I have made this argument too but get no love, Pang. :(

Wait I just realized that I argued for Styphon to be allowed to edit templates

And I don't want to browse GFF with red fonts on a black background

You guys have to keep in mind that all these modules are user-generated, which means we could be getting CHz-quality code, or we could be getting bobo-quality code. I know that some of the stuff we have originated as modules, but there may have been work done to make sure it's compatible with the rest of our stuff and also works to our taste. This takes time; since we had this version of vB since 2006 it doesn't seem like it takes that much time but it does. In fact, off the top of my head I can recall the "last 5 posts" thing being a module Blah downloaded, which he then had to modify when he realized there was an exploit in it. And I know half the forum couldn't live without the prop system.

If what we want is to move to a vB 4, that's what we want, but just recognize that this is a large time investment you're asking of the developers on staff just to get the new forum up to speed with the old forum, nevermind the new tchotchkes and gewgaws we want.

I'm not saying that new features wouldn't be valuable or worthwhile investing time in, either. Just don't ask so much of Skills and CHz's time.

Look as much as I'd love admin powers I've never really toyed around with databases or vBulletin. No way I could do this by myself even given the opportunity and even then holy crap.

Yeah, pretty much you require access to the server completely to do all this. Regular admins can basically do jack all.

We'd really need CHz to do this.

Yes. At the bottom of the screen there's a BACKUP tab that lets you backup in XML, CSV, and TXT. Not ideal IMO but it's something!

It's not really a level of trust issue, rather than a level of competency issue. Styphon is brilliant at bringing down the banhammer and I trust his judgement in picking out people who can monitor a forum full of miscreants, but I don't know how good he is at editing a system in which there are no constant backups made. Do you remember how Paikuhan deleted every one of his posts? And he didn't have code access.

I'm just saying I'm totally okay with admins being admins for wildly different reasons.

Yes I already presented this very logical counterargument to myself :(

I'll admit to being guilty of getting distracted by the shiny new toys vB4 would offer.

Let's be honest, though, a majority of what GFF takes for granted isn't really all that necessary, and some of it is built into vB4 out of the box. If we look at "things that had to get added to current GFF" as a list of things that will need to get done, it'll look like a much larger task than if we sit down and assess just what exactly would have to get done.

And, again, I'm volunteering to help. For selfish reasons, to be sure; I've not worked on a codebase of that size, and I want to exercise my coding muscles.

I didn't read it.

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I'm glad we agree, though!

I guess I meant something that saves entries PLUS COMMENTS in XML format? :\

Another thing to point out: If we were to upgrade, it'd be a bitch and a half to get the old posts/journals imported into the new system. It's a guess based on zero knowledge of the backend, but it seems likely that the amount of hackery involved with GFF as is would make importing either impossible or horribly not worth the time it'd take.

And we did pay out the fucking nose for a hard drive fix a while ago.

Mo0 said I'm being a little too abrasive here, so let me sort of reiterate my stance.

I'm not trying to sound defeatist (especially to any baked Sassafrasses or other radio listeners) but I'm trying to be a touch realistic by letting you know just how much of an undertaking it is.

I am also trying to hammer home the point that it's not as modular as it first seems, especially on a fresh installation there. Granted, without having access to several things currently OR vB 4, I am making some assumptions. But based on what I have seen I think I'm not erring here.

I really don't want to sound like negative nancy and be shitting on this initiative. I want to help too, but I'm trying to be realistic when I say that there is a lot of loss that's going to happen if we jump straight into it, and carrying some stuff over will be quite a bit of difficult work.

I also hold the belief that we didn't pay to recover all that data those years ago to lose any forum info or anything that makes us unique because we want a fancier post-bit.

well if you want access to vb4 to poke at it I set up Forums on Saxypunch for basically this reason. I will gladly hook up anyone trustworthy with adminry if they want to poke around. Over the next week or so I'm gonna be installing plugins to see just how much functionality can be duplicated. Science!

And then I will duplicate ALL functionality and sit there with sullenly

I will concede that PROBABLY journal comments are unpreserveable and journal entries are only preservable in the form of text dumps. And some of us are really concerned about this! For some reason. So.

Also there is the legit issue that "works on vb4" is not quite the same as "works on GFF vb4" due to kludgy code here and there and ever'where

VVV the smarter way to do this is just set up a vb4 (on a separate database) and NOT TELL ANYBODY until you eventually plug in all the bells and whistles

I'm speaking purely from a general lack of knowledge on how vBulletin operates, but I have a question for Skills (and anyone else who may be trying this):

Since the conversation about upgrading has come up, has anyone tried taking a mirror copy of the core data on Gamingforce (e.g. members, posts, threads and subforums) and trying vB4 to see how it will work? Or is importing this data into an empty forum really that time-consuming or difficult? I mean, how hard would it be for us to take a fresh vB4 install and, bells-and-whistles removed, have a usable forum that would tide us over until the bells-and-whistles are fully functional again?

GFF's main hook has always been its strong IRC and music discussion but lately in recent years, GFF's hidden gem has been mom's basement. Werewolf is bomb.

I'll be honest, I am pretty content with GFF's current form. The shrinking community and lack of activity no longer bothers me. I've made my friends who I will keep in touch with regardless what GFF's ultimate fate is. I doubt new members will stick around because message boards are antiquated especially because GFF isn't associated with a clan or major gaming website. As it stands, GFF is just a message board.

It's probably way past time I should post something in this thread. Sorry for being even more neglectful than I usually am. :(

There's far too much for me to respond to in this thread so I'm just going to pick a couple for now.

I'm interested in a vB upgrade, if not to 4, then at least to a higher version of 3. I'm unable to do either at the moment because I'm in possession of neither a vB 4 license nor the current license to 3, and I'd prefer to keep us legit at least in that respect if possible. I sent a PM to Blah, because he's the dude and also because he's updated GFF in the past, so we'll figure out what we're going to do.

I've personally never upgraded any vBulletin install, so I have no idea how well GFF will react to a major version update. GFF is essentially the Winchester Mystery House constructed with ad hoc plugins and templates gathered from custom design and fifty previous versions of vBulletin. I can think of a lot that could possibly go wrong in the process.

I'm also kind of interested in a new skin, if just from a maintenance perspective, because making anything more than a simple adjustment to one page is a pain in the ass. It did take literally two days for me just to change the colors from blue to green: one spent just on the forums and one for the journals. vBulletin has a ton of templates, so creating a theme from scratch or doing more than changing the colors and so on of a pre-existing one would take a lot of work. That'd take a while to do, and I can't do it myself (as I am a piss-poor designer), so that's a pretty low priority at the moment.

Also I'm going to be gone for almost two weeks starting next week Wednesday, so I'm not going to be doing anything major until after I get back.

Okay, two points:

1. I do have the vBulletin 4 license (bought it as soon as it was available). I'd be happy to help install it, but I must emphasize here that it will HAVE to be a fresh install. vB4 is radically different from vB3.x, and every single plugin installed here absolutely has to be rewritten (or redownloaded, if the original authors have bothered to upgrade them). At the same time, plenty of plugins have been made obsolete by the new features of vB4, so we should jettison whatever's applicable.

2. I propose installing it on the gamingforce.com server first, then I can open up access to people who wish to help out on design and coding. You guys can then port over anything that needs porting and see how it goes before we make the decision to go ahead and transition the forum here. Or hell, if you want to use the .com domain again that's fine too.

Fabulous. Please do this.

The difference between .com and .org has always been negligible to most of us humble users as long as the majority of people who made GFF what it was, were also there.

Moving the forum to gamingforce.com once you guys have figured out the vB4 and design and stuff seems like a working idea. I guess once the full transition of the forums happen, you can close/lock down the forums and all the journals but keep it accessible so that people can go back and look at it for nostalgia sakes.

If we're going to dump 3.x for v4, all I ask is that we're given time to back up stuff. I'm pretty sure I have PMs from Deni and Kyndig from years prior that have URLs in them I should keep on hand.

Yes, this JUST occured to me now.

You don't have to worry about that right away, we are not doing a flat out transition right off the hop.

Okay, I'll see if I can set it up over the weekend.

Re: cliques at gamingforce.

I reiterate the need to remove the prop system. Nothing could be more back-slapping and self congratulatory. And they can take on a particularly vile nastiness, as evidenced in Bradylama's latest journal entry.

Yes, instead let us have thirty posts of "I agree" or twenty of "No, you're wrong."

Kinda like this one?