Thoughts on Forum Updates

[Syluxguy28O3]

I know i still have to get you those SS's of DP. I have been traveling a lot with work in the last 2 weeks and fighting the flu. Havent really been home on my main PC that has DP. Will try to get you some soon.

jeez im sick too! hmmm...

[Mindf!3ldzX]

All aboard the upgrade boat.

[Baker]

The cite doesnt seem broken and any requests (such as demo downloads, etc...) are unrelated. If it aint broke.....

Solecord might have a great many subconscious concerns on his mind:

[Phenom]

Nice blast from the past sig Baker!

[bluntz]

I hate change with a fkn passion.This forum is the best ,why screw it up!
The only thing I would change is the ability to moderate your own threads with the power to remove the offensive bullshit that anyone can leave and ruin a good thing.
One other thing that bugs me is after I read the newest post on the forum it is automatically removed from the list of new posts. if I want to read it again,I can't find it unless I commented on it and then I have to go to my own post history to find it.

[Baker]

The only thing I would change is the ability to moderate your own threads with the power to remove the offensive bullshit that anyone can leave and ruin a good thing.

That would be nice, except I bet this would start happening:

1. Someone newbie starts a "how do I do this" thread
2. Thread proves to be immensely useful
3. Someone newbie then decides he got the answer to his question and doesn't something like close the thread, removes useful conversation viewed as off-topic, deletes posts or the thread itself. (At Inside3D there used to be this one person who would post a tutorial and later edit it out after it had pages of replies ... .. several times ... it was annoying.)

It would happen. We've seen people want to do that before.

At the same time, yeah ... significant derails or someone just mucking up a thread happens (sometimes even on purpose) ...

[MadGypsy]

@mod own post - this is why forums have moderators. If someone vetted wants the power to mod their posts there really shouldn't be a reason why they can't (maybe with very limited permissions to start)

@new posts disappear after reading - this annoys me too. I have probably spent 1/5 of my time here searching my own posts just so I can find the (already read) thread I am looking for. I know there is the "latest news" feature, but that only holds the last ?10? (i forget) results.

@test drive: Of course you can test drive without touching this site. As a matter of fact it would be highly recommended. Clone this site and upgrade it, then send people to the clone, with the understanding that it is a clone and may not survive (ie - you may lose all your posts). This has the added bonus that the webmaster can get an idea of how much stuff s going to break, without breaking QuakeOne for real. I wouldn't upgrade any other way and am a little shocked that Solecord would consider a "blind" upgrade.

@upgrading at all - My vote is no. Upgrade for what? I'm with Baker on this one - there doesn't seem to be anything of actual use to QuakeOne in the upgrade. I also think it's nutty that a site would rely on AJAX as their big upgrade, considering many people turn javascript off and therefore ajax will not work.

We had a post on here about the best practices for avoiding a virus. More than a couple people touted no script and adblock as their method. Those people will not be able to "enjoy" the whateverness of AJAX driven dynamic pages.

I drive a 2001 Dodge Ram 1500B van and my friend drives a Lexus. If I get a flat or some other non-critical problem happens I can hop in my van, start it up and drive wherever (albeit with difficulty). If the same problems happen to my friends Lexus it won't even start til the problem is fixed. The Lexus knows there is a problem and shuts down.

My point being that this site has proved to be a reliable old car that has hundreds of thousands of miles on it and keeps on running just as expected. Upgrade to a "Lexus" and you might find yourself stranded on the freeway, miles from help in a cell-phone dead zone, with no way to rectify your problem, all over a flat tire (or maybe even just an incredibly low tire). To make problems worse, you can't even get that tire off to change it yourself unless you have the key to unlock your lugs.

Welcome to technology, where no one can mess with your "car" - including you.

[gdiddy62]

I've lurked here quite a bit reading. On the front-end (what I get to see and use) my vote is no change. I understand it is probably frustrating on the backend, but if you have someone talented enough to make it work more efficiently for those, and it sounds as if we do, then go that route. I fear the loss of functionality and loss of useful threads which have helped to bring some more to this forum.

[Chip]

So, here's my opinion, as I've seen some forums upgrading and changing too much. It could break the atmosphere. I think you all agree this forum theme has a certain atmosphere.

So, if you upgrade find a similar theme. Hell, find an identical theme!

Here's a theme that might require little modification to resemble the current one:



Here's the upgrade guide:

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/upgrade

[talisa]

i agree with most others. dun fix whats not broken, and the site seems to work fine and i dont really see what this 'new way of how the site would work' adds. it doesnt add anything we really need at all nor would be much improvement over what we got now or such

so again, dont fix whats not broken. site works fine and does everythign we want it to do, so save yourself the time and money and keep the site like this


EDIT: btw only thing that still needs fixing that i pointed out already long ago but from time to time noticed is still worng is he names of the columns of search results at top and such. they still have the wrong names above the wrong colums


1st should be 'thread name', 2nd should be 'thread starter', 3rd is good, 4th should be 'forum', and 5th should be 'last post'

[Chip]

I'm sure Solecord is taking into account the security enhancements and improved back-end management. As Baker said, everything else can be rewritten or adapted to resemble the current appearance.

[Solecord]

@test drive: Of course you can test drive without touching this site. As a matter of fact it would be highly recommended. Clone this site and upgrade it, then send people to the clone, with the understanding that it is a clone and may not survive (ie - you may lose all your posts). This has the added bonus that the webmaster can get an idea of how much stuff s going to break, without breaking QuakeOne for real. I wouldn't upgrade any other way and am a little shocked that Solecord would consider a "blind" upgrade.

Well the big "catch" in this suggestion is vBulletin is not free software. You have to purchase a license to use it. If I want to upgrade the forum at, for example new.quakeone.com, I'd have to purchase a new license. If the ultimate response is to not upgrade, then I just wasted $200+. So either the license is purchased and the site is upgraded, or it isn't. No other options, unless you want to donate the money for the license

And yes, as Chip said, there's more to upgrading than just "ohh new version let's do it." There's lots of security enhancements.

Right now I'm leaning around 80% towards not upgrading. I may upgrade the forum to the latest secure version of the software at the current version I'm on, but not move to the new 5.X version of the software... keep posting thoughts if you have them though, nothing is set yet.

[Phenom]

Well the big "catch" in this suggestion is vBulletin is not free software. You have to purchase a license to use it. If I want to upgrade the forum at, for example new.quakeone.com, I'd have to purchase a new license. If the ultimate response is to not upgrade, then I just wasted $200+. So either the license is purchased and the site is upgraded, or it isn't. No other options, unless you want to donate the money for the license

And yes, as Chip said, there's more to upgrading than just "ohh new version let's do it." There's lots of security enhancements.

Right now I'm leaning around 80% towards not upgrading. I may upgrade the forum to the latest secure version of the software at the current version I'm on, but not move to the new 5.X version of the software... keep posting thoughts if you have them though, nothing is set yet.

Then no, I wouldn't upgrade at all, nobody really called for an upgrade so something must be working right!

[MadGypsy]

I would be more than happy to donate towards the $200 for a test upgrade. I think it is pretty ridiculous that they expect you to just upgrade. What if you have made mods to the software or installed 3rd party "plug-ins" that your site relies on for some feature? Even PHPBB3 recommends that you back up your entire site/database before upgrading in the case that something goes horribly wrong.

My above post wasn't meant to say "don't upgrade", my vote was no. I didn't consider the security angle. However, is security really an issue here? Beyond a malicious attack solely for the purpose of shutting it all down, what security is necessary? Is that security need met?

I'm not really asking these questions. These would be the questions that make up my mind if I was the one deciding on an upgrade. I (as a PHP programmer) may also ask myself if it's possible for me to write my own upgrade that handles the "new" security issues. I bet you have already considered that though

[Solecord]

I don't have the sheer amount of time it'd take to review the entire vBulletin code base to determine if any security holes need addressing or not. That's partly why it's easier to just do the upgrades.

When the site was started vBulletin was a yearly fee. You paid for a license, and your license gave you access to updates for one year's time. I think it was $189 for the initial license purchase, and to renew your license on a yearly basis was $49. They have since changed their pricing model, and now charge $209 for an upgrade, and you have access to all updates in the version you purchase (i.e. if you purchase now, you get version 5.X and have access to all releases within the 5.X version). When they release 6.X you'd have to renew your license to get the 6.X version.

As of right now, my license is expired so if I want to download any security fixes they've released since the version we're running now, I'd have to renew the license.

My entire point of this thread was to just get peoples' opinions on the new version of vBulletin. If people don't like the new version of the forum, I'll simply stick with what we have and nothing else will change. Like I said, I don't want to just pay for a renewal and end up not using it. That's why I was asking for input...

Oh, and just to state, I'm not really asking for people to donate money if we decide to upgrade. This is something I do because I want to - because I like to.