Possible Downtime 4/26-4/30

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Alizée-Nederland

"vBulletin 3.8.4 and lower will not work with PHP 5.3.0 or higher."

Well the good news is we're already running PHP 7.3.27, so this can't be completely true. Maybe the update won't cause problems at all.

I made a local backup today. Could possibly use it for transferring to vbulletin-cloud. I might look into that when hosting is up for renewal in June regardless. Hostmonster hasn't been the most reliable, nor easiest to work with.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Ben

I made a local backup today. Could possibly use it for transferring to vbulletin-cloud. I might look into that when hosting is up for renewal in June regardless. Hostmonster hasn't been the most reliable, nor easiest to work with.

Thanks Ben. That would be great. It would be nice to move to a secured site.

Moving to the cloud might mean we might lose some things, like the custom landing page, chat box and maybe some other 3rd party features I am not aware of, but the general consensus now seems to be that nobody is concerned with that anymore. VB has some templates to start with and allow customizations to the banner. I believe they also support language packs.

[Bamagirl]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

Thanks Ben. That would be great. It would be nice to move to a secured site.

Moving to the cloud might mean we might lose some things, like the custom landing page, chat box and maybe some other 3rd party features I am not aware of, but the general consensus now seems to be that nobody is concerned with that anymore. VB has some templates to start with and allow customizations to the banner. I believe they also support language packs.

My two cents is that I agree that we should not let the chat box be a sticking point. It isn’t used enough for significant conversation and I doubt if it will be missed. If necessary, we could always create a sticky forum thread called “chat.” It seems to me there would be very little practical difference, since posts are pretty much immediate, anyway.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

^I thought the same as Bamagirl!

In fact, I have a lot of experience with physical chat threads!

I'm pretty 100-0 thread!

The chat box apparently doesn’t even have history, as in the case of threads.

So I don’t think the Chat box should be a big deal.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

The chat box apparently doesn’t even have history, as in the case of threads.

So I don’t think the Chat box should be a big deal.

Actually, the chat box does have history. There is a down arrow to the right of the word "ChatBox". If you click on it, a dropdown menu appears and there is an option to view the archives. This is actually quite handy if you need to make changes to what you typed in chat, because it gives you the option to edit. I have used it a number of times.

The chat box was heavily used around three years ago to the point where members were posting links and comments there instead of threads. We were trying to encourage members to utilize the threads more and over time there was less activity on the chat.

The one main advantage of the chat box is to be able to broadcast a message to all registered users so that it would be seen only by them. It is not visible to non-members and web crawlers don't pick up the content, so there are no worries the conversations would end up forever in cyberspace.

[AlizéeSuperFanFIN]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

Actually, the chat box does have history. There is a down arrow to the right of the word "ChatBox". If you click on it, a dropdown menu appears and there is an option to view the archives. This is actually quite handy if you need to make changes to what you typed in chat, because it gives you the option to edit. I have used it a number of times.

The chat box was heavily used around three years ago to the point where members were posting links and comments there instead of threads. We were trying to encourage members to utilize the threads more and over time there was less activity on the chat.

The one main advantage of the chat box is to be able to broadcast a message to all registered users so that it would be seen only by them. It is not visible to non-members and web crawlers don't pick up the content, so there are no worries the conversations would end up forever in cyberspace.

Wow!

I stand repaired!

I hadn’t researched the subject very much!

Well, that’s good, yes, but still, like you said, this kind of discussion can be a “problem” for a forum if there’s no text in the actual threads. [Although because of its archive, that too is a "thread" ...]

Yet, once history exists, it would also be great if it could be preserved (even as an archive, etc.)!

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by AlizéeSuperFanFIN

Wow!

I stand repaired!

I hadn’t researched the subject very much!

Well, that’s good, yes, but still, like you said, this kind of discussion can be a “problem” for a forum if there’s no text in the actual threads. [Although because of its archive, that too is a "thread" ...]

Yet, once history exists, it would also be great if it could be preserved (even as an archive, etc.)!

I'd say about 85% of the conversations that were going on back then, were taking place in chat and 85% might be low. It was that way because the head guy at the time liked it that way and if you wanted to talk to him on a certain subject, you more less had to do it in chat.

Like you said, it's a problem when there's little text in the actual threads. How could we attract new members if they see nothing current going on? But eventually we got things turned around and what do we have today? Maybe 5% of conversations going on in chat if that.