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 Post subject: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:51 pm 
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We're getting tantalizingly close to being able to open the new MyBB forums! The new forum system should offer a much better experience for everyone - admins, regular members, and guests.

Before you read any further, I want to emphasize: No information is being deleted. You'll be able to access your old posts, PMs, and other data regardless of what happens.

Before we can transition to the MyBB forums, we need to decide what will happen with the data on the current phpBB boards. There are tools available for porting phpBB forum installations to MyBB. This tool would copy the current forum's posts, user accounts, forum structure, and other data into MyBB. However, it's also possible for us to archive the current forums and get a fresh start with the new boards.

Here are the pros and cons of starting fresh - moving to the MyBB forums and archiving the phpBB boards:

Pros
It's a fresh start: Opening a fresh new board gives everyone a chance to reboot. The new forums look awesome, so why fill them with anything but awesome posts? We'll have a member list free of old spambots and troll accounts - and a robust anti-spam system designed to keep these troublemakers at bay.

Database optimization: Making a fresh install ensures that the current boards are clean and optimized - it would be free from any database oddities or weird dead weight left over from the first phpBB boards.

Doesn't take up additional server space: The phpBB installation occupies a few hundred megabytes on the server, mostly from file attachments. Creating a new board doesn't have a big effect on server space, since creating a new forum installation doesn't take up much space.

Lets us create a time capsule of the current forums: I'm pretty sure that the current phpBB skins can't automatically be ported to MyBB. By archiving the phpBB boards, it'll be easy to have a board set up for displaying a live version of the skin (if you're trying to port it to MyBB), and even if you don't want to port over a skin, you'll still be able to feast your eyes on the beauty of MFGGreece (and other skins) in their original form.

Cons
Breaks any external links: The phpBB forums will be moved to another URL, which could break any links from social media or other forums. That said, there are probably a lot more links to the mainsite than the forums, and the converter might break some links anyway (don't quote me on that, though).

Increases the number of MFGG forums: With a new MyBB forum, all the information would be spread over three forums (IPB, phpBB, and MyBB) instead of two. We can expect that the new MyBB forums will pull in the majority of traffic from new users, though. (We'll make sure that the phpBB forums are still indexed by search engines, though.)

Need to recreate some topics: This includes topics for games in active development, as well as rules/information posts. This shouldn't take too long, though, and it's a good chance to update outdated information.

Need to re-register: Everyone would have to register a new forum account, which is a small inconvenience. Registering is quick and easy to do, though, and a significant chunk of our most active members already have done so. If you're a current member who's unwilling to register a new account, you probably aren't an active part of the community as it is.[/b]

The Alternative
MyBB has tools designed to migrate installations of other forums systems (including phpBB) to MyBB. I haven't tested this tool, so it might be difficult to transfer some content from phpBB to MyBB. It seems that this tool has a good reputation, though. (I could even merge the IPB archive into this, but that seems pointless.)

No matter what we do, I can assure you that the phpBB forum archive will remain accessible, and we'll take care to ensure that several admins have access to a backup copy. This way, we won't lose any content if the server goes down or if something is deleted by accident (which is exactly what happened with the old phpBB archive.)

I'll have the final say on whether we create a new board or do a merge, since I'm the one who's actually responsible for setting it up. However, if people have a strong preference for one course of action over the other, I'll do my best to give people what they want. Also, if you have any experience converting forums, please feel free to share your experience - that would be quite helpful.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 1:09 pm 
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This is a really tough question.

Seeing IPB as it was years ago has been a nice experience, and I wish we had 2010 phpBB to view in its original glory. Maybe I'm on the side of archiving it.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:28 pm 
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Quote:
Database optimization: Making a fresh install ensures that the current boards are clean and optimized - it would be free from any database oddities or weird dead weight left over from the first phpBB boards.

That is a very good reason to archive this forum. A fresh database ought to be less prone to breaking down, and it will be accessed faster. These are boons for user experience.

Quote:
Lets us create a time capsule of the current forums: I'm pretty sure that the current phpBB skins can't automatically be ported to MyBB. By archiving the phpBB boards, it'll be easy to have a board set up for displaying a live version of the skin (if you're trying to port it to MyBB), and even if you don't want to port over a skin, you'll still be able to feast your eyes on the beauty of MFGGreece (and other skins) in their original form.


This is also a good point. Theme makers ought to have access to the current boards.

Considering the cons... having a second archive isn't that big of an issue (unless your web host has a harsh limit on the number of databases or something). Registering a new account only takes a few minutes, and recreating important old threads is largely a matter of copy/paste (which should also take only a few minutes unless someone has more than a few threads to remake).

I don't know how big of an issue broken links might be.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Sat Oct 28, 2017 1:47 pm 
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I'm very strongly against this idea.

First of all none of the pros are real pros. Like, it would be a fresh start yeah but what are the actual benefits of starting over? Having less posts and userswould simply make the forums look deader. And having dead spam accounts doesn't really cause any harm. And database optimization is neat and all but, wouldn't that already happen when converting to MyBB? It would probably get rid of a lot of oddities and such (someone needs to test that actually). Even without any optimizations, the database is doing fine right now. As for server space... Well, archiving the forums would take additional server space too. And for live version of phpBB skins, a test forum for that can be created for that. I did that when I was developing that forum skin a year ago, and I know that it's pretty easy to do as Blue Challenger 2.0 worked pretty well in a stock phpBB 3.0 installation.

Not only that but having a lot of the older posts in a different archive forum would make it harder for people to look at them. I remember looking at Sonic Retro posts from 2003 simply because they are actually a part of Sonic Retro's current forums. If they were in an archive I wouldn't really bother, heck I probably wouldn't even aware of said archive. Because of that, I'd even suggest adding IPB's database to MyBB forums, but I can see why you guys wouldn't want to do that.

So I think it would be great to have the current forums both as archived (doesn't have to be an online archive, someone's hard drive is also fine lol) and as a part of MyBB forums.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Sat Oct 28, 2017 8:37 pm 
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I'm for archiving. Its nice to have a fresh start every few years

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 10:10 pm 
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A fresh start for a new beginning.

Wiping the slate clean will make our community less intimidating to join for newcomers, I think.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:25 am 
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Im up for starting fresh :D

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 3:56 pm 
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I'm for keeping the posts from here in the new forum. As someone who's run a fair few forums in the past, it's much easier to get a forum with a decent amount of members to become active (again) than it is to start again from scratch. It also looks more inviting to have that content too, as well as provides search engines with useful content to index under the URLs they've always been at.

Don't make the mistake I did when I scrapped a fairly active Nintendo forum only to end up with one about a third of the size later down the road.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 6:01 pm 
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The thing is... we already have that small size of active users with the statistics and member list cluttered with over 1500 abandoned user accounts. When people see the number of members we have and see so little activity, it sends a message that we're pretty much dead.

Massive threads that serve as containment threads for certain types of content are no less intimidating to newbies, by the way.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 6:39 pm 
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Mors wrote:
I'm very strongly against this idea.

First of all none of the pros are real pros. Like, it would be a fresh start yeah but what are the actual benefits of starting over? Having less posts and userswould simply make the forums look deader. And having dead spam accounts doesn't really cause any harm. And database optimization is neat and all but, wouldn't that already happen when converting to MyBB? It would probably get rid of a lot of oddities and such (someone needs to test that actually). Even without any optimizations, the database is doing fine right now. As for server space... Well, archiving the forums would take additional server space too. And for live version of phpBB skins, a test forum for that can be created for that. I did that when I was developing that forum skin a year ago, and I know that it's pretty easy to do as Blue Challenger 2.0 worked pretty well in a stock phpBB 3.0 installation.

Not only that but having a lot of the older posts in a different archive forum would make it harder for people to look at them. I remember looking at Sonic Retro posts from 2003 simply because they are actually a part of Sonic Retro's current forums. If they were in an archive I wouldn't really bother, heck I probably wouldn't even aware of said archive. Because of that, I'd even suggest adding IPB's database to MyBB forums, but I can see why you guys wouldn't want to do that.

So I think it would be great to have the current forums both as archived (doesn't have to be an online archive, someone's hard drive is also fine lol) and as a part of MyBB forums.

I 100% agree

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 6:56 pm 
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CM30 wrote:
It also looks more inviting to have that content too, as well as provides search engines with useful content to index under the URLs they've always been at.

I didn't consider the impact that archiving this forum would have on search engine optimization.

Hmm.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:05 am 
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Thanks DonnieTheGuy!
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Pedigree wrote:
The thing is... we already have that small size of active users with the statistics and member list cluttered with over 1500 abandoned user accounts. When people see the number of members we have and see so little activity, it sends a message that we're pretty much dead.
It's still much better than members having a forum with 200 members and little activity. It sends the message of we being a tiny forum, and personally I'd rather join a forums that has more than just 200 members.

CM30 wrote:
I'm for keeping the posts from here in the new forum. As someone who's run a fair few forums in the past, it's much easier to get a forum with a decent amount of members to become active (again) than it is to start again from scratch. It also looks more inviting to have that content too, as well as provides search engines with useful content to index under the URLs they've always been at.
I completely agree, especially with the search engines part as that's a good way to get some new people.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 5:34 pm 
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Given the meagre post counts here in the last week or two, I don't think anyone really thinks we're that alive anyway.

I'm for a fresh start, if MFGG can't pick up after that then there's probably no hope that it ever will.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:46 pm 
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Im personally for porting the current boards, needing to recreate topics and accounts is more hassle than it's worth (it's a ton more convenient to have all the info for a topic in one topic, rather than split between two boards), plus breaking links is a bigger inconvinience than you may think (maintaining usability of older web content is something not many think about, yet is often neglected. The MFGG wiki alone would prob have hundreds of broken links). Also you're kinda fallaciously implying that moving will somehow increase the quality of the posts themselves (it wont). I personally feel the switch to new forum software doesnt need to be a big flashy deal because making it one really is nothing more than a disruption.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 10:04 am 
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Finally moving from phpbb is actually a big deal imo.

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:29 pm 
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The URLs would break anyways - MyBB uses different link structure compared to phpBB.

I'm in favor of archiving, personally

 
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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:24 pm 
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Why not just keep the board in read only mode and not do anything do it? It isn't broken.

 
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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:15 pm 
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...that's what archiving means, in this instance.

 
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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 2:25 pm 
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Unless there's some big enough changes to make it feel like a fresh start, just port things over (obviously test and make sure things like links still work too). By big enough changes I mean things like new rules, staff mixups, new features and events, new board layout, a big launch ad campaign??, that kind of thing; stuff that'd make the board feel fresh where it'd be worth a fresh start. Otherwise it's just going to be annoying (especially since we're planning on moving software again in the Near future).

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 Post subject: Re: Archiving the phpBB forums vs. converting
PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 9:34 pm 
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Thanks for the feedback. You've made a lot of good points - both in favor of converting and in favor of starting fresh. I apologize for the glacial response on this - I spent much of this time on vacation and I've been busy catching up on stuff.

Mors wrote:
Having less posts and userswould simply make the forums look deader.

Pedigree wrote:
we already have that small size of active users with the statistics and member list cluttered with over 1500 abandoned user accounts. When people see the number of members we have and see so little activity, it sends a message that we're pretty much dead.

These are both valid points. Forums that look active are indeed more inviting to new/returning members - but it's also true that having hundreds of abandoned/spambot accounts makes a community look less active too.

Mors wrote:
As for server space... Well, archiving the forums would take additional server space too. And for live version of phpBB skins, a test forum for that can be created for that.

Server space isn't a factor in this decision. The MyBB installation takes up 10.4 MB, and the phpBB files aren't large either. That's smaller than most mainsite games today. Merging the databases would save a bit of space, but server space isn't a concern one way or the other.

Mors wrote:
having a lot of the older posts in a different archive forum would make it harder for people to look at them.

I agree that having information scattered across different forum archives makes it a bit harder to search for things. However, I don't think too many new members are going to be interested in scouring the forums for things that happened in 2004. I was considering including an "MFGG FAQ" topic with a link to all of the forum archives.

Pedigree wrote:
Wiping the slate clean will make our community less intimidating to join for newcomers, I think.

I don't think MFGG has as big a problem with post-count elitism, year-ism, and similar problems as we did during the IPB era, but it still might be nice to get a fresh start.

CM30 wrote:
It also looks more inviting to have that content too, as well as provides search engines with useful content to index under the URLs they've always been at.

The search engine rank of the MFGG forums will probably take a temporary hit when the new forums are launched, and it'll be a bigger hit if we archive instead of convert. However, in the long run, moving to MyBB should help (or at least not hurt) our performance in searches. In our current state, our SEO must not be too effective, since few guests are registering and sticking around.

MoneyMan wrote:
breaking links is a bigger inconvinience than you may think (maintaining usability of older web content is something not many think about, yet is often neglected. The MFGG wiki alone would prob have hundreds of broken links).

As Vimimin mentioned, moving to new software is going to break old links regardless of whether we convert. In the case of Wiki links, I can use the mass-editing function to change any instances of "phpbb.mfgg.net" to the new URL. I can do something similar with forum posts that link to other topics on the forums. If people are linking to forum topics on social media, blogs, or other forums, those links will break, but I don't think too many people will be clicking on old links to the MFGG forums - we'll get a lot more mileage out of fresh content.

MoneyMan wrote:
Also you're kinda fallaciously implying that moving will somehow increase the quality of the posts themselves (it wont).

Moving to new forum software is kind of like a New Year's resolution - except our last new year came seven years ago. It certainly won't cause a massive shift in members' attitudes or behavior. However, it is an opportunity to reflect and rebrand, both for individual members and for the community as a whole.

Super Mario WTL wrote:
Unless there's some big enough changes to make it feel like a fresh start, just port things over (obviously test and make sure things like links still work too). By big enough changes I mean things like new rules, staff mixups, new features and events, new board layout, a big launch ad campaign??, that kind of thing; stuff that'd make the board feel fresh where it'd be worth a fresh start.

There's going to be a lot of cool new features on the MyBB forums, and a nicer and more mobile-friendly interface. We'll probably do a mass-message of current MFGG users inviting them to check out the Shiny New MFGG, as well as a social media blitz. Also, free brownies for new members who find me in real life and tell me that they registered on the new forums.

Super Mario WTL wrote:
Otherwise it's just going to be annoying (especially since we're planning on moving software again in the Near future).

I'm not sure how near that future is, but lumaSMS will combine the functionality of the forums and mainsite. If HylianDev gets everything done sooner than expected, and the MyBB forums run for just a few months, I could always convert the MyBB posts to the new forum system - it wouldn't be difficult.

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