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[Toady One]

I think it uses something high tech like separate numbered files in a directory on my server.

[Dasleah]

Hmmmm.

If it uses flat-file (erm, a text file for a database, I think - oh god, I'm so horribly out of practice with all the terminology) it should be technically feasible to run a MySQL statement to insert at least the username / password into the SQL database that phpBB uses. I don't know whether phpBB will have a tantrum with that or not.

This requires research! To the batcave!

EDIT: A quick poke around reveals that UBB (the current forum software) does use a flat file database, but nothing thus far on layout. I'll see if there's a conversion to SQL thing around somewhere...

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Dasleah ]

[MaxVance]

I also recommend upgrading the forum. Another forum I visit used software like this for many years (2000-2005). The migration took four days. Unfortunately I don't know any of the technical details of it, but needless to say it wasn't done by hand. So yes, it is possible to do the migration in some automated way.

[Dasleah]

Things are looking good.

Man, it feels great to be wearing my web-dev hat again. Even if it's just to satisfy my own curiosity    

EDIT: It appears that the version number of the forum may be a problem. It's doable, but at this stage it looks like it's going to be UBB -> phpBB2 -> phpBB3 instead of just straight UBB -> phpBB3. But at least it looks entirely within the realm of possibility to do, so at least that's reassuring.

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Dasleah ]

[Toady One]

I don't suppose it would be the end of the world to just eventually have that forum be the forum and stop new threads on this one, if nothing can be migrated.  I don't have any direct access to the SQL thingy, so any solution would have to work more or less like the board itself does or something.  Unless my crappy php admin control panel has powers.  It seemed limited, but I don't know anything at this point.

edit: so that goes from here to phpBB2?  I remember seeing that thread before, back in the last discussion, wherever that is.

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Dasleah]

I believe this is the latest version of the tool we'd need, although obviously I have no idea if it'll work or not. It's also quite old, but the threads surrounding it appear to be quite comprehensive, so any problems might be fixed. I grabbed the 0.31 zip off his website and I'm having a look around to see what it tries to do.

I might even have to find a copy of UBB and attempt the whole process on my test server. Oh, the excitement!

EDIT: Hmmm, my Google-Fu doesn't reveal much more than I've already recovered. Anyways, I think it's certainly possible to migrate the entire forum over to phpBB (in at least some version). We'd keep all the posts, threads, forums, and users, but we'd lose people's saved Private Messages at least, and the ban lists might be wiped, allowing old asshats to plague us once more. Average implementation looks to be a couple of days, barring any huge mishaps.

And you're right, we could just start a fresh in the 'new' forum, and I don't think you'd have anyone complain. It's just that it'd be a bumpy ride for a while - registrations can chew up some CPU cycles - and we'd need to figure out some sort of system so that users can prove who they are (so we don't get people registering under already taken user names on this forum and generally being a nuisance)

Of course, another route altogether would to find some mods for the current forum software to try and hack it up to current 'standards'. That could prove... interesting. The hacks are out there, at least.

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Dasleah ]

[axus]

Awww, I like the forum currently.  It's fast, and no crappy sigs.  I'm not opposed to trying out new things, but keep the option to fall back if it sucks.

[Puzzlemaker]

I am torn.  I really want an upgrade.  But I kinda want to keep all the stuff in this forum.

But if that hack thing works, go for it.  Please.  For the love of humanity.

[MaxVance]

The new forum can have themes made for it so it looks like this forum does. As for signatures, no images/banner sigs can be made a rule. (Of course, it would have to be enforced manually.)

[Mikademus]

quote:Originally posted by Puzzlemaker:
<STRONG>I am torn.  I really want an upgrade.  But I kinda want to keep all the stuff in this forum.

But if that hack thing works, go for it.  Please.  For the love of humanity.</STRONG>

Yeah, I'd say keeping the messages is a requisite. And the appontment of a few janitor admins with the task of either merging threads on the same topic, or sorting threads into dedicated sub-fora.

[Toady One]

The messages have to be kept in some way or another, but just leaving this board here works for most purposes.  New registrations and posts can be disallowed here to stop too much confusion.  It would be nice to just have everything suddenly over on the new board, but it's unclear at this point how/if the convertor will work.  I'm not sure if I'd have to delete the phpBB3 I currently have and then put a phpBB2 up there instead and then follow the procedures on their site for upgrading from 2 to 3.  It's a pain to set up the phpBBs because I don't have shell access, so I have to set everything up manually.

As for signatures, the new board lets you customize what can go into the signatures.  As the admin, I can turn off images and have char num/width/height/font size restrictions as well.  The system seems quite powerful, though I'm sure many of you are more aware of whatever downsides there are than I am.

As for poaching user names, if we have to go through registration again, since we still have this board, people can more or less prove their identities here by PMing me or something.  I don't think it'll be much a problem initially (beyond the level of some troll monitoring this thread deciding to be a temporary dick or something), though the worst of it might come up if an old user of this board comes by a year later and finds their user name taken on the new board by somebody legitimate who has been around there for a year.

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Dasleah]

Yeah, I was thinking that all the issues with transferring posts would simply be too much hassle for it to be viable. It'd be far easier to simply close this board to registrations, keep it around for archiving purposes, and simply include linkage in the new forum to the most 'important' posts that still exist around here. A Wiki-contribution drive as well? So the information is archived off site as well, and the Wiki could always use more info.

A period of pre-registration would be nice as well, before the forum opens proper, so any problems with asshats registering under established user-names can be handled before they get free reign to foul things up.

So is the 'new' forum an inevitability or just an interesting distraction?

[Toady One]

I don't know.  I thought I'd give people time to sound off on it.  I know there's a group of people for it, but there are a few people that have posted against it for a few reasons.  What does axus mean by "fast", for instance?  Would the new board be slow?  Any other objections?

What do people think about not moving over the messages and members?  Because I think it would take a long time to get it to work using the UBB Convertor, and people seemed to have various issues with it (enough to fill 60 or so pages between the two topics).

It would also be prudent to come up with the forum/subforum structure in advance, since it's annoying to have to move things around afterward, and you guys use this things more than I do.  The bug reports section is the most important part for me, and no matter how it works out, I'm leaving the current bug reports up (even if new ones here are disallowed) so that my links remain intact.  The new bug reports section could work the exact same way, since I haven't felt a need to move over to a bug tracker.  I think that part's working fine.

There are probably a lot of people that haven't even seen this thread, so if I do feel more comfortable with changing boards, I should probably put up something more official and continue the discussion.

[Mikademus]

Ok, wishlist for the new suggestions forum:

* Sub-forum for the most common topics (stones and magic comes to mind)
* Moderators with the power to merge threads and move to proper sub-fora
* A "golden threads" sub-forum where the most significant and/or best threads are moved. This forum is closed for new topics but existing threads can be replied to

[ElectricEel]

I'm all for upgrading to a better forum system. One advantage that I don't think has not been mentioned yet would be a better search function - currently search only brings you to threads, not specific posts, and finding the post you want in a thread with a large number of pages can be a bit of a pain in the ass.