Software Change Within The Future

[anthony]

I want to open this up to allow member feedback, as this will be a significant change to the forum.

Story

Why I am heavily focused towards changing this sites software is due to Vbulletin the company quite honestly consistently screwing things up with the software, the company itself is heading downhill rapidly due to all their mistakes over the past years, and their development itself is quite lacking nowadays towards outputting a fast, innovative product. In essence, they're going down and lack any real innovative ability to match what the competition is providing.

We all know the software is slow and cumbersome. It has a lot of features, but 90% most members don't use, which really negates the majority of features within the software. Vbulletin where expected to rewrite the software, but what they have done is only enhanced some of the code, but done more overall damage than good. As many often find here, little errors that occur... these are all a result of the poor build quality the software has endured of late, and its not getting that much better IMHO compared to what the competition are putting out. They keep releasing upgrades, but with each upgrade more issues and usually the slower the software becomes, requiring more money invested in better server architecture just to cope with the software.

End of the day... its really starting to become a losing battle.

Direction

The proposed software which is completely new to the market, but at beta presently, is demonstrating to be superior to what Vbulletin software is with 10 years build experience. The actual developers are ex-vbulletin main developers, who left when a big company bought the company out and all the problems began. When they shifted, the quality and innovation was gone. Now they have started their own product, xenforo, that innovation and quality has now returned to forum software.

Future

There are two major players, Vbulletin and IPB. IPB have some really good products and are established, but their software has also become quite cumbersome and bloated, which both have really lost touch with what users want nowadays. Facebook has defined what people really want, being simple, fast, interactive and innovative. Xenforo meets all these aspects and will be expanding to have CMS, blogs, gallery, downloads and other products that can be plugged in, the same as IPB offer today. Vbulletin offer little to what the competition offer, and simply have lagged behind over the years.

Problem With Change

The problem with change is you can never get something new to completely replace something old. Everything will change, the site will not be the same. Initially it will not have social groups or blogs, only the article section and forum. Content will not be lost, it will be imported, and then stored for later retrieval at such a time the information can be used. Comparing Vbulletin software to Xenforo software is apples to oranges. Nothing about them are similar.

Both [DLMURL="http://sexabuse.ptsdforum.org"]SSA Forum[/DLMURL] and [DLMURL="http://combat.ptsdforum.org"]Combat Forum[/DLMURL] both use the xenforo beta software. So far users have responded positively towards it. If you fit either of those forums, ie. being sexually abused or a veteran, then you can register and try the software on those two sites.

What Would Need To Be Done

Well... its not just going to happen overnight, because its a rather large project and as the software has only been out about two weeks, and still beta, its still being developed, programmers are learning the code to design modifications for it, etc. There is a good proportion of the Vbulletin community who have shifted immediately to Xenforo for the same reasons as mentioned above.

Right now a programmer is developing a full VB4 import script, which will import blog posts, comments, articles, comments, social groups, attachments, etc. What will likely not be imported is any album images, as the software does not have albums, but will have a gallery product in the future, which is another name for a user album, except its more a combined user / social gallery, where users have their albums, but all albums are then shown in a gallery style. It promotes more interactivity for users to post their favourite pictures.

Postives & Negatives

Again, there are pro's and con's. Members would lose some features they may be used to here, but inherit new and more creative features with the other software, but more obtain more overall future benefits than where Vbulletin software is headed.

Instead of PM's you have conversations, which allow you to invite other users to the conversation (PM), instead of have to forward a PM to another user or send to multiple users, you just invite people into a private conversation.

It is extremely light, very fast, extremely intuitive to use, simple, friendly and promotes a lot more short, quick type posting, than long posts, as everything is updated on the fly using AJAX technology, which is a scripting method so that things occur instantly, without page reloading or losing data, etc.

Conclusion

If I didn't think it was valid, I wouldn't suggest it. Internet Brands, being the owner of Vbulletin, really are crushing and destroying the company, let alone now in their own financial issues. My choice was to remain with a sinking ship, or choose the best alternative for the overall future of the forum. That choice is Xenforo.

Feedback, thoughts, doubts?

Obviously there would also be significant documentation and tutorials written prior, so that all members can familiarise themselves with the software before it going live here... I could even setup a test board for members here to use that would just get wiped, purely for learning features and getting used to it. Again, those who fit either sexual abuse or combat, can already use the software on both those sites.

 

[Jade-]

Change is good, especially this type of change. Once people get familiar with it they'll realize how shitty this was(sorry).

My only concern is the private diaries. Once the SSA site was changed over, they weren't private anymore. I'd hate for that to happen here.

 

[Jawn]

I think Jadbear has a valid concern there. Being a software guy myself, I say go for it based on all of the research you have done.

Jawn

 

[anni]

I can't follow more than half of this, although am kind of pleased with myself to have digested that much.

I'm guessing it's inevitable to have to change at some point, better to do it with planning and in this cohesive fashion than have things become so cumbersome in the future it becomes a matter requiring frantic attention. Easier is always a pleasant prospect, so just point out what on earth gets clicked on and I'll be happy.

Thanks much for all the attention to detail we get to benefit from!

 

[bluecat]

The software upgrade would be great, thank you for working so hard on this. I don't think I ever took the time to thank you and Nicolette for creating this space, it really helps to have this opportunity to talk to other people with PTSD.

As for the future software upgrade I would really like to hear your feedback on Jadebear's question about private diaries and also trauma members diaries. I only posted my story there because I read in the rules that this content is not going to be picked up by search engines or be visible to anyone outside of the trauma members forum.

On a completely different note, did you check out Drupal? Its an online based free software for creating websites, but the developer also started a company that provides tech support for companies that want to use it, but don't want to deal with creating and maintaining their site themselves. (I believe they made the US White House website recently). I don't know much about programming and software development, just something I came accross recently.

Good luck!
Blluecat

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

My husband says: " tell him to go with xenforo, as long as it has good privacy control." He then says something about software company's forgetting that part or something...

Whatever that means....hes got the degree so I type what he says too. lol And I want to know about Jabebear question as well...

 

[anthony]

The xenforo software has the same user privacy features as this one does, which are also access from the users control panel. That controls personal information.

The diaries on the SSA site were blogs, name used was diaries, but they are blogs. The blog content will go into the conversion and come out as threads. Yes, any specific user privacy settings a member has with blogs here will not be transferred and will become public.

The trauma diaries here, will change over exactly as they are here, being private is private, ptsd will still only be for the ptsd group, members will still be member accessible only. No diary will change for permissions, including carer diaries. Those are all forums, and the forum content is not an issue, as it all converts over as forum content with the same permission.

The blog content will likely just be hidden within one forum. Each blog entry will come over as a new thread, and replies to the blog entry will be normal thread replies. Because it is blog content, it will likely be converted over and then integrated into existing forum subject matter. Before I got to that stage, I would simply give a weeks notice or such here for any member with a blog to delete anything they don't want public on the others site. Again, trauma diaries here are not part of the issue and will be exactly the same on the new software.

 

[Deleted member 5760]

I don't really know enough about it to give much of a 'my two cents', but you seem to have done your homework Anthony. Plenty of valid reasons for the change by the sound of it. I'll go with whatever decision is made.

 

[amethist]

Go with it Anthony, as you set out above vbulletin are not supplying what the customer requires now, but xenfora are. The developers being ex-vbulletin, know exactly what and how to build the software with the quality required.

Apologies for the pun, but it sounds like it is now time to HEAL the forum its self, so it can continue to grow along with all the members.

 

[anthony]

I think we all can agree that its extremely slow loading compared to the other sites, and those who where around before the last major upgrade between versions... as the 3.x speed wise was better than 4.x version. It is the most expensive software on the market, with the poorest quality build overall and less features. It didn't start out that way, but is that way now due to being taken over by a huge corporation. If that didn't occur, then I am sure the ex developers would have got their way, which looking now, was the right way, being the software needed to be rebuilt from the ground up as the architecture was a decade old and useless for forward momentum.

I am about to test the importer tonight... to see how it functions. If it works, then I still have to wait on another mod or two yet, I have to review setting up a CMS replacement and other aspects until such time as they have stable products on offer, which won't be for another year yet... and in which order what products comes, is really only known by the developers.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Before I got to that stage, I would simply give a weeks notice or such here for any member with a blog to delete anything they don't want public on the others site. Again, trauma diaries here are not part of the issue and will be exactly the same on the new software.

Sounds good to me. Blogs are deletable if you don't want them public, like you said.

 

[anthony]

Exactly... each member already controls that content on what they want to come across and be mixed into existing forums vs. what they choose to delete. Most blogs are just public already... so its here nor there.