# Forum Move - Coming Soon!



## Dragoneer (Mar 16, 2008)

Hey gang,

I know the forums have been running "not so fast" lately, and I'm working on a fix right now. Currently, I'm in the process of testing another copy of the forums right now. This should fix the slowdowns and posting/lag issues browsing and navigating the forums as we move to an entirely new server dedicated to the forums alone.

We're growing just that big. 

But why for ARE we experiencing slowdowns? Long story short: the forums outgrew the server that they're on, and are causing some issues and slowdowns. They're on a shared server with quit a bit of other things on it, so we'll be getting to a more dedicated slice o' forumy home.


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## Ceceil Felias (Mar 16, 2008)

Oh, I was expecting an architecture move when I saw this, not a server move. "Do you have a good and tested converter?" was the only question I had, and now I don't even have that.

So I'm interested to see how this'll go! Hopefully there won't be an extreme enough version change in the scripting and database systems that MyBB uses that something will be broken once you move over.


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## Dragoneer (Mar 16, 2008)

Ceceil Felias said:
			
		

> Oh, I was expecting an architecture move when I saw this, not a server move. "Do you have a good and tested converter?" was the only question I had, and now I don't even have that.
> 
> So I'm interested to see how this'll go! Hopefully there won't be an extreme enough version change in the scripting and database systems that MyBB uses that something will be broken once you move over.


Originally, we were just going to do a conversion, but the need to migrate also came up. So we're going to migrate to a new server first, then upgrade to new forum software later (in April).

My goal right now is to have working forums. Period.

And between you and I, MyBB is a bucket of ass.  Shhh. Don't tell anybody else I said that.


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## TheGreatCrusader (Mar 16, 2008)

Cool. What kind of forum software are you thinking of? Vbulletin, SMF, PHP (God I hope not PHP)...


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## Dragoneer (Mar 16, 2008)

TheGreatCrusader said:
			
		

> Cool. What kind of forum software are you thinking of? Vbulletin, SMF, PHP (God I hope not PHP)...


Right now it's sort of a battle between vBulletin and SMF. I'm leaning towards SMF, but not made a decision yet. I still see a lot of pros/cons between the two.


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## TheGreatCrusader (Mar 16, 2008)

I would personally say Vbulletin because I personally think that is a bit more stable than the latest versions of SMF. That and you can install so many delicious mods to Vbulletin (I'm not completely sure how you install mods for SMF, if you can).

But, that's just my opinion. You're the Admin.


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## Ceceil Felias (Mar 16, 2008)

Ugh, SMF. I never liked SMF at all. x.x

vBulletin has potential, though! I'd wholly support the use of vBulletin. Though my main desire is just to have a means to disable emoticons by default rather than having to tick it every time I post.


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## uncia (Mar 16, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> Right now it's sort of a battle between vBulletin and SMF. I'm leaning towards SMF, but not made a decision yet. I still see a lot of pros/cons between the two.


Any chance of a list of those, please. Afaik, the long-running full license freebie offer for vBulletin was still open despite not receiving a single word of acknowledgement.

Good news for the community re. the server, anyhow; thanks.

d.


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## Dragoneer (Mar 16, 2008)

uncia said:
			
		

> Any chance of a list of those, please. Afaik, the long-running full license freebie offer for vBulletin was still open despite not receiving a single word of acknowledgement.
> 
> Good news for the community re. the server, anyhow; thanks.
> 
> d.


A list of changes? I'll announce them when they're ready. I'd rather not jump the gun/shark/Comic Book Guy.

And I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to correct you: there has been plenty of acknowledgment regarding vBulletin and the offers for assistance. We've been trying to decide which version is the right version before we take the money. We want to make sure the choice we make is the RIGHT choice rather than the choice of simple monetary value.

I'd rather waffle on the idea for a bit while I do my research the right choice -vs- make the wrong one later.


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## uncia (Mar 16, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> A list of changes? I'll announce them when they're ready. I'd rather not jump the gun/shark/Comic Book Guy.


Not that, but the "pros/cons between the two", as was the subject of that previous document to yourself.



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> And I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to correct you: there has been plenty of acknowledgment regarding vBulletin and the offers for assistance.


Owing to other constraints I only proofread that SMF/vBulletin comparison you'd OK to be carried out when that was sent to you (2nd Feb) but my understanding was that that was never acknowledged when I asked later. Albeit the ongoing vBulletin funding, etc., offer went way back before that, of course.



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> We've been trying to decide which version is the right version before we take the money. We want to make sure the choice we make is the RIGHT choice rather than the choice of simple monetary value.
> 
> I'd rather waffle on the idea for a bit while I do my research the right choice -vs- make the wrong one later.


*nodnods* Agreed 100% on that with regards to whichever is most "suitable for purpose", both public-facing and behind the scenes.


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## Dragoneer (Mar 18, 2008)

uncia said:
			
		

> Owing to other constraints I only proofread that SMF/vBulletin comparison you'd OK to be carried out when that was sent to you (2nd Feb) but my understanding was that that was never acknowledged when I asked later. Albeit the ongoing vBulletin funding, etc., offer went way back before that, of course.


To be honest, there was a lot of opinion in the SMF/vB comparison, not a lot of outright fact that weighed down why one was clearly a better choice than the other. It answered a lot of questions, but raised even more.

And speaking of, I have a full copy of the forums working on my other server, and we'll be doing a stress test of it tomorrow more than using a capture of these forums from sometime this weekend. I want to get as many people on the forums to see how they're working using a direct MyBB to MyBB comparison first and foremost.

And for the record, for anybody else out there who may be reading this and you're thinking of using MyBB for your forums... DON'T! Just... just don't.


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## uncia (Mar 18, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> To be honest, there was a lot of opinion in the SMF/vB comparison, not a lot of outright fact that weighed down why one was clearly a better choice than the other. It answered a lot of questions, but raised even more.


*nods*. Aside from anything else, it probably needed a few people to go through every single plug-in available (I read that as requiring follow-up/further discussion, but no reply), albeit the background support for those, and in general, seemed stronger on vBulletin's side (e.g. http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46646 / http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=124828 / http://www.vbulletin.org/) as well a few more standard features such as "Tachy Goes to Coventry" and general look & feel. A bit of a negative on users needing to reset passwords but can be managed and doesn't exactly hurt to syncpoint to get those email addys up-to-date where those might've lagged.
The plusses on SMF's side were possibly less "obvious" but included a general feedback impression of being slightly lighter on server resources, albeit as ever getting dissenting voices; e.g. http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=329714
(From what I recall in passing, anyhow...).

Certainly sounded like a better idea to take $ out of the equation, since that's a relatively trivial matter compared with ongoing running costs.



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> And speaking of, I have a full copy of the forums working on my other server, and we'll be doing a stress test of it tomorrow more than using a capture of these forums from sometime this weekend. I want to get as many people on the forums to see how they're working using a direct MyBB to MyBB comparison first and foremost.


aside: "My" = your personal, or FA-donated funds? Just checking, in passing, since the latter would of course be good to know as "buy in" if that's the case.



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> And for the record, for anybody else out there who may be reading this and you're thinking of using MyBB for your forums... DON'T! Just... just don't.


Eh... /front-desk/ stuff was bad enough, but backscenes I probably don't want to know.
Every system has it's fanbois, however (e.g. http://www.webtalkforums.com/showthread.php?p=137127 / http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showpost.php?p=309738&postcount=14 ), although MyBB has a surprising number of those: probably not all trying to run a large number of concurrent users. 

Cheers & Have fun with the testing, y'all,
David.


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## Dragoneer (Mar 18, 2008)

uncia said:
			
		

> aside: "My" = your personal, or FA-donated funds? Just checking, in passing, since the latter would of course be good to know as "buy in" if that's the case.


Powered by FA donations. The new forum server is going to run FA an additional $40 a month or so given the growth of the site, and will be help offset by the subtle inclusion of Google Ads down the line. Like FA, our forums are just growin' a bit too big for our britches. 

Nothing is ever free, so... lil' bit o' ad space will help things chug along.


			
				uncia said:
			
		

> Eh... /front-desk/ stuff was bad enough, but backscenes I probably don't want to know ...although MyBB has a surprising number of those: probably not all trying to run a large number of concurrent users.


So true. My biggest beef with MyBB is
A) Threads still do not properly highlight when a new post has been made to it. This has been going on for over a year now, and I'm sick of it. I can't comb through every single thread, so I need to know if a new post has been made. MyBB commented this won't be fully fixed until their next full, major rewrite. Bugger.
B) I don't get e-mail confirmations reliably. I won't get an e-mail update to an important admin thread, but I'll ALWAYS get e-mail updates on that damn "What Are You Listening To?" thread. 

Does not help me long term.


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## uncia (Mar 18, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> Powered by FA donations. The new forum server is going to run FA an additional $40 a month or so given the growth of the site, and will be help offset by the subtle inclusion of Google Ads down the line. Like FA, our forums are just growin' a bit too big for our britches.


Has been an obvious bottleneck for a /long/ time. Could do with a bit more flagwaving I'd've thought on where those donations are going - to _visible_ benefit - or was that a case of not counting chickens until up-and-flying AOK? Thanks for saying, anyhow; and to the donors, of course. 
Not sure how that worked out later on, but was a good chunk of freebie hosting on Gushi's behalf earlier on, IIRC, with regards the fora (& was definitely +thx on that).



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> Nothing is ever free, so... lil' bit o' ad space will help things chug along.


Could make a comment 'bout that sort of bandwidth money being easy for one person to cover but extra $ from adspace is still extra $ if that's the way to go fora-side as well as mainsite.



			
				uncia said:
			
		

> So true. My biggest beef with MyBB is
> A) Threads still do not properly highlight when a new post has been made to it. This has been going on for over a year now, and I'm sick of it. I can't comb through every single thread, so I need to know if a new post has been made. MyBB commented this won't be fully fixed until their next full, major rewrite. Bugger.


Since forever?! Am sure many people will be glad to see the back of that bug whatever the migration choice is. 



			
				uncia said:
			
		

> ...but I'll ALWAYS get e-mail updates on that damn "What Are You Listening To?" thread.


(Ah... so tempting... _*resists*_ )


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## Rhainor (Mar 20, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> So true. My biggest beef with MyBB is
> A) Threads still do not properly highlight when a new post has been made to it. This has been going on for over a year now, and I'm sick of it. I can't comb through every single thread, so I need to know if a new post has been made. MyBB commented this won't be fully fixed until their next full, major rewrite. Bugger.
> B) I don't get e-mail confirmations reliably. I won't get an e-mail update to an important admin thread, but I'll ALWAYS get e-mail updates on that damn "What Are You Listening To?" thread.
> 
> Does not help me long term.



I've never encountered either of those problems.

I have had it do this thing, where I click the "go to first new post" icon on a thread, and it will either go to a random post somewhere in the middle of the thread that's 2 weeks old, or (more frequently) go to the very first post of the thread.  Going back and clicking the icon again gets around the problem, but it's still a minor annoyance.


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## SkieFire (Mar 20, 2008)

Preyfar said:
			
		

> So true. My biggest beef with MyBB is
> A) Threads still do not properly highlight when a new post has been made to it. This has been going on for over a year now, and I'm sick of it. I can't comb through every single thread, so I need to know if a new post has been made. MyBB commented this won't be fully fixed until their next full, major rewrite. Bugger.



To be fair, Ive only ever seen one forum software ever able to do this reliably, and that was wwthreads which is nice, but a server killer with more than a few hundred users. Every other forum Ive seen has issues either highlighting that there have been new posts to a thread, or actually taking you to the newest post reliably. Even the 'big' ones like vbulletin and UBB have problems.



			
				Preyfar said:
			
		

> B) I don't get e-mail confirmations reliably. I won't get an e-mail update to an important admin thread, but I'll ALWAYS get e-mail updates on that damn "What Are You Listening To?" thread.



No idea what could cause that, although spam filtering springs to mind. I know other forum software can sometimes subscribe you only to replies to your own post instead of all posts to the thread, but Ive no idea if mybb does that. A quick google didn't find anything 

RSS feeds of threads is always a nice feature. Used to love that on the planetside forums when they used Lithium, that was actually decent forum software, despite its foibles.


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