FORUM UPDATE NEEDED?

[cKleinhuis]

i want to get an idea how urgent the update of the underlying system is

[Sabine]

That really depends on what we get with an update;}

Really, I think an update should be done in the first place if and when the admin team thinks it would make its tasks easier and/or enhance the forum in its view. More bells and whistles/greater ease of use for me as a user: nice but not necessary.

[0Encrypted0]

i want to get an idea how urgent the update of the underlying system is

What information is available about the pros and cons of upgrading?
What software are you considering (SMF 2.0?)
Will you be able to increase security of the site?

The forum moderators should have the most input into this question since they are more familiar with the underlying system.
Most casual forum users do not have enough information to make an educated vote on this issue.

[1Bryan1]

The latest stable release is SMF 2.0.13.
This forum is powered by SMF 1.1.21.

It is probably a good idea to bring SMF up to date.

[Sockratease]

The forum moderators should have the most input into this question since they are more familiar with the underlying system.
Most casual forum users do not have enough information to make an educated vote on this issue.

It's the moderation team that has been pushing for this for a long time!

What information is available about the pros and cons of upgrading?

The main issue is security.  This version has not had any updates for a long time and security flaws are bound to be there.  There is a reason they keep issuing new versions with updates very frequently.

What software are you considering (SMF 2.0?)

Yes, unless a case can be made for some other forum software.

Will you be able to increase security of the site?

That is the primary reason this is needed!

I see no reason to wait until something bad happens to take measures.  That is a dangerous game. 

As I said in another thread, a lot of people have put a lot of energy and time into this site and it would really suck if anything bad happened to it!

[0Encrypted0]

It would be nice to have the forum switch to https for security and better search rankings.

[kram1032]

I'm all for an update and, while you're at it, I'd appreciate other updates too. I know you want to keep it light on javascript and what not but, for instance, the current LaTeX plugin generates pretty sub-par looking pics, and post formatting with tags is somewhat painful compared to more modern places: If you can, I would love it if you could support Markdown and MathJax or something like that.

[Dinkydau]

If the forum changes I find it important to keep the messages. We have a lot of very good information here. I imagine it's probably hard to migrate to different forum software without losing the messages. If so, I vote for keeping the same software, but an updated version.

[Sockratease]

If the forum changes I find it important to keep the messages. We have a lot of very good information here. I imagine it's probably hard to migrate to different forum software without losing the messages. If so, I vote for keeping the same software, but an updated version.

Again - NOTHING will happen to this forum's content!!

Options are many.  Currently being considered is locking this site from registration and posting, after creating a new forum at fractalforums.com/forum or something similar.  Then migrating the member database over there so everyone keeps their usernames and passwords and post counts and all that, but the new forum will be empty despite all that.

Doing it that way is critical since we have literally hundreds of thousands of links all over the web to specific posts or other content in this forum!  Archiving it by locking registration and posting will keep all those links valid.  Then we simply change the top banner to link to the new forum with a short explanation so every page has a direct route to the new area and anybody can easily figure out what happened..

Likely, this wont happen in 1 weekend, and we may have to skip the whole maintenance mode thing until we do a bit more research and development.

But there are too many reasons to upgrade the software for the forum for us to just wait for it to fail before taking action.  

[kram1032]

So that would mean that everything is still available but for ongoing discussions we'd have to open up new threads continuing the old ones?
I'm fine with that, although it would be even better of threads (at least all that saw activity in, say, the last month or so) could be brought over too. - If that's impossible I won't complain too much though. I think an update would be well worth the inconvenience.

[TheRedshiftRider]

So that would mean that everything is still available but for ongoing discussions we'd have to open up new threads continuing the old ones?
I'm fine with that, although it would be even better of threads (at least all that saw activity in, say, the last month or so) could be brought over too. - If that's impossible I won't complain too much though. I think an update would be well worth the inconvenience.

I have not heard plans to do that. The idea sounds nice but it would take some work to find all active threads.

(The plugin Chillheimer requested would come in handy here. )

[Chillheimer]

I'm 978% on the PRO update front.
Everything that Sockratease says.

Security is number one.
Still browsing with xp, no antivir, no firewall.


Besides: There are so many little things that will improve the usability experience.
Over the years you might have arranged with the inconvenient way things work here currently, with all those little flaws and annoying bugs and the cluttered structure.
But technology improves over time.
So does forum software.


Also: There is no need for a downtime. No need to rush things.
As we tried to explain to Christian repeatedly: We can setup the new, clean forum under a new url like fractalforums.com/v2 while leaving this place open and running.
Those users who are interested are invited to do betatesting. By trying things in a closed environment we can smoothen the experience, optimize everything and others can slowly import all user data.
You wouldn't even have to reregister. (though I'd suggest that strongly. As if we really had 5600 active members. Those who really still want to participate will have no problem with a 2 step-re-registration.
Also: If both boards are active parallel, we could transfer single, important threads from the old to the new. (at least that is possible with the forum I run, phpbb)

When everything runs really smoothly we go open, everyone can participate in the new forum and after 2-6 or x weeks the old forum will be switched to read only.
Nothing is lost. A smooth transition.

What speaks against such a plan?!
That is what I would like to know.
We've been pushing for this for months, no years..

Christian, asking 'the people' is a great thing and should be done.
But asking without providing information about what the update will actually change is pointless.
And much more important: I really wish you would listen to the remaining active moderator-team who's job it is to run daily business and who know about the technology and what a modern forum experience can be like.

We have so many good ideas and would love to just start working on them.
But we basically don't get the permission.
If we had simply used all the effort we had to put into convincing you of the necessity of a major upgrade, the upgrade had been finished months ago.
And you wouldn't even have had to do any work besides 2 clicks to setup a new database with the provider.


FORUM UPDATE NEEDED?

Yes. About 2 years ago.




ps: If anyone wants to see a feature update list, if we stick with smf, this is it:
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Differences_between_SMF_2.0_and_SMF_1.1
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Differences_between_SMF_2.1_and_SMF_2.0

my personal favourites:

• Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.

 !!!! this is a big one! so much is lost, because every visit here marks all new posts read and you will never see them again unless someone posts. so many threads have died because of this.

• A new WYSIWYG editor SCEditor
• Post Drafts
• Likes
• I won't list all those countless security fixes.
• for smf2 there are responsive themes. finally browsing on your phone/tablet without hurting your eyes!

.....

[kram1032]

To be honest I could do without likes. Though I won't be bothered by them: I'll just likely not use them. (I don't tend to like, +1, thumbsup or what ever anywhere) - but all those other features sound neat!

Also, browsing without antivir or firewall? Granted, the new system ought to be much more secure, but that seems like you are just asking for trouble.

Oh and while we're at security, wasn't there the one thread once which mentioned that passwords used to be sent via mail? - That was fixed by altering the message, I think. But it implies that passwords are lying around in clear text somewhere on your server. This should never happen. - salt (add a long random but not necessarily secret sequence behind each password) and hash the passwords, verify passwords by verifying hashes! If you could conceivably send anybody their password you are doing it wrong.

And improved WYSIWYG is nice but imo Markdown would be even better. It can also work with WYSIWYG editors: They then would simply generate Markdown instead of various html or bbcode tags or what not.

[3dickulus]

as far as useability and interaction goes, I'm happy with it as is, updating the DB and server-side code to accommodate current security standards is a great idea but please leave "likes" to FB 

[simon.snake]

It is probably a good idea to bring SMF up to date.

It's quite strange reading through new posts and seeing your own initials - kind of like dragging me up into the 21st Century