Forum software upgrade (for real now)
- Thread starter Cthulhu
- Start date
Teioh
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Teiocho
There used to be an add-on which permitted members to change their own usernames complete with page history of name changes. There was a limit to it iirc such as not being able to change too many times in a short amount of time, plus having to have made a certain amount of posts before being able to in the first place, etc. It was for the first xenforo though and as Yop mentioned, it may not work on XF 2.
Teioh
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Teiocho
Lex
Administrator
@Yop, looks like there's a way to import thanks, worth considering?
Context for people who aren't Yop: all the thanks did not transfer to XF (which has a similar "like" system. IDK how many people this is important to.
Context for people who aren't Yop: all the thanks did not transfer to XF (which has a similar "like" system. IDK how many people this is important to.
Obsidian Fire
Ahk Morn!
- AKA
- The Engineer
The BBC Code all works. 
Unfortunately, spoiler tags don't work in-line anymore. They always start on the next line and are more like Quote boxes that hide things.
It also isn't possible (for me anyway) to edit posts. That could get annoying quick.
Unfortunately, spoiler tags don't work in-line anymore. They always start on the next line and are more like Quote boxes that hide things.
It also isn't possible (for me anyway) to edit posts. That could get annoying quick.
Lex
Administrator
The BBC Code all works.
Unfortunately, spoiler tags don't work in-line anymore. They always start on the next line and are more like Quote boxes that hide things.
It also isn't possible (for me anyway) to edit posts. That could get annoying quick.
- That's how the built-in spoiler tags are supposed to work
- Everyone will be able to edit posts, that's just a user permissions thing
Lex
Administrator
Apparently yes
We need an emoji plugin for the actual board to use from comp though, they're easy to come by
We need an emoji plugin for the actual board to use from comp though, they're easy to come by
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
Neat, and it looks straightforward enough too. Should try that on the test forums before doing it for real though.
It does help that the Xf importer can retain original post IDs; iirc discourse would just discard them. TBF that's what I would've done if I had written Discourse. Xf really went out on its way to be compatible with vB in many ways. Just not permissions, lol.
The G'randiest' Daddy
Teh Bunneh of Doom
- AKA
- Darth
Okay I just went on the XF forum and I FUCKING LOVE IT! It's sleek, the customisation options feel solid, I love how the quotes look in posts, it's awesome!
Airling's PC is bork atm so I'll post for her, she says it feels like home, just a bit more modern, and it's beautiful!
Neither of us has said much about this as it isn't our area of expertise, but gorramit I like it
Also y'all are fucking aces, especially Yop, for getting all that shit up and running and I could literally just log in and it was
Airling's PC is bork atm so I'll post for her, she says it feels like home, just a bit more modern, and it's beautiful!
Neither of us has said much about this as it isn't our area of expertise, but gorramit I like it
Also y'all are fucking aces, especially Yop, for getting all that shit up and running and I could literally just log in and it was
Lex
Administrator
We'll give folks to the end of this coming weekend to air their concerns and discuss them.
One of the things I've said is that we haven't really had enough people actually use it, I mean even in a best case scenario when it goes "live" for real we'll need all hands on deck because it'll be a shitstorm of sorting permissions and shit, those are kinks we need to work out.
What we need to do is set a go live date and have Yop, me, and various other staff members available. I'm going to just say this now aswell: as much as I love and have faith in X and Tres as site admins in an authoritah/ hierarchy sense, AFAIK their technical knowledge of the backend is limited (correct if wrong folks). I know they can deal with the board structure and vague user permissions so as long as we're all active at the same time and communicating about changes it should be fine - I'm more referring to actual forum backend/ SQL technical knowledge that only really Yop provides now since Aaron left.
So on the back of that just consider it'll require about 15 hours to transfer all the data, then it'll need to sit hidden for at least a few hours while we all go fix it up before it actually goes back up. Then when it DOES go back up we'll be sorting issues for a while (all of this on the day of the actual move). So with that in mind it should probably be a weekend because AFAIK we're mostly Mon-Fri working folk. As in Yop actions the transfer overnight EU time and he and I are up the following morning/ early afternoon when it returns working stuff out.
We still need to discuss flattening user permissions prior to the move - yay/ nay? Yop there might be a way to transfer our user post ladder because that option exists in Xenforo, it's just not on by default.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
Is that everyone remembers that features and looks etc. are all going to be about community feedback after the move, so I'm thinking discussion threads and polls etc. about features people might want. It'll be an ongoing project for some time, which tbh is refreshing because this board as it is right now, its looks and its features might be iconic and it might be home, but it's been the same for nearly a decade and it'll be good to give the place a face lift.
Another issue nobody's really commented on is that people might be using different themes here - there's a style menu at the bottom. So one person's "TLS" might not be the same as mine (I just use the default "The Lifestream"). When we first move to Xen we'll all be on the same theme for a while (though there is an option to just use the Xenforo default, so there are technically two). With that in mind there are opportunities for people to step up and provide new icons and art etc. to make it really feel like home, there are people who have been doing that kinda thing recently.
I have 16th to 18th July booked off work and am busy this coming Saturday (hen party) and the entirety of the following weekend (pride - hence the preparatory hangover days off on the 16th to 18th July). I feel like I'm a necessary attendee at this "launch" if you will just because I'll be quick at getting to the stuff that needs fixing based on what I've looked at on the test system, so if it has to be a weekend (and it doesn't have to, we basically just have to have Yop + Admin(s) + Me available for a good few hours after it going live) then the first "free" weekend I have is the 21st and 22nd July. But I'm totally open to trying to work something out sooner. The only thing we have to be careful of is the time it takes to transfer the board over and coinciding that with several of us being available to actually do a lot of work in managing the permissions etc when it comes back up, otherwise we're looking at the board being totally offline for a couple of days.
I'm rambling at this point but you get the idea
One of the things I've said is that we haven't really had enough people actually use it, I mean even in a best case scenario when it goes "live" for real we'll need all hands on deck because it'll be a shitstorm of sorting permissions and shit, those are kinks we need to work out.
What we need to do is set a go live date and have Yop, me, and various other staff members available. I'm going to just say this now aswell: as much as I love and have faith in X and Tres as site admins in an authoritah/ hierarchy sense, AFAIK their technical knowledge of the backend is limited (correct if wrong folks). I know they can deal with the board structure and vague user permissions so as long as we're all active at the same time and communicating about changes it should be fine - I'm more referring to actual forum backend/ SQL technical knowledge that only really Yop provides now since Aaron left.
So on the back of that just consider it'll require about 15 hours to transfer all the data, then it'll need to sit hidden for at least a few hours while we all go fix it up before it actually goes back up. Then when it DOES go back up we'll be sorting issues for a while (all of this on the day of the actual move). So with that in mind it should probably be a weekend because AFAIK we're mostly Mon-Fri working folk. As in Yop actions the transfer overnight EU time and he and I are up the following morning/ early afternoon when it returns working stuff out.
We still need to discuss flattening user permissions prior to the move - yay/ nay? Yop there might be a way to transfer our user post ladder because that option exists in Xenforo, it's just not on by default.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
Is that everyone remembers that features and looks etc. are all going to be about community feedback after the move, so I'm thinking discussion threads and polls etc. about features people might want. It'll be an ongoing project for some time, which tbh is refreshing because this board as it is right now, its looks and its features might be iconic and it might be home, but it's been the same for nearly a decade and it'll be good to give the place a face lift.
Another issue nobody's really commented on is that people might be using different themes here - there's a style menu at the bottom. So one person's "TLS" might not be the same as mine (I just use the default "The Lifestream"). When we first move to Xen we'll all be on the same theme for a while (though there is an option to just use the Xenforo default, so there are technically two). With that in mind there are opportunities for people to step up and provide new icons and art etc. to make it really feel like home, there are people who have been doing that kinda thing recently.
I have 16th to 18th July booked off work and am busy this coming Saturday (hen party) and the entirety of the following weekend (pride - hence the preparatory hangover days off on the 16th to 18th July). I feel like I'm a necessary attendee at this "launch" if you will just because I'll be quick at getting to the stuff that needs fixing based on what I've looked at on the test system, so if it has to be a weekend (and it doesn't have to, we basically just have to have Yop + Admin(s) + Me available for a good few hours after it going live) then the first "free" weekend I have is the 21st and 22nd July. But I'm totally open to trying to work something out sooner. The only thing we have to be careful of is the time it takes to transfer the board over and coinciding that with several of us being available to actually do a lot of work in managing the permissions etc when it comes back up, otherwise we're looking at the board being totally offline for a couple of days.
I'm rambling at this point but you get the idea
Fangu
Great Old One
Themes is kind of an outdated concept though, no need to support it imo, just make a decision on it. Anything that lightens the job is a good thing to do imo, like flattening user roles etc. I'm fine with just being a regular user for a good while.(Although I'd like to still have Donator rights - I'd be fine without them for a week or two but preferably not longer.)
You can't cater to every little weird quirky thing this forum does anyway, that's just too much work. Prioritize the important stuff and chuck the rest in a backlog of 'less important' or 'nice to have'.
You guys just decide on a moving date. Preferably it should be set a few weeks ahead to warn people (with a FAQ etc) so members can prepare. But I know Yop is more likely to go 'okay I can start this tomorrow' so I'm guessing that's what'll happen anyway, which is fine as long as the most involved people are available
Also, good job. I believe in this move!
You can't cater to every little weird quirky thing this forum does anyway, that's just too much work. Prioritize the important stuff and chuck the rest in a backlog of 'less important' or 'nice to have'.
You guys just decide on a moving date. Preferably it should be set a few weeks ahead to warn people (with a FAQ etc) so members can prepare. But I know Yop is more likely to go 'okay I can start this tomorrow' so I'm guessing that's what'll happen anyway, which is fine as long as the most involved people are available
Also, good job. I believe in this move!
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
Re: user groups and permissions, I'm thinking of simplifying it - initially - to:
* Admins
* Moderators (super moderators, I'd rather not have section-specific mods because eh)
* Site staff (/ contributors / authors) - more of a vanity usergroup
* Registered users (normies!)
* Donators
We'll need to decide what to do with the "vanity" usergroups:
* A few subcategories of site staff / moderators
* Half a dozen permutations of the donator usergroup, mainly with different colors
* Staff Emeritus
I'd opt to flatten those out, if people are like specializing in a certain area they can chuck that in their user title. I'm fine with keeping Staff Emeritus around.
Re: themes, IDK, I feel that was more of an Aaron thing on the one hand, and a necessity for mobile users on the other hand; Xf has a pretty okayish responsive design by default, and the theme Lex made is mostly just color changes, that is, any theme updates should work just fine (this was an issue back when vB still got updates, so urrh, back in 2007/8)
Re: moving, I'm thinking I should initiate the move on a friday night, leave it on overnight - we'll drop a message on vB indicating that any post made after Point X will not be transferred over. Plan B is to just put it in archive mode altogether, shut it down until we've moved.
Re: availability, I should be available the coming few weekends; the weekend of the 27th I'll probably be home a bit later than usual but starting the move will only take about idk, 20 minutes? Set up a new database, start the transfer, that kinda thing.
* Admins
* Moderators (super moderators, I'd rather not have section-specific mods because eh)
* Site staff (/ contributors / authors) - more of a vanity usergroup
* Registered users (normies!)
* Donators
We'll need to decide what to do with the "vanity" usergroups:
* A few subcategories of site staff / moderators
* Half a dozen permutations of the donator usergroup, mainly with different colors
* Staff Emeritus
I'd opt to flatten those out, if people are like specializing in a certain area they can chuck that in their user title. I'm fine with keeping Staff Emeritus around.
Re: themes, IDK, I feel that was more of an Aaron thing on the one hand, and a necessity for mobile users on the other hand; Xf has a pretty okayish responsive design by default, and the theme Lex made is mostly just color changes, that is, any theme updates should work just fine (this was an issue back when vB still got updates, so urrh, back in 2007/8)
Re: moving, I'm thinking I should initiate the move on a friday night, leave it on overnight - we'll drop a message on vB indicating that any post made after Point X will not be transferred over. Plan B is to just put it in archive mode altogether, shut it down until we've moved.
Re: availability, I should be available the coming few weekends; the weekend of the 27th I'll probably be home a bit later than usual but starting the move will only take about idk, 20 minutes? Set up a new database, start the transfer, that kinda thing.
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
I'm on board with those flattened permissions. The only usergroup that I think might be useful to implement in some capacity would be the Staff Emeritus, since that helps to point to some folk who know what they're about in the community a tad bit differently from the Donators. Whether that's a usergroup, or something else I dunno, but I think that it's a valuable distinction.
I think that themes are just fine, and it might be nice to design a few over time just because, since using them is really fluid, but I don't see it at all as a requirement prior to moving.
Lastly, I think that the "lock down the forums during the move" is the best plan. We can even have a temporary front page poast about it if need be. Anything that freezes conversations from having anything dropped is best.
X
I think that themes are just fine, and it might be nice to design a few over time just because, since using them is really fluid, but I don't see it at all as a requirement prior to moving.
Lastly, I think that the "lock down the forums during the move" is the best plan. We can even have a temporary front page poast about it if need be. Anything that freezes conversations from having anything dropped is best.
X
Lex
Administrator
I think prior to the move we should just have:
- Admin
- SMods (no section specific like you said)
- Registered Users (normies)
- Donators
I'd rather sort the site staff permissions after the move, because we have a lot of new content creators and a lot of people with site staff positions (site author etc.) who don't actually do anything.
IMO leave Staff Emeritus and reinstate it after the move.
Yop, if we can find a way to make sure the user ladder and permissions transfer over that would be decent because it'll save the initial scramble to fix permissions so that literally everyone's posts don't need to be moderated, but flattening prior to the move makes that significantly easier anyway.
Re: themes, we should just stick to colour themes. Initially I'm thinking TLS dark and TLS light. The default will be the TLS dark greenish colouring set up and we can make a light theme based off that for people who prefer bright board (which can just be a child of the default theme) then if people want specific themes they can request?
Agree with Fangu on it being kind of a legacy thing though.
IMO best course of action is just leave a maintenance message in place of the board link til we're set up? This is what most other places do. I suppose there's no harm in locking the forums so people can read threads and whatnot though.
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
Light themes are literally satan though, . Except outside, but outside is literally satan too.
We should make sure to make snapshots of who is in which usergroup(s).
As for closing vs 'archiving', I'm wondering whether we should keep vB up and running for a while (e.g. move it to /oldforums, disable search engine indexing) so we can look up older posts and the like if need be; I'm aware of some encoding issues happening in existing posts, but I haven't yet heard people mention they've been looking at (very) old posts in Xf. Which is either a good sign (they looked, no problems), or a bad one (they didn't look and it's all fucked).
Re: front page post, maybe we should put one up right now? We also still have the option to send a bulk e-mail to all users (at least the ones we can be sure are not spambots) to get them in on it. I remember back in the day we'd get the odd mail from forums to ask us to come back, sometimes it'd boost activity too.
One thing I am glad about is that with Xf, accounts just move and passwords just work; with Discourse everyone had to reset their passwords.
. Except outside, but outside is literally satan too.We should make sure to make snapshots of who is in which usergroup(s).
As for closing vs 'archiving', I'm wondering whether we should keep vB up and running for a while (e.g. move it to /oldforums, disable search engine indexing) so we can look up older posts and the like if need be; I'm aware of some encoding issues happening in existing posts, but I haven't yet heard people mention they've been looking at (very) old posts in Xf. Which is either a good sign (they looked, no problems), or a bad one (they didn't look and it's all fucked).
Re: front page post, maybe we should put one up right now? We also still have the option to send a bulk e-mail to all users (at least the ones we can be sure are not spambots) to get them in on it. I remember back in the day we'd get the odd mail from forums to ask us to come back, sometimes it'd boost activity too.
One thing I am glad about is that with Xf, accounts just move and passwords just work; with Discourse everyone had to reset their passwords.
Lex
Administrator
If there's a way to keep a copy of the vB board up on another url for a while that'd be good just for reference purposes re: usergroups and stuff. I wasn't intending to remove any usergroups from the actual backend, they all transferred over - it's permissions that are the issue. So the idea is to flatten all the user titles on a per-user basis prior to the move rather than actually change any of them in the backend. Then we can fiddle with the permissions in the XF backend and get back what we need.
Most permissions were OK, the biggest things were every post needing mod approval and the private feedback forum so that's another thing that'll need to be heavily looked at before we go live. It has highly custom permissions here that just didn't translate at all to XF.
Most permissions were OK, the biggest things were every post needing mod approval and the private feedback forum so that's another thing that'll need to be heavily looked at before we go live. It has highly custom permissions here that just didn't translate at all to XF.