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Details of updates to SFXB
AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

Good grief. Run, MonMons, run! Spit and polish required but it's back. See if it works for you...
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Crash
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Post by Crash »

How goes it, Andy? Nice to see the forum back.This looks smart. It just seems that the membership is allowing access to quite a few programs.I figure, the way to boost discussion around here is to make human membership as easy as possible and program membership as difficult.



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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

Indeed.  Unfortunately Ikonboard seems to be rather vulnerable to it when it's in its default mode.  I tried the SMF conversion briefly while I was struggling to get the board back up, but it fell over.I have considered freezing this board as is and starting a new more modern one for the remainder of the site's life, but ideally I would merge everything obviously.  What do you think?  There aren't a huge number of active members after all...Edit: And that's got the general look and feel back again. That'll do for now I think, I'll see about enabling registrations again in a while...



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Post by Crash »

You did very well to manage that in as few days.What happened with SMF? Was the information garbled when you tried to view the forum or something?It seems a bit clunky to my mind to start over from scratch. How big is the database from the forum, can I ask?
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Post by AndyThomas »

Oh, it isn't huge - around 14 MB. The difficulty lies in the conversion. I know it's doable, it's just finding the time. Needless to say there's no standard template for forums like this, it's all down to the convertors people have done. I'll look at the phpBB option too. SMF just fell over which is common from what I've read. At least there are options on this host. I mean, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this one for the volume of posts it doesn't get but the spambots are a pain in the backside.
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Post by Crash »

Well, I think we could have quite a involved forum as we've had in the past.If you look at the activity levels of our existing members in the past, that makes sense. The problem is that people were having trouble signing up and if you have a fairly closed pool of contributors, things can become stagnant. I can understand how people like the signup to be automatic and something that they can do there-and-then themselves.14MB is very reasonable, given how much data is accumulated in the forum.I think PHPBB is a good option - at least it's still actively developed - Ikonboard, I'm not so sure about.There is a support forum for it but you'll find a support forum for CuteNews, which died away years ago.I would join the SMF / PHPBB support forums and let them know what issue you're having and let them fix it.It's in their interest because it means greater exposure of their software.Wasn't there an original message board that preceded this one from pre-2001? You wouldn't still have a link to that? Would be interesting to have a sift through.



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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

I hear varying things about Ikonboard, it seems rather stop start now. Hence while this is stable and I managed to port it across ultimately, it isn't a Cpanel install option.I haven't dabbled with PHPBB yet - I'll have a look.Pre-2001. Wow. Almost 15 years now. Back when SFXB hadn't even been conceived, there were just a few pages on my Demon account that started the ball rolling. Demon didn't do forums, so I used a third party. This forum replaced that one once I brought SFXB properly up and running, ironically because it needed people to register. Remarkably, and don't ask me why, that 1999 forum is actually still up and running here:Star Fleet X Bomber NostalgiaThe link should take you to the first page, way back when. There's a lot of suff buried in there. Have fun!
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Vanessa
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Post by Vanessa »

Hello chaps,A quick question from a total luddite, If this forum is possibly going to be frozen, and a new one started, should I do some cut & pasting in anticipation of losing some of the more important conversation threads that I'd like to have access to?I'm thinking of all the Fanfics, and ideas for further ones, back when some members here were feeling all creative. I'd like to keep a record of the ideas and storylines as one day I'd like to write some more SF Fanfic stuff.
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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

Hello Vanessa. No need to panic, I will always look to keep the contents of this board available here but do by all means keep your own "backup". My best case scenario is getting this board onto a new system so that the older stuff is part of that new board. I've now made some changes that should trap some more of the spambots, but I still need to authorise new users manually. I'm just pondering how the spambots defeat the image registration, and if it's the way I think I may have a cunning plan...
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Post by Vanessa »

Thanks Andy, understood.
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