Upgrade

FEEDBACK FORUM - Let Us Know! (INTERACTIVE)
1

As many of you know we have been looking for a long while at moving the forums from the current phpBB2 to the standard software used by RBI, Community server

One of the major issues has been is that we wil not move to community server unless we can take all the membership , and the last 4 years posts/topics with us.

The tech guys have been looking at ways of doing this for a while now, and while at first look it seemed easy, in actual fact the further they went into it converting our heavily modified php forum to .ASP became more and more difficult. These same guys have a huge number of other websites they also have spend time on developing.

Given the developer time that is going to be needed to convert this, and taking into account the needs of other RBI websites we have decided the quick and easy option for now is to continue looking at converting the forums to .ASP but in the mean time to upgrade the current forums to the latest version of PHPBB

The plan is to upgrade the forums, integrate a photo gallery and chat room and give the forums a redesign, keping the original feel to the forums but bringing them a little more up to date, take all the existing posts and membership details (so no having to re-register) and continue into 2009 on our existing website hosts.

the forums software will be quite heavily modified from the “out of the box” phpBB and therefore will take a while to ensure that the modifications work as intended

This is slightly depressing as community server does give a lot more extras to you, the web user, than phpBB However it is a step forward and the new forum software does allow a lot more than the current.

The forum team are already exploring the new software and getting used to admin/moderating systems, we hope to have the upgrade completed by he end of January 2009

there will be a period of time when the forums are unavailable as the database is converted, we are planing this to happen late at night/early morning to keep disruption to the minimum, we should be able to gve at least 48 hours notice of this downtime.

I will use this thread to keep you all updated with the progress of the updates and hopefuly answer any questions

2

Other than RBIs simple desire to use their own software instead of phpBB, what is wrong with things as they are?

Apart from a few unfounded complaints from some members about receiving spam mail and a short period when the servers decided to take an unbooked holiday, I don’t recall there ever being any complaints about the forums, usability or appearance in the 5+ years I’ve been a member.

For me (and quite possbily many others) please leave it as it is : if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

:frowning:

3

I’ve not been here long but it seems to work well as it is.
I’m not aware of any spam etc and only had a few times when i had probs getting in
All in all its easy to ues and everything else seems to work well[/img][/code]

4

Fair points Rob and Nick,
The reason why we have to upgrade to something is because this version of phpBB is way out of date, and heavily modified, the security updates that phpBB release to stop the forums getting hacked cant be added automatically and some would screw up the modifications, so a lot of time is spent either manually implementing the security updates or designing work arounds so the updates dont screw up the board.

With the ASP community server it isnt open source so the attempts to get round the forum security is a lot harder and a lot rarer- however due to the problems of converting this php forum to ASP we have decided to upgrade to the mewest most secure phpBB forum for the time being. this should lead to less time being spent simply keeping it secure and allow the developers more time on other projects.

This upgrade wil also give us the integrated image gallery that people have been asking for, and the ability to upload images directly into their posts

and if a minor miracle happens we will hopefuly lose the Avatar bug that has been annoying us for years :wink:

5

upgrade the current forums to the latest version of PHPBB

Is this the one that Truckersworld are currently using :question:

6

ROG:

upgrade the current forums to the latest version of PHPBB

Is this the one that Truckersworld are currently using :question:

Probably, or close to it… I dont know which version they are using- to get an idea of what we will be getting it wil look and be very similar to the USA Truck Drivers forum

roundtable.truck.net/

As you will see the design is not out of the box and there are some features will be be using, the mouse over topic being one I really want… go to one of the US forum and try it…

7

Rikki-UK:
roundtable.truck.net/

As you will see the design is not out of the box and there are some features will be be using, the mouse over topic being one I really want… go to one of the US forum and try it…

I am a member of that site and I find it a bit over complicated but that may be because I do not use it very often.

8

So whats bought this on afraid of the competition of another well known site that has recently gone upmarket? :wink: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

9

In this current climate spending money on something that doesnt return an income does not go to well with it’s investors…

The licensing terms for Community Server have changed for the 2007 version. The Personal and Business licenses are no longer available. Only the free express, professional, intranet and enterprise licenses remain, along with a hosted edition. However the free express edition’s limits were increased to 15 Blogs, 15 Forums, 10 Photo Galleries, and 250 Shared Files.[20] The pricing for the 2008 version has doubled in some cases, continuing concerns among users, mostly small businesses, that the software is becoming less affordable.

10

OLT:
In this current climate spending money on something that doesnt return an income does not go to well with it’s investors…

Seeing as how RBI have a number of full enterprise licences to use Community server, and have deployed it over nearly all of its community websites , using it on here would cost precisely nothing - the cost comes in with the developers time to convert this board to .ASP.

I could repeat what I have written above as to why we are going with phpBB3 rather than community server again and again, but seeing as you obviously didnt read it, decided to go with your own fantasy ideas of why, or chose to simply ignore it I wont bother. :unamused: :wink: :laughing: :laughing:

11

As long as the new format works and it is as simple as this one then I don’t mind what is decided.

12

ROG:
As long as the new format works and it is as simple as this one then I don’t mind what is decided.

That goes for me too ROG.

13

As long as its as easy to work like the drivers rules and regs I reckon i could get use to it :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

14

I could repeat what I have written above as to why we are going with phpBB3 rather than community server again and again, but seeing as you obviously didnt read it, decided to go with your own fantasy ideas of why, or chose to simply ignore it I wont bother.

I did read it,and as i see it this forum is not compatable witht the new software,so that means you cannot move members or posts to it.Perhaps that is why you are staying with this software albeit upgraded :question:

Could there also be a conflict with user data :question: under the data protection acts :question: just a thought i had about emails and profiles being moved without user’s consent :question: …

15

Could there also be a conflict with user data under the data protection acts just a thought i had about emails and profiles being moved without user’s consent …

No conflict at all,

  1. We are not changing servers- so nothing is being moved
  2. The servers are in the USA therefore under US data laws
  3. We do not hold infomation that is under the Data protection act anyway

So all in all a non issue :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

16

OLT:

I could repeat what I have written above as to why we are going with phpBB3 rather than community server again and again, but seeing as you obviously didnt read it, decided to go with your own fantasy ideas of why, or chose to simply ignore it I wont bother.

I did read it,and as i see it this forum is not compatable witht the new software,so that means you cannot move members or posts to it.Perhaps that is why you are staying with this software albeit upgraded :question:

Could there also be a conflict with user data :question: under the data protection acts :question: just a thought i had about emails and profiles being moved without user’s consent :question: …

17

I have the same concerns as i use other forums that are using modern PHPBB and it just seems much more complicated, more difficult to search and a royal pain in the arse to quote and edit posts, as well as linking photos.

If it works like this one has, then no problem, if it is as difficult as the newer type, then it will hurt the site.

18

Semtex:

OLT:

I could repeat what I have written above as to why we are going with phpBB3 rather than community server again and again, but seeing as you obviously didnt read it, decided to go with your own fantasy ideas of why, or chose to simply ignore it I wont bother.

I did read it,and as i see it this forum is not compatable witht the new software,so that means you cannot move members or posts to it.Perhaps that is why you are staying with this software albeit upgraded :question:

Could there also be a conflict with user data :question: under the data protection acts :question: just a thought i had about emails and profiles being moved without user’s consent :question: …

▲ ▲▲ that is suppose to mean :question: Having an interest in websites all information gathered is usefull