Forum is broken and considering a fresh install - your input requested!
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,392
Hey there,
As you know, we've been attempting an upgrade to the vBulletin tools since September - about six months ago. The nature of the problem is that our database will not upgrade under any circumstances. We're now hitting diminishing returns: Parallax has over 500 hrs of work into the project; vBulletin support is ultimately of little support to decipher the programming errors; customizations to our version may have introduced problems; forum users are tolerant but frustrated; and ultimately we remain stuck. The soul-sucking sound is loud enough you can hear it in Parallax and other efforts need the attention of our web and IT team.
It's getting to the point that we need to move on. I am considering a fresh install of a new forum tool (vBulletin or other), making the current version read-only, and starting over. We would aim to migrate your user account name, password and key data. This would provide the shortest path to providing new features we'd like you to have, while retaining search capabilities of the current forum. You'd only be losing the ability to comment on old threads (like the "more cogs vs. more RAM?" fun).
I am fully aware of the down side of such a change. We've shepherded migrations from eGroups=>YahooGroups=>vBulletin in years past. Few like the change of a platform, and nobody likes having a discussion history in another place.
Is it wishful thinking that you could get behind such a change and support it? I'd like to think we wouldn't loose any traction and that our community recognizes the extent of the problem and wants to support Parallax in such a change.
Would you get behind this for us?
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
As you know, we've been attempting an upgrade to the vBulletin tools since September - about six months ago. The nature of the problem is that our database will not upgrade under any circumstances. We're now hitting diminishing returns: Parallax has over 500 hrs of work into the project; vBulletin support is ultimately of little support to decipher the programming errors; customizations to our version may have introduced problems; forum users are tolerant but frustrated; and ultimately we remain stuck. The soul-sucking sound is loud enough you can hear it in Parallax and other efforts need the attention of our web and IT team.
It's getting to the point that we need to move on. I am considering a fresh install of a new forum tool (vBulletin or other), making the current version read-only, and starting over. We would aim to migrate your user account name, password and key data. This would provide the shortest path to providing new features we'd like you to have, while retaining search capabilities of the current forum. You'd only be losing the ability to comment on old threads (like the "more cogs vs. more RAM?" fun).
I am fully aware of the down side of such a change. We've shepherded migrations from eGroups=>YahooGroups=>vBulletin in years past. Few like the change of a platform, and nobody likes having a discussion history in another place.
Is it wishful thinking that you could get behind such a change and support it? I'd like to think we wouldn't loose any traction and that our community recognizes the extent of the problem and wants to support Parallax in such a change.
Would you get behind this for us?
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Comments
Perhaps a Poll of some sort? Would make gathering responses easier than wading through 100's of messages.
Kenny
As long as the old forum content is still there under an archive I think it's doable. Some of us use the existing threads for research, and there's a ton of important reference content here.
One thing I'd advise though: be mindful of changing old links into the current forum. Otherwise you will lose very important backlinks that help Parallax's ranking with the search engines. It's also frustrating when existing links posted on third-party sites suddenly go missing. So, avoid the "easy" way out by simply making the old forum archive.parallax.com, and having the new forum show up as forums.parallax.com. That will break all old links, and will cause more trouble than it's worth.
None of my posts are worth saving!
I support your decision, but before you do that......
500 hours is an awful lot of time to throw in the trash, especially if the coding is close to where you want it. Putting a fresh set of eyes on the script before trashing it may be a good idea. In fact there are probably several members in the forum that could probably look it over and find potential errors. However, I would advise choosing someone you think you can trust and change key information, before allowing any outsider to have a glance at it.
I'm all for whatever you decide. As mindrobots stated, 500 hours is a lot of time wasted that could have been spent elsewhere ( like making the new Elev8 "brain" ).
Good luck!
As for dealing with a change in the form you mention, my main concerns are searchability of the old (existing) forum and what "fixes" will be seen by users that make the transition the right choice. If we don't gain usability features, then I would rather keep being frustrated with the imperfect version we have today. I have found easy work-arounds for most of my main concerns anyhow. In regards to searchability, I have discovered lately that some of my project notes for things over the years only exist on the forums. For example, much of the detail about my reverse geo-cache box only exist on the forums. It would kill me to lose that. (I am in the process of archiving details for all my projects, but still).
Have you looked outside for vBulletin migration help? vBulletin is used pretty heavily, so I would think deep-down database experts are available somewhere. I would think you could manually move selective fields/tables to a newer version to prevent the crippling effect that you are currently fighting. It's a bummer that vBulletin can be such a struggle.
For critical threads, you can start a new one with the same exact title and just link to the old forums in the first post for historical reference. Not the best, but would work.
I'm not sure what sort of customizing Parallax has done in the past, but maybe sticking closer to the default system would avoid future issues.
I have no problem freezing the current database in some manner, but as others have stated, it would be a shame to lose the valuable information it contains.
Sorry it has cost so much time. money and effort but I'm sure the forum is a key part of the Parallax success story.
-Phil
Probably couldn't convert the tons of vBullitin posts over but it still would be nice.
I am with Phil on this one
Additionally, I am in no big rush to see the forum fixed. Take all the time you need, if it prevents read only threads.
I was waiting for these kinds of opinions. There must be more forumistas out there who think the same way about keeping things the way they are. Maybe your post will pave the way for more replies to this thread about the down side of such a move. You show that it's okay to be opposed to change and still be a friend of Parallax. Of course, if we weighed the opinion of every customer and tried to make a decision we'd never do anything except atrophy and eventually vanish.
It's refreshing to see that even you, Mr. Pilgrim, concede that some kind of change isn't all that bad. Sheesh, I almost wonder if you're going to warm up to the new "share on Facebook" button that you'd have at your disposal!
Ken Gracey
Yes, Wikipedia provides a nice overview of the alternatives, too.
Ken Gracey
Make a static archive, or read only something with this one and we can just carry on. No worries. It's been clear for a while now that you all have been working really hard and with crappy results.
Got your back. Won't miss a beat.
And thank you for this place. It means a lot. It means enough to deal with the migration issues. And know you are not alone. Big community upgrades can be painful. Count on your community to continue. I believe this one will.
FWIW, InVision offers a pretty great community software. Check this out: http://www.atariage.com
Evaluate it on community merit, not content. That's a classic gamer and collector forum I've been participating in for years. Probably 10+ I've met the admin at a retro show or two and he's been able to migrate datasets on par and potentially larger than this one multiple times. In terms of community, that site is stellar. It has been for years. Lots of good tricks there, and I'll bet Al would share a few of them.
It offers blogs (that work well), albums, content uploads, the works. If you do a good Parallax skin for it, like that admin has, it will present well.
Given this community size and activity, it's a great fit. Again, just for what it's worth.
Edit: I strongly agree with leaving this one linked here, as is, read only. Make a new link, say http://community.parallax.com and build whatever you decide out there. Anything we want is a known search and link away and we all carry on with few worries.
Oh, and BTW, please stop with the "Mr. Pilgrim" nonsense. The last time I was called that was in deposition: "Mr. Pilgrim, what did you and Mr. W discuss at the meeting of 12 October? ... Mr. Pilgrim, are you sure you can't recall anything from that meeting? ... Mr Pilgrim, ... yadda, yadda, yadda." I've gotten a twitch every time I've heard it since then.
-Phil
John Abshier
I'm not so sure about this, John. In either case, Google seems to be a superior search tool to the one that's installed in our forums anyway.
Agreed about the intellectual investment on our forums, too.
Ken Gracey
The biggest problem with this forum is that it's not responsive. For folks who think the term has something to do with how fast it reacts to user input, that's not it. "Responsive" means the forum automatically changes its screen layout, image sizes, and orientation to accommodate non-desktop browsing. It's not that the current forum is unusable as it is, but it's not in keeping with current Web standards. One of those standards is to accommodate the rising number of mobile and other narrow screen users.
Parallax has already invested heavily in making the main shopping cart, and the Learn site, responsive. Why not extend that to the forum?
Google recently announced it will start to effectively *penalize* sites that do not deliver pages to suit mobile and narrow screens, by placing a nasty-sounding label next to any mobile search result for the site. So, this is something that cannot be ignored by any online Web merchant that gets business through search engine traffic. And I'm sure Parallax does. Not to mention is hampers mobile users, who have a more difficult time reading the content and navigating the site.
So, in other words, Parallax really has no choice but to upgrade to a more modern version of forum software, if it wishes to remain a go-to source for technical information on its products, and electronics in general.
Who's to say that this same issue won't creep up in a future upgrade and doing a fresh install just saves the developers the hassle of finding bug(s) .
Is that a request for actual help, or a request for "bearing with"?
If the former, I have no skills in this area that would prove beneficial to the effort.
If the latter, it is Parallax's forum and you can most certainly handle the problems as you see fit including blowing the whole thing away and starting over.
I have not found the current Forum incarnation to be that bad considering some of the Smile software with which I have to deal at work. All I would really care about is the vast amount of information that's buried here.
Lurking in the wings,
DJ
For recent threads, it could be possible to mark anything older than (say) 10 days since the last post as archive in the old forum. That way, people will still be able to continue certain threads in the old forum, until eventually all new threads are in the updated forum. At that point, the entire old forum is marked read-only.
When I first joined the forum almost 8 & 1/2 years ago it was new to me then. (I liked the darker scheme skins back then)
So as long as the old (present) forum is still readable online I say go for the NEW updated forum that handles today's devices!
Sounds like vBulletin is a hopeless case and it's time abandon it. Looking at the huge changes they seem to be making to it, according to wikipedia, I would not wonder that it's impossible to upgrade.
For the sake of history and all kind of users links and book marks into the forum threads URLs are supposed to never change. As such is it possible to crawl through the entire forum with some spider (wget even) and just keep the thing for posterity as a huge pile of static html, attachments and other assets. Then at least everything is easily available even when vbuletin becomes un-runnable.
Then you can throw away vBuletin, or at least no longer depend on it, and start over. PHPBB for example, as used by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Seems to work a treat.
This of course is a huge lot of work. And will disrupt all our ongoing threads. That's a pain I could live with. What about everybody else?
Of course being just a database it should be possible to migrate the data in that to a new system. I hate to think how hard that is to do though.
Do I have to get yet another user name? Perhaps with another "." like "Heater.." or perhaps I should start version numbering them "Heater-v0.3-beta"
Edit: Oh, and no threaded threads, as it were. Thanks.
As Mikhail Gorbachev said; "If you dont move forward, sooner or later you begin to move backward."
Doc