Forum software change - poll

[Handruin]

Please let me know what you think. I know some of you here would not like to change things, but I'd like to know how you all feel about this.

Why am I asking?

I'm in the process of making SF a more secure and more web compliant. I've been working on improving the interface and news system (which I know is broken at the moment). I'd like to incorporate a couple new features to help us expand. Among other things, I'd like for the site to remain visible during upgrades (which isn't currently possible do my original implementation). On the same topic, I'd like a forum that isn't such a PITA to upgrade.

Another concern is that I don't want to invest a ton of time making changes when I have no idea where the phpbb2 development team will be with their next release. Currently I'm not thrilled with phpb2.2, or the amount of time it's taken them to get where they are today. Both vbulletin and invision board have surpassed them in their next release, but in phpbb's defense, they are free of cost.

In summary, what I'm trying to determine is if it will cause you pain to come to SF if we use vbulletin.

 

[Mercutio]

Basically, I have no idea what's going on with the backend.
phpbb seems to work and I don't know what we'd gain from a change.

So... what do we gain out of the switch?

 

[Handruin]

From the end user perspective the change may provide a small gain, some of which is subjective. I've grown to like the user interface in version 3, but that isn't the case for everyone.

From the administrative part, it will help me apply patches to a full-featured application...faster. One of the drawbacks I find with phpbb is that every time I apply one of their patches, it breaks the few mods I've applied. At the same time, the way I allow permissions to the front page, means that if phpbb is down, the entire front page is off-line. The front page can be fixed with a re-work of the site, but I plan to do that no matter which forum we use.

I'm at the point of assesing the change. If people agree a change isn't worth the invested time, I'll continue my path of improving the site without vbulletin.

I'll clearly admit this change will help me with the site more than it will help you post. That's why I want to know if people dislike their forum software. If people don't like it, I can forgo the forum change and hold out for another year or so and re-evaluate at that time. However, improvement will proceeed regardless of which forum software we use. I'm still wokring with phpbb2, but I wanted to present the idea of change and let voice their concerns.

 

[blakerwry]

i like phpbb, what exactly are you having to do to maintain the forum software?

 

[Will Rickards]

I voted other for the following reasons:
As a user I don't care as long as it doesn't increase my clicks to read the forum or increase the scrolling I have to do.

What other big sites use vbulletin?

 

[Handruin]

In the beginning I would reinstall every file when patches were made available. Now I only patch the changed files list, but on several occasions the changed files were of the files I modified for features here. (google crawling, robotic registration) There are other features I'd like to add to phpbb, but I fear adding too many mods will cause nightmares during patching. Using vbulletin will gains some of those features because they are inherently built in.

On a separate problem (not likely to be solved by vbulletin) the front page uses phpbb's common library. The front page registers a session just like phpbb so that I can authenticate you are a registered user. If a valid session is found, I allow news to be submitted. If either MySQL or phpbb are taken down, the front page reports an error for either event.

I would like to keep both components integrated, but allow phpbb to be temporarily closed for updates while allow the front page to remain on-line. I can achieve this, but as in our current situation, something changed in the latest version of phpbb which broke the existing functionality. I have not fixed it intentionally because I'm going to change how the system works.

 

[Handruin]

Here is a list of the largeer sites using vbulletin:

http://www.big-boards.com/index.php?type=vBulletin


List of large phpbb boards:

http://www.big-boards.com/index.php?type=phpBB

 

[sechs]

I've had issues with a all of boards that I frequent which are based upon vbulletin. I also dislike their layout.

 

[Mercutio]

I visited several of the vbulletin forums. Gotta say I'm not enamoured with the look of it.

 

[P5-133XL]

Really as long as the content in the BBS is useable, I don't care which BBS is used. Whatever is best for you Handruin, is fine with me.

 

[Buck]

As long as things continue to work well for us, the posters, and Handy's job is made easy, I have no objection.

 

[Fushigi]

My only issue with the SF software is that it thinks that when I've hit the site all threads are marked 'read' even if I haven't visited them. i.e. if I leave the site w/o reading all threads, when I return they'll be marked read (assuming no new posts come along). Other forums I visit don't do that; they remember at the thread level and not the forum level.

 

[Howell]

http://www.ultimatesubaru.net/forum

is vbulletin

 

[Handruin]

Fushigi, I see the same thing, but I've seen it with other phpbb2 sites. There is (again) a mod that allows it to keep the threads that you haven't read, marked as "not read". There are many times I don't log in to SF because I know I'll lose track of the unread threads. If you have it set to remember your login, then the issue may be worse.

 

[Will Rickards]

I just visit all the unread threads each time I visit

 

[Will Rickards]

Just looked at the subaru site.
That thread view sucks, the user info banner at the top breaks the flow of the thread making it harder to read. Maybe a skin would help with that.
But otherwise it looked alright.

 

[CityK]

I like the look of vBulletin (in particular version 3). For example, have a browse at CDFreaks. I like the mouse-over feature with threads, I like the search, I like the search in thread feature too - wonderfully helpful for monster threads.

What I don't have is a lot of experience in posting on vB, so I don't know if there are a lot of little annoyances.

phpbb2, on the other hand, is quite enjoyable because of its simplicity of use (as a poster). Its search feature is also quite good/reliable too, although it lacks the searching within threads feature that I really like with vB.

Innovision blows goats: Quotes suck; you can't seem to just highlight words and then click the formating keys to apply the change like you can here with phpbb2; and can't stand its retarded search feature either .... I could probably think of 14 million three letter words or acronyms that a person might want to search for, but almost every forum using Innovision will return an error if you try - don't know if that is a configurable option or something set in stone, but either way, its enough to drive a guy nuts.

 

[Handruin]

The CDFreaks forum is exactly the layout I was envisioning; not the suburu one that Howell linked to. I chat often in a few acura related forums that are setup like CDFreaks and I think it works well. I like version 3 more than any other version of vbulletin.

The one annoying thing I have found with vbulletin is the smilies. No matter where I put my cursor, it always puts the smiley at the end of the post...small, but annoying.

I don't like invision boards layout either. However, I do like it's administrative abilities. If you've ever setup permission in phpbb2, you understand.

Hopefully I'm not driving everyone crazy to discuss this again. I have made posts in the past and we decided to stay with phpbb. For now even the price is right with phpbb, and everything is working fine. I'm not 100% determined to go vbulletin, but I wanted to feel out what others are thinking. So far it seems like a few won't mind either way, but the under-lying theme is "why change, it works fine the way it is".

 

[blakerwry]

why do you have to be so vigilant about updating and patching the forum?

 

[Handruin]

I guess I don't have to...I just try to make sure no one hacks us when exploits are found in phpbb.

 

[blakerwry]

I would say you're probably being over precautious. Personally I wouldn't be putting in more than an hour every couple of months to stay at the latest release and a few minutes each week to create a backup of the database (assuming it sin't automated).

We run a relatively small forum, we don't allow anonymous posters, and you do seem to keep current backups.

So Doug, stop worrying and just have fun.

 

[Howell]

2cpu.com is vbulletin.

 

[Clocker]

Doug-
It would not matter to me if you changed the site software. Do whatever makes administering the site easiest for you.

 

[LunarMist]

I hope the new BBS is not like SR where it is necessary to go through two pages and then back after replying if not logged in.

 

[Handruin]

I'm leaning toward keeping phpbb for another year or so and then I'll re-evalute this again. If I were to use vbulletin, it wouldn't be like SR's board. An example of how I would like it to look and feel can be seen here.

 

[Buck]

PS: They have some nice books too. I like the one on CSS.

 

[Handruin]

I've wondered about their books...now that I hear a positive from you, I might get one. I've been looking for a good CSS book.

I read their articles all the time, and I occasionally browse through their forums. Harry Fuecks has some good info to share.

 

[Buck]

Yes, I really like the one called: "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables, Using CSS." I'm not much of a book learner, but this one made it really easy. I have plenty of other web development books that I wish were this good. I also bought "The PHP Anthology" series, but I think I should've purchased their beginners book first.

 

[Tea]

I like the current software just fine. But, on the other hand, I know Doug is better informed about these matters than I am and trust him to make the best overall decision. In consequence, I voted "other".

Up to you Doug.

We trust you.