of the monetization options included in XenForo. This system allows your users to purchase increased access or access to additional features on your forum.
When a user purchases an upgrade, they will be added to one or more user groups. You would configure these groups to have additional permissions or provide access to additional areas of the forum.
Any content or feature, access to which can be controlled through permissions, can be attached to a user upgrade.
To setup a user upgrade, you must first setup a payment profile via Setup > Payment profiles. These profiles define how the payment will be processed and received. Once a payment profile is defined, the user upgrade can be configured, including options surrounding cost, duration, and whether the upgrade is automatically extended.
Users can purchase upgrades from the Account upgrades page listed under the account menu."(https://xenforo.com/docs/xf2/user-upgrades/)
it just does not seem very "friendly" to the lighting community as a whole (IMHO). it seems that there have been several issues with user migration (seen in the white pages) from other forum platforms. such as users being frozen, locked out, omitted, deleted, or even combined with other users.


Vbulletin 6 is $179 compared to Xenforo is $160 (both are for the self hosting) - the cloud options seem to be way over priced (IMHO)

Im certainly not telling you or anyone what to do - merely making a suggestion and presenting what I could find on their respected websites (and others).

resources:
https://www.vbulletin.com/
https://www.vbulletin.com/en/checkout/cart/configure/id/21769073/product_id/28/
https://xenforo.com/purchase/#licenses
https://xenforo.com/docs/xf2/groups-permissions/#other-uses-for-groups
https://xenforo.com/docs/xf2/user-upgrades/