What do you all think of this project:
http://galleryproject.oldiesmann.us/
Why not phpbb (http://www.phpbb.com/)?
Thanks, I'll look into it. One of the features that I was trying to preserve was the gallary.
Why not phpBB? We could use IPB. I know it costs some money, but maybe CAOS could host some sort of fundraiser or something to raise the money for it. The forum is a pretty important part of the club.
EDIT: wow, I didn't see the above posters post. Thats another reason why I hate this forum software, it doesn't let you view the posts as one page.
You could also consider using Drupal (http://drupal.org/). I have a lot of experience with it if you need any help. It would let you create a main page, several other pages, a forum, and a gallery all using drupal. Everything would have the same look and would look pretty clean.
If they can get the forum users and posts ported to the new system, I'm sure they would. That's always been the primary difficulty. Problem is, no one gets paid enough to get it done.
It sounds like we have a couple votes for phpBB. I would like a little more feedback and some demos of the products before making this decision though. I'm considering setting up a linux server and giving the root account to those who would be willing to set up a demo of their favorite message board system on it. I will only give the root account of the computer to someone who is an SIUE student and can come to me in person to get it though because I need to be able to hold the person who has such access accountable (I don't want to unwittingly give some spammer access to an SIUE server). We will then use the polls module of one of the demo systems to hold a vote on which system is preferred by the users. Does this idea sound viable to you all?
I would be willing to set one up, if thats what everyone wants.
Thing is that you need to make sure you can transfer the posts and user accounts. If that's not doable, the idea is moot. Also, why not just hold a vote on a currently stable system that everyone is using?
I personally don't care what forum we use so long as several people are able to maintain it. Since officers aren't usually around for more then a year at a time and Greg shouldn't be inundated with CAOS work all the time, I think ease of use and maintainability should be priority number one. CAOS will be holding a general meeting later this week. The new forum will be one of our main topics. I encourage everyone to attend. :-D
I've done a little bit of research and it seems that scripts do exist to convert from Xoops to phpBB, but they might require a little messing with (since everyones configuration is different).
Most helpful link:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=403991&highlight=newbb
Nice talk about a converter script. If that works, that would be awesome, but if everyone chooses a forum and that script or another doesn't work, I'd be willing to write one some evening.
Only bad thing I could really foresee happening with a new forum is the passwords getting lost and having to be reset to a new default for everyone, opening us to attacks. What I mean is that passwords are now hashed in the CAOS database, if I recall correctly, and it's possible, though unlikely, that another forum uses a different hashing mechanism to handle password storage.
However, I am willing to donate a bit of time to CAOS writing a script if neccessary. You guys just need to hit me up by phone (posted on facebook) or via my gmail address, which Dr. Weinberg, Dr. Blythe, and Greg have.
Have fun at the meeting! Too bad I can't visit.
When is the meeting going to be?
I would like to know when the meeting is as well.
I think it is important to get the forum changed quickly, since it is something that CAOS relies on.
Why all the knee-jerk reactions? We've got to make sure past posts, users, and topics are not lost.
What happened to the old site anyway? I imagined it was rolled back because the newer edition of Xoops continued to have problems.
Why is there a need to keep old topics and posts?
It contains a lot of historical data.
Quotegrimw wrote:
It contains a lot of historical data.
Just to be clear, everything after early May, when the last back-up was performed, was lost.
What if we simply put up another forum to use. We could still keep this forum around and if we find a need for the older posts, that is when we start working on converting them to the new one.
I don't really consider this a knee-jerk reaction, just a "why don't we want to start from scratch" reaction. (As long as we consider all of our options before we do move)
I like that idea, of starting from scratch but keeping this one around.
Moving this site to an archival area sounds reasonable.
i say we get a big huge post board in the lab. and everyone can write on little pieces of paper and tack them up there.
Quotei say we get a big huge post board in the lab. and everyone can write on little pieces of paper and tack them up there.
So not funny Scott... :offtopic: :-P
Am I the only one that finds it amusing that one of the longest threads on this board is about replacing it?
If you guys start tacking posts on a board, then I need a proxy to post my messages, and I'm going to need someone to take photos of new posts to put on flickr or something.
shawn....i think your calling has finally arrived
Is anyone interested in having me port the existing DB to new forum software? It's fairly basic to do, and I'd rather not lose the past history. Plus, I like this idea better than an archived version of Xoops, because it would mean that Xoops would still be something CAOS has to maintain.
When you decide on the next forum to use, just notify me, and I'll get started on it. We should coordinate so that the new forum software isn't released until the data is ported. Right now, I don't think that should take too long, but we'll see.
If its easy to do then you might as well do it. I think we should use phpBB because its easy to use and can look really good.
sounds good
QuoteCS_Freak wrote:
If its easy to do then you might as well do it. I think we should use phpBB because its easy to use and can look really good.
Agreed
Well, you guys pick out some forum software and get it setup, and I'll write the script. You acn feel free to make the site available for demo while I'm working on it, but make sure everyone knows that their data will likely be wiped out while I do my testing and prepare it for production.
Whatever software the group decides on, please ensure it has RSS support for the forum component. I remember XOOPs had this at one point, but it seemed to disappear after one of the upgrades. As much as I love to visit the CAOS site directly to check for updates, I'd rather get a content feed into Google Reader.
Cheers,
Peter
I'll second that one.^