New forum type?

[Alainax]

Following on from the recent thread about the clunkiness of uploading pics to the gallery, I was wondering if there were plans to move the forum onto a newer format at any point?

Another large forum I am on has recently been upgraded to a system that amoung other things allows photo uploads directly to the post, and you are able to “like” posts. Other cool things are you get a notification if someone likes your post or quotes you.

It was implemented on a group who are arguably less computer aficionados than what we have here, and unlike most changes on the internet was met with great feedback.

I’m not clued up on what the various forum types are, but it may be a XenForo. The forum Is owned / operated by “one of the largest branded media companies in the UK” with that one forum having 100k members and over 10million posts - just trying to point out it’s not a wee silly forum or anything, and the platform seems to be able to handle it well.

Just a thought!

[Svarog]

It would take great efforts of more than the one man to move to a different platform and even then a lot of what we have accumulated here would be lost. Remember how we lost rep stars to a small update, the customizable profiles to another one, and to still another one - the biggest loss of all, CFDs, which people had come to treat as a currency of a kind, trading them for in-game items and services, just gone overnight. And all that disturbance happened within the same platform.

[Alainax]

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It would take great efforts of more than the one man to move to a different platform and even then a lot of what we have accumulated here would be lost. Remember how we lost rep stars to a small update, the customizable profiles to another one, and to still another one - the biggest loss of all, CFDs, which people had come to treat as a currency of a kind, trading them for in-game items and services, just gone overnight. And all that disturbance happened within the same platform.

As I said I don’t know much about these things so didn’t know how feasible an upgrade would be, I know the example I mention didn’t lose the old content, but appreciate it might be a huge task. Would just hate to see the forum getting behind the times!

[711]

I have been considering moving PCF to another platform for quite some time. While of course this would involve lots of work, that has not been the main impediment.

The challenge in moving to another forum software platform is primarily that PCF (and EF before it) employs lots of customizations and third-party add-ons for functionality that the community has really become attached to.

For example the Gratz! feature in the Hall of Fame section. Another example is the forum Gallery, which is a (quite old) third-party addon to the current forum software (vBulletin). The PCF Gallery is an important repository of lots of Entropia history that cannot be found anywhere else, so any potential move would need to preserve that.

While there may be analogous features or add-ons available on other potential platforms, invariably some features would be difficult or impossible to recreate.

Nevertheless, moving to a newer forum platform is a project I would like to undertake at some point, and will be investigating more fully in the months to come. I have used XenForo for other projects in the past, and found it to be a very stable and full-featured platform, with a great community around it for modifications and add-ons.

[Thorns Rose]

Before consideration of upgrading the platform, I believe you should work on membership and 'clean-up' of old and banned/ duplicate accounts etc. and moderating a bit more stricter/enforcement. ( that includes my sometimes frivolous posts as well and should be if needed. )

Seeing the difference of who engages and how this forum has really lost its audience of engagement and interest ( post content ) might be what is more important to rectify first, before spending your 'pec.'



No need to put the 'cart in front of the horse', as they say.


Just my opinion

[Corwin]

bye bye alts

[Orion]

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bye bye alts

actually, i would support this!

[Thorns Rose]

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actually, i would support this!

One can only hope!!