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A question about moving to new message board software


SDS

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We have 4.5 Million posts, but for the most part it is a slow moving chat room. I'm not sure many threads are revisited after a couple weeks have past. If/when I migrate the forum to a contemporary software package - should I just leave the 4.5M posts behind and just transfer the structure and user accounts over?

 

That would mean every forum would start fresh, but there would be a link to the old archives.

 

Any opinions?

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I would suggest that those 4.5 million posts represent a critical historical record of the Bills' unprecedented 17-year playoff drought that we should make every effort, for the sake of posterity, to get rid of.

or perhaps donate it to the Smithsonian. :ph34r::unsure:

 

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How about keeping the 1st couple of pages with the remainder going to the archives? I know that's more work, but it might be better. Just a thought.

 

 

Agreed---IF it doesn't involve too much extra work. If it does, trash the whole damn thing. Who cares, really? It's just mooks talking Bills here. Nothing that amounts to much, in the big picture.

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Nothing wrong with a little housecleaning even if it is a side effect of the change. Probably the only thing that will matter to some is post count as it is a bit of a proxy for the length of time people have hung around here (Yolo being the notable exception).

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I would suggest that those 4.5 million posts represent a critical historical record of the Bills' unprecedented 17-year playoff drought that we should make every effort, for the sake of posterity, to get rid of.

Haha, nobody wants any of that. Toss it Edited by xRUSHx
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On second thought, there are a few threads on OTW that might be worth saving. I'm thinking of the cooking threads e.g., Sous Vide, and Pizza and the What Show to Watch Next threads have some info that would be missed. Anyway to put those in a Penseive for posterity?

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Well, it is a message board, so useful information tends to be current topics of discussion, which are newly created threads. When there's a current topic that happened to be discussed in a very old thread, I'd say 90% of the time people are just creating a new thread anyway.

 

Is migrating only the structure and usernames cheaper/easier? If that's the case, I think it's a no-brainer- especially if there's an archive.

Also, think of the usability of the boards with fresh content. Less volume of content makes searching for older threads easier, and may encourage users to do that more often, rather than create duplicates. By the time the board fills back up, perhaps users will have adopted better habits.

How about keeping the 1st couple of pages with the remainder going to the archives? I know that's more work, but it might be better. Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

Agreed---IF it doesn't involve too much extra work. If it does, trash the whole damn thing. Who cares, really? It's just mooks talking Bills here. Nothing that amounts to much, in the big picture.

 

Typically with things like data migrations, the effort involved is the planning of the migration, not so much the volume of data being moved. That's usually easy to scale. So I imagine, from an effort standpoint, if he keeps any old posts, it's just as much of a hassle as keeping all of them.

Edited by BringBackFlutie
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Well, it is a message board, so useful information tends to be current topics of discussion, which are newly created threads. When there's a current topic that happened to be discussed in a very old thread, I'd say 90% of the time people are just creating a new thread anyway.

 

Is migrating only the structure and usernames cheaper/easier? If that's the case, I think it's a no-brainer- especially if there's an archive.

Also, think of the usability of the boards with fresh content. Less volume of content makes searching for older threads easier, and may encourage users to do that more often, rather than create duplicates. By the time the board fills back up, perhaps users will have adopted better habits.

 

 

 

Typically with things like data migrations, the effort involved is the planning of the migration, not so much the volume of data being moved. That's usually easy to scale. So I imagine, from an effort standpoint, if he keeps any old posts, it's just as much of a hassle as keeping all of them.

 

Planning migrations? Who does that. Back it up and wing it.

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That site will give you herpes.

 

:lol:

 

It is butt ugly, that's for sure.

 

 

Typically with things like data migrations, the effort involved is the planning of the migration, not so much the volume of data being moved. That's usually easy to scale. So I imagine, from an effort standpoint, if he keeps any old posts, it's just as much of a hassle as keeping all of them.

 

That's what I figured.

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Whatever you do, don't change things up like the Hockey's Future boards did. They're all but un-usable now...

 

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/forums/buffalo-sabres.18/

 

Despite the inevitable STD, what is unusable about them?

 

Because I am almost certain to use the same software. (It almost appears as though they are using the beta-software that is out now. I'm not sure.)

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Basically, the thought process behind NOT bringing over 4.5M posts is:

 

1. Linking structure. Converting old links to new links may be just a rewrite of the URLs but it gets messy.

 

2. An empty database means the new code should be lightning fast. And fast for a very long time.

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We have 4.5 Million posts, but for the most part it is a slow moving chat room. I'm not sure many threads are revisited after a couple weeks have past. If/when I migrate the forum to a contemporary software package - should I just leave the 4.5M posts behind and just transfer the structure and user accounts over?

 

That would mean every forum would start fresh, but there would be a link to the old archives.

 

Any opinions?

I cast my ONE vote for exactly as you say. Don't waste too much time on the old stuff. Anyone who wants that, with the archive link you state, should be happy. And I would not waste resources on the archive either.

Edited by cba fan
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As long as you can keep the Shout Box. That's my favorite part here as a BBMB refugee.

 

Giant sig pics and ad materials make some 'modern' message boards slow to load and excruciatingly hard to read.

 

Search function has vast room for improvement.

 

Ability to upload attachments from locally hosted files would be nice. (can't do that now?)

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As long as you can keep the Shout Box. That's my favorite part here as a BBMB refugee.

 

Giant sig pics and ad materials make some 'modern' message boards slow to load and excruciatingly hard to read.

 

Search function has vast room for improvement.

 

Ability to upload attachments from locally hosted files would be nice. (can't do that now?)

 

yeah, that might not be back for awhile. Someone would have to write an add-on for that. I don't know if/when it would be available.

 

We have never allowed images in signatures. The text one will probably go too.

 

People upload stuff all the time.

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Can we get rid of all the old posts except the Trade Mario for Skelton thread and the Von Miller thread? My 2 favorites

 

These suggestions are not practical. I'm not fielding requests to import individual threads.

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After seeing years and years of posting flushed away without notice or even a 2nd thought at BBMB, that you would ask your board members the best course to follow when it comes to archives speaks volumes in my humble opinion.

 

thanks SDS

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would we still be able to find flutie- johnson debates or the significance of wade phillips wearing a headset?

 

 

 

 

do what you think is best- i never go back and try to find stuff like that, i try to avoid e.j. or rex posts let alone stuff from 15-20 years ago

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We have 4.5 Million posts, but for the most part it is a slow moving chat room. I'm not sure many threads are revisited after a couple weeks have past. If/when I migrate the forum to a contemporary software package - should I just leave the 4.5M posts behind and just transfer the structure and user accounts over?

 

That would mean every forum would start fresh, but there would be a link to the old archives.

 

Any opinions?

 

 

2 questions:

 

What about the UFO thread? Shirley that would be preserved right?

 

If you go ahead and do this will the Bills pick up Simeon Rice?

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