Board Upgrade POLL

[aramis]

Thanks Wil, and thank you Thomas.



I only know generally. I know Hunter improved the board. This might have made it incompatible.

Hunter's modifications broke upgradability, even to newer versions of 3.x

All of the prior attempts during my tenure failed.

Note that, for my attempts, save the one Thom helped with:

• I cloned the server
• I attempted to update the clone with the main board off-line (specifically for license check reasons.)
• The database had a bad table, and the board failed the uprgrade.

I'm -personally not tied to VB... but I know VB. upgraded versions don't change much in the interface.

The one attempt Thom helped with, he tried to fix the broken table. He was unable to.

Which tells me that Hunter modified the SQL interface; I don't know SQL. I am vaguely conversant in PHP (and VB 5 is still in PHP), but would rather not have to do any serious hacking.

I'll be honest: I'd rather lock down the current board on a subdomain in read-only (say, "OldCOTI.Travellrpg.com") and put in a fresh install.

Of the 11K or so user accounts, almost all have some "Personal Identification Information", and I'd want someone to purge those fields across the database... real name, email, date of birth, etc.

Transferring accounts?
I think it would be a VERY bad idea for any but the moot members.
It's a risk of data exposure.

Using the VB control panel... we have 28,109 users registered as determined by the "generate mailing list" tool and excluding those accounts that are banned or awaiting confirmation.

6,434 of those had activity in since 1 Aug 2020.
264 of those actives posted in the same window.
463 users were active 4 Jul 2021 to 4 Aug 2021
98 users posted between 4 jul 2021 and 4 aug 2021.


Comparisons to Discord
Discord doesn't do the same thing COTI does. COTI (and bulletin boards in general) are a persistent dataset; assume everything posted stays available unless explicitly removed.

Discord is a chat service - assume everything posted will go away. It's not automatic, but it's not easily searched, it's not intended for one to go back to a 10 year old thread and add new info....

Discord is intended for short life-span current conversation. One can easily accidentally delete things.

Discord doesn't meet the needs of many; I've noted on product support discords a tendency to have the same questions repeat as new users find them.

The sadness
The things that make me sad about a shutdown and restart is the loss of the files area and the loss of the art gallery.

Lead Admin Comments
I'm not going to walk away whatever the vote; I'll stick it out and help implement whatever decision Marc makes.

Also, to be clear: the poll Robject posted was my suggestion. I'd have worded it somewhat differently (Rob put in several technical details that are fundamentally irrelevant, such as which BBS software to switch to), but putting the questions to the Moot has been my method once the "transition troubles" ended.

The Moot Members make COTI remain possible. This board, with a typical reasdership of about 500-1000 users per month and about 50-150 active posting users per month costs a couple thousand dollars a year. New software won't change hosting costs, and probably won't make it any cheaper (unless the new software itself drives users away).

 

[robject]

So, Hunter changed the SQL (I know SQL, but I'm not a DBAdmin).

Yeah, some of these options are kind of not relevant. But... well I wanted to see if there was a mandate in the details, and I wasn't sure myself.

So the sense I'm getting is:

* There's no good reason to NOT move to vB 5.
* Moot members should be auto-ported; others can get an invite.
* We can lock down this instance and sanitize PII (e.g. delete or convert to spaces etc), keeping it for archival search.

 

[Mår Ekkertsen]

My 2€

First, I defer to those who have to do the work.

- I recommend a SaaS solution if there are funds to support the associated costs.
- I recommend an open source solution if we want to self-host.
- I support lock and archive. If there is content in the archive some of us want to bring over, we can make the copy and link back to the original.
- I have not explored the trade-off between import and re-register. I can imagine benefits and drawbacks to both and I do not envy the decision makers at all.

 

[Dragoner]

I would do a fresh new board without porting anything over, vanilla install; then close this instance (the old board), and save it for archival reasons. Keep 99% of the work-energy needed towards the new board.

 

[RandyB]

1. I concur with archival of the existing board. There are a lot of good reasons to keep the historical record available.

2. Given 1., a fresh start with current software becomes much less daunting. Re-implementing the current board structure, or re-structuring in ways that current limitations prevent, is simply part of building out the new boards.

3. As someone who is not a member of the Moot, "transfer the Moot and invite everyone else" is acceptable as a way to both keep the migration manageable and, quite frankly, "trim the fat" of the membership rolls.

 

[Spinward Flow]

* There's no good reason to NOT move to vB 5.

Aye.

* Moot members should be auto-ported; others can get an invite.

Aye.

* We can lock down this instance and sanitize PII (e.g. delete or convert to spaces etc), keeping it for archival search.

Aye.

Of course, I would say that, given my responses to the thread thus far ...

 

[coliver988]

Going with the general theme:

lock this & make a new up to date site.

I like the subdomain idea, especially with the assumption we can link back to that static/locked board. There is just so much good stuff in there!

Also like the idea of auto-porting the Moot & invites for the rest (especially as mine just renewed )

Migrations, particularly of modified systems, are a lot harder than most people realize.

 

[whartung]

You need to port the existing users. If you want to be conservative, then port those active in the past XXX days. Arguably not a serious concern, but the simple fact is that folks are tied to their identity, and if the users are not ported, then their identity is up for grabs for anyone to take.

If you can port the moot users, you can port all the users. No reason to port passwords, just port the contact email and let them run the "forgot password" service to log back in.

You really don't want to keep the old site alive.

The frank blunt truth is that there's marginal bandwidth to keep this site alive as is, adding another, even a read only site, is still going to be a great sucking sound of time and energy as kernels, tools, userspace, etc. evolve.

Keeping ancient, stagnant software is actually a lot of work. Keeping the "old site" is basically a death warrant, just a matter of when.

Porting the messages to the new site eliminates that problem, it gets maintained with all the rest. VB is ubiquitous enough that it should be doable. I imagine there's a lot of expertise in this user base that could help. I could help, PHP isn't my thing, but I have a true knack for this stuff. SQL is bread and butter stuff. I've been keeping arcane computer things alive for 30 years, and "this is Unix...I know this."

There's, what, 15+ years of content on this site. There's the common saying that "the internet never forgets", but it's not true. The Internet is a combination of a patient with Alzheimer's, and their mother. Forgetting most of the details, but remembering only the embarrassing parts.

 

[Reban]

First let me say I appreciate the efforts of the whole team behind the boards.

Whichever new board interface is chosen I'd say make the navigation style as similar as possible to the present set-up. Maybe I'm just used to this one but other boards I'm on have recently been updated and getting to their newest posts is no longer simple.

Archive all the old threads, please don't edit anything. Even the interaction of members whether it's friendly or otherwise adds to the richness of these boards. No one is qualified to say what's useful Traveller related and what's the social history of the hobby. Archive it all.

Idea: would it be possible for archived posts to show up in the search results of the new boards? That way new users could discover things without going to a separate Archive site.

No mass re-registration except for Moot members.

Combine the above with a social media campaign to invite re-registration and new members. These boards have a reputation as hard to join (due to the Gmail spam problem), and being a preserve for Gronards. This could be a chance to get rid of that reputation and attract the new blood that is out there, ensuring these boards are sustainable long into the future.

 

[Swiftbrook]

You need to port the existing users. If you want to be conservative, then port those active in the past XXX days. Arguably not a serious concern, but the simple fact is that folks are tied to their identity, and if the users are not ported, then their identity is up for grabs for anyone to take.

If you can port the moot users, you can port all the users. No reason to port passwords, just port the contact email and let them run the "forgot password" service to log back in.

Aye!

 

[vegas]

You need to port the existing users. If you want to be conservative, then port those active in the past XXX days. Arguably not a serious concern, but the simple fact is that folks are tied to their identity, and if the users are not ported, then their identity is up for grabs for anyone to take.

If you can port the moot users, you can port all the users. No reason to port passwords, just port the contact email and let them run the "forgot password" service to log back in.

This.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Sounds like a good time to join the Moot and not be left behind .

 

[infojunky]

I am in the resub the moot members and the rest of the hoypoly get a invite to join.

 

[whartung]

I am in the resub the moot members and the rest of the hoypoly get a invite to join.

I love this idea that people who haven't joined the moot are somehow not contributors to this community, nor valued.

That's a great message to send.

 

[Fovean]

I love this idea that people who haven't joined the moot are somehow not contributors to this community, nor valued.

That's a great message to send.

I’m not getting that vibe. I take it as, you have to pay to be a member of the Moot, so that premium means they’ll (possibly) do the re-subscription for you. As a part of the larger process of taking everyone along. Nothing to do really with contributions or value.

But people have different ideas about how it should be done. Hence, this public poll.

Just my reasoning, not involved with the boards nor do I know anything about it.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I got nothing...

I voted for Lock Down and Bulk re-register. As to the new flavor, got me so I'll go with whatever we end up with.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I am in the resub the moot members and the rest of the hoypoly get a invite to join.

I love this idea that people who haven't joined the moot are somehow not contributors to this community, nor valued.

That's a great message to send.

Considering that I was one of the first people to suggest such a thing, and I'm not a member of the Moot and have only been here and active for the last couple of months ... I can categorically say that in my position that is not the message I'm receiving from such a stance at all (because if it was, I wouldn't have proposed it).

Everyone who posts is a contributor.
Have no illusions about that.

Not everyone is a subscriber ... which is a very different thing than being a contributor to the contents of the forums.
Subscribers are members of the Moot. It's really that simple.
Members of the Moot help defray the operating costs of keeping this site on the net so it isn't an economic burden on the Emperor alone.

In "coin of the realm" terms, there are two different currencies ... the flow of thoughts, ideas, and details of worlds not dreamt of in your philosophy Horatio, that are composed in posts and art files and links to resources through these forums ... and then there is the flow of legal tender to support the overhead and upkeep costs of the forums.

It is perfectly possible to contribute one without contributing the other, and yet both have value and are needful to the health of the community here.

That is my (perhaps more nuanced) interpretation of the situation.
Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[kilemall]

I hate the idea of double searching and having to dig out what Ihave already posted here, and I have just a few years here. I can't imagine losing all the data for decades for some of you, including the posts of the departed.



End of life sitting on same version is not an option. It will eventually break and be non-functional due to either web browser and/or underlying library changes/obsolescence. This will ultimately be true of the archived version as well.


I do computer app maintenance for a living, and I know that sometimes you have to have intermediate versions you go to to step through the upgrade process. Is it possibly there is some version 4 you can go to then move up to a current version 5?

 

[robject]

So here's my version of the public service announcement.

This is not an ideal situation.
There is no ideal solution.
No single decision is going to work without warts.
And we're all more or less adults.

And to the point:

Since I'm not doing the work, I defer to those who have to carry the load.

I'm glad I'm not a system administrator of any kind; I lack that kind of patience.

 

[aramis]

Rob, it's not patience that's required. It's a willingness to hit "Cancel" instead of "Send," a willingness to build a diverse team, and to delegate across the team. And a knowing acceptance that in so doing, one takes a risk to one's own reputation.

It doesn't hurt to be properly medicated, either.

Spoiler

for those who don't know, I have Bipolar disorder. Meds keep me outside the cage.