Forum upgrade - vbulletin 5
 

I think the majority of the community can agree our lovely forum needs an overhaul..¯\_(ツ)_/¯



If we had an ASC donation PayPal or EMT address and we had people who wanted to chip-in $5-10, we could reach our ideal target to fundraiser and upgrade.


Thoughts?


Upgrade cost @ US $209.00

http://www.vbulletin.com/en/purchases/

Site owner in a discussion with me several weeks ago said if there is to a major forum upgrade he would not be staying with vbulletin, and is looking into another program.

Thanks for the Tip!

You can tell him if you'd like to look into "XenForo" great solution, I've used that in the past for my gaming forums.

That is who he is already looking into lol

As long as all of the past posts get ported over successfully, I'd gladly chip in the $10. It'd be a shame for all of the long history of posts of great information to be lost.

I wouldn't mind pitching in as well, for whatever that's worth.

Perfect, great software, UI, and custom features.

Let me know if you guys need help :)

Keeping old threads is a must.

I was part of another forum years ago that did the upgrade from vbulletin, it just never felt the same after. Whatever we choose there needs to be a testing period.

Fear not, for the most part you can just back up the database and import it to a the new database.

Granted I did this back with SMF -> XENFORO, there was some breakage, but it retained the posts at the least.

What ever happens, data will be mirror to a back up site first, there will always be growing pains, heck the recent server move actually included 3 vbulletin upgrades which caused several headaches a few of which are still being repaired.

Talked with Harley some today, next time he has a few free hours he is going to do a test port over to XenForo and see how much of our old data it retains.

Couple things he and us admins will need to work on is making a list of current feature we would like to see kept if possible, so if you have some suggestions of features on our current page you like now and would not want to see lost let me know so we can add to the list for items he can test out.

Definitely get rid of the "ASCMART" since I don't think anyone uses that.

Notifications:

1. Forgot if Xenforo has post notifcations on your top right..

2. Mentions; so you can tag users and they will get a notification on their menu bar.. @bloodsport <y u rage>

https://xenforo.com/community/resour...s-by-xon.4416/

3. Online status indicator on users avatar, lots of styles, example:

https://xenforo.com/community/resour...ndicator.3455/


Threads:

1. Auto Archive thread, clean up the forums

https://xenforo.com/community/resour...archiver.3601/

2. Sticky threads to be a different color: - color can be adjusted in the .CSS

https://xenforo.com/community/resour...ancement.1155/



Social:

1. https://xenforo.com/help/facebook/

2. Social Icons in the top right header in Xenforo, FB, Twitter, etc.. If needed

3. Social icons under user banners: Kind of like how we have now, but not limited to just Skype..

https://xenforo.com/community/resour...ber-card.3504/

Misc:

1. Spam prevention resource, xenforo has one built in, but isn't sufficient.

I live on this forum with the "New posts" and "Quick Links / Today's posts" links. They are the two single most important features for me, that and of course, the trader feedback + age verification for safe buy/sell/trade.

God fucking damnit I wish the admins would just fucking purge all of you Cialis shill-bots.

^ - recruit more mods please until you guys setup a new software.

Also we would like a port of trade rating to XenForo.

Thanks.