Forum Software Change

[Ed Sullivan]

I'm planning on changing our forums to run on a different software package at the end of next week. It's something I've been working on for a while, and I want to see how it goes.

On the whole, things should work similarly to now. The interface may be a bit different, but I hope it's intuitive. It's a small enough community that I should be able to answer questions when they come up.

One of the big reasons to put the software on these forums is to test for bugs. Once the change happens, if you find anything confusing or find something that doesn't work correctly, please let me know! I'll cover more when it's changed.

 

[Shabbaman]

Which software? Could you implement a rss-feed in the new forum?

 

[Spiderman]

No more vBulletin?

 

[Ed Sullivan]

Shabbaman: It's home-grown software. It has an RSS feed on a per-forum basis. We could look at implementing a global-forum RSS feed.

I'll be very interested in things that you want to see in it, and will have the ability to implement them. (Ideally things that would be helpful beyond just the community here.)

 

[Spiderman]

I'm probably not that helpful - I like all of the stuff that vBulletin has right now.

The only thing I would make changes to would be to the admin portion, like submitting articles and links, which I think you wrote and is not vBulletin anyway.

 

[Shabbaman]

Home-grown, wow. There are a lot of free/open-source forum packages available, is there a specific reason to build your own? Are you just that awesome?

Heh.

Some things that come to mind:
-rss feed for the front page: this is something the site needs to get into mtgsalvation's "radar", so we can attract more readers. IMHO a must.
-something to generate front page news easily
-something for the forum games?

 

[Spiderman]

Ed was a developer for vBulletin, so this is probably nothing to him

-something to generate front page news easily
-something for the forum games?

Can you elaborate on these two? What do you mean?

 

[Shabbaman]

On the forum I run I can make a front page article by posting a thread. That's pretty easy. I don't know how it works here, but it's probably similar. I'd say posting something on the front page should be easy.

About the forum games: there should be an easy way to track cards in play and so on. Something that's easier than posting it.

Oh, mouse-over card images and autocard tags would make sense. Wizards has something for that now, and I've seen it on multiple sites. As most people here don't know any card printed after 1998 that would be of good use

 

[Spiderman]

Does that link go to your front page?

I mean, you can submit an article and have us admins review it before it goes on our "true" front page... which is how I'd want it to be, I don't want regular users able to just post a thread and have it go on the front page without review.

Not sure what you mean about keeping track of the cards, I would suspect it would get graphical. I mean, if it can be done, great, but not sure how it would be...

The [card] tag would be nice though - I think that it in later version of vBulletin that we don't have here.

 

[rokapoke]

I don't want regular users able to just post a thread and have it go on the front page without review.

What are you implying about our regulars?

 

[Spiderman]

Um, nothing...

Current regulars are fine, but just in case in the future, if things ever pick up again, we might have people here that we don't really know for a while... It's just a good, general policy.

 

[Ransac]

Current regulars are fine...

HAH!!!!! I have it on record!!!!!!!!!! LET THE INSANITY CONTINUE!!!!!!!!!!!


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Spiderman]

I may have to make an exception...

 

[Shabbaman]

I don't want regular users able to just post a thread and have it go on the front page without review.

In vB there's this option:

Require moderator validation before new threads are displayed

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah, but that's a pain for threads. It's easier to just have users submit to the Front Page article section where I can just go and review it there.

 

[Ed Sullivan]

So, we're using the new software now, as I'm sure you've noticed. This is the first public installation of it, so it's very much a work-in-progress. I'm very interested in you're feedback -- I'm sure some of it will be negative due to the significant change, but I want to know what you think.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Oversoul]

Wow, this is more different than I expected...

 

[Ransac]

This is for more drastic than expected... but I suppose I'll get used to it.


I had a problem logging onto a newer computer (where my password wasn't saved). The forum kept refusing to log me in using my ID and password. I tried then to reset my password, but all I got in my e-mail was {t:raw bodyHTML}, or something like that.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Ransac]

Sorry for the double post

Also, Clicking on "What's new?" doesn't give me the most recent posts, as my previous post in this thread never came up.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Ed Sullivan]

I'm not sure what kind of change you were expecting? It definitely looks different, though I think the style we had on here was looking really old (it was the vB3 default), and there really wasn't scope to do anything with it.

I'm in the process of fixing the email issues (should be fixed now).