• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Future of the Forum

Belz... said:
Yes but I assumed that, since the JREF has a forum, it has people that take care of it and can identify problems.
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Very well might have when the forum was started. That's part of the problem with volunteer driven resources - when someone with a passion for a particular area leaves for whatever reason, it's difficult to sustain what they were doing. One of the things I do is help people design projects from the ground up that will be sustainable without the passion of the founder.
 
icerat said:
That will mean lots of whining from people who like things the way they are.
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If you fix the performance issue there is absolutely no reason for a change in software.

Anyone attempting to change the software would be almost guaranteed to give up on preserving the current degree of access to the entire thread history. They might think they can pull it off at first, and then they will likely realize they cannot, but by that time they will be married to the idea and we will lose access. The thread history will be archived only from that point on.

Being able to find a thread from 2004 that matches our current format, and even be able to bump the thread if need be, is what I like about this forum.

Please do not fix things that are not broken.
 
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OnlyTellsTruths said:
If you fix the performance issue there is absolutely no reason for a change in software.

Anyone attempting to change the software would be almost guaranteed to give up on preserving the current degree of access to the entire thread history. They might think they can pull it off at first, and then they will likely realize they cannot, but by that time they will be married to the idea and we will lose access. The thread history will be archived only from that point on.

Being able to find a thread from 2004 that matches our current format, and even be able to bump the thread if need be, is what I like about this forum.

Please do not fix things that are not broken.
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While in principle I agree, the reality is that the forum is broken. There's severe performance issues that need addressing. While it can probably be temporarily addressed with hardware upgrades, the is reality things become "broken" from a user perspective anyway - more than half of internet traffic in the US is now on mobile devices, and most websites typically have around a third or more of their visitors from phones or tablets. If you don't cater to that audience, you lose them.

Then you have issues with version creep. The OS version this forum runs on is no longer being updated and in less than 3 years won't even receive security updates. You have similar issues with the forum and database software. Often upgrading one will break one of the others without also upgrading there (and more often than not something will break even then!)

Most forum software has the same general structure, it's a matter of being able to find things in the same place, having the same kind of functionality (tags for embedding youtube videos for example) etc that make something familiar. Nothing I hate more than when (for example) Facebook just changes things and they're not where you expect.

So I hear you!

Ideally we'll setup a mirror test version for people like yourself to use before the site software is upgraded. Time and funding limitations apply of course, but hopefully we can do it properly.
 
icerat said:
My current favourite is Xenforo, which was developed by the original vBulletin lead developers. One thing I think is important is native support for different screen sizes (eg cell/tablet). All suggestions appreciated.
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Fortunately...
xenforo said:
XenForo has the ability to import data from other forum software, a process also known as converting. Version 1.2 of XenForo supports importing data from the following:

vBulletin 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, and 4.x
...
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icerat said:
Ok,

I've got some hard details on the current server and performance and as most expected it's almost certainly a mySQL bottleneck. I'm pretty confident we can get things up on running well for half the cost JREF is currently paying, and then it's just a matter of $$$ to improve performance even more (SSD vs SATA more cache etc etc).

Put your hand up if you have experience with -

* CentOS
* mySQL
* vbulletin 3.7.7

And are willing to contribute some time.

The current goal would be to move the forum as is to new hardware to stabilise performance, and then at a later date upgrade the forum software itself. Suggestions and experiences on the latter are requested. vBulletin as a project has gone downhill so it will most likely mean migrating to other commercial or opensource forum software. That will mean lots of whining from people who like things the way they are :)

My current favourite is Xenforo, which was developed by the original vBulletin lead developers. One thing I think is important is native support for different screen sizes (eg cell/tablet). All suggestions appreciated.

The other issue is of course funding. I suspect JREF has little interest in continuing to financially support the forum so we'll have to look at a donor/advertising/whatever model. Again, your input appreciated.
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...I will not pretend to expertise, but I do have some time, and enthusiasm. Holler if you ever need cannon fodder (or good cookie recipes).
 
I suppose it's OK to release details. I'm trying to be conscientious here but I'm not that worried about hackers.

There has not been dedicated staff to deal with the forum or website. OBVIOUSLY.

There WILL be change. To hope that every nook, cranny and post count remains the same might be a pie in the sky. What do you want? Improvement. Sometimes it means resetting the odometer and starting from scratch.

Life goes on.
 
icerat said:
(SSD vs SATA more cache etc etc).
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Are SSD's reliable enough nowdays, given the intrinsic limitation of the number of write-cycles for the used flash memory technology?

Or are you planning to use SSD for the OS and slow-changing stuff only, and have the fast-changing stuff on regular (RAID-)drives?

Greetings,

Chris
 
idoubtit said:
I suppose it's OK to release details. I'm trying to be conscientious here but I'm not that worried about hackers.

There has not been dedicated staff to deal with the forum or website. OBVIOUSLY.

There WILL be change. To hope that every nook, cranny and post count remains the same might be a pie in the sky. What do you want? Improvement. Sometimes it means resetting the odometer and starting from scratch.

Life goes on.
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Thank you Sharon. You said there has not been dedicated staff to deal with the forum or website. But then who is this mysterious "person with responsibility for the site" icerat was talking about? (I hope I am not asking too much here):
icerat said:
Well I got a response that they're collecting names of people offering assistance and it's being passed on to the person with responsibility for the site who will be deciding how to proceed.
...
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Is it not reasonable to assume that, at the JREF, there is one person who is more technically-oriented and who is in charge of the site?
 
Michel H said:
Thank you Sharon. You said there has not been dedicated staff to deal with the forum or website. But then who is this mysterious "person with responsibility for the site" icerat was talking about? (I hope I am not asking too much here):

Is it not reasonable to assume that, at the JREF, there is one person who is more technically-oriented and who is in charge of the site?
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I assume that Darat is the person who has been in charge of the technical aspects of the forum.
 
jhunter1163 said:
I assume that Darat is the person who has been in charge of the technical aspects of the forum.
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Ah OK, thank you for the clear answer, jhunter. However, Darat said, about two months ago:
Darat said:
...

Unfortunately server and so on are outside my responsibility.

I am looking to see if there is anything else I can do on my side to increase responsiveness, I've been checking a few things and it may be that Tapatalk is adding quite a lot of overhead to the Forum but that's a very preliminary conclusion at the moment.
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Isn't there another person in charge of more technical aspects at JREF (sorry for asking so much). I hope we're not in a Kafka novel here.
 
Michel H said:
Isn't there another person in charge of more technical aspects at JREF (sorry for asking so much). I hope we're not in a Kafka novel here.
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Basically, no. Darat can deal with software issues, but not hardware. And until Sharon, there's been nobody at the JREF offices to specifically deal with such issues.
 
It's weird how a website can look so real to some and so abstract to others. To me, the forum is JREF. I can't visit America, I'll never shake Randi's hand (I hz a sad) but I come here almost everyday to get a speck of this culture.

Good luck icerat and friends, keep the bytes of reason flowing!
 
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