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Message Board Alternative for CAOS

Started by Admin, 2007-08-22T16:11:22-05:00 (Wednesday)

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Admin


Kit

SIUe Computer Science Graduate

Admin

Thanks, I'll look into it.  One of the features that I was trying to preserve was the gallary.

Jarod Luebbert

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.
Jarod Luebbert
Computer Science Major

William Grim

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.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Admin

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?

Jarod Luebbert

I would be willing to set one up, if thats what everyone wants.
Jarod Luebbert
Computer Science Major

William Grim

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?
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Kaitlyn Schmidt

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
Kaitlyn Schmidt
Senior, Computer Science
Former President of CAOS

Kit

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

SIUe Computer Science Graduate

William Grim

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.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Jarod Luebbert

Jarod Luebbert
Computer Science Major

Kit

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.
SIUe Computer Science Graduate

William Grim

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.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Jarod Luebbert

Why is there a need to keep old topics and posts?
Jarod Luebbert
Computer Science Major