Moving TBT to more powerful forum software?

[Jeremy]

Hey all, can you believe that The Bell Tree is almost five years old? Anyway, let me get right to the point. We have been seriously considering moving TBT to vBulletin (or possibly IPB, but vB is more likely). There are several reasons why we are interested in doing this. First, we will be able to control our advertisements. As it is now ZetaBoards makes the money from TBT's ads. There are also some features we would like to have. For example, the current Bell system is limited. The professional forum softwares have much more advanced systems. Overall we would have many more features. However, a few may be missing (I don't think vB has Gmail-style PMs like ZB has). As far as I know, there are very few features we would lose and a lot we would gain.

The biggest thing we would lose in general is post count. That's 1 million posts and 5 years. The posts cannot be moved over. If we switch, though, TBT as it is now will still be open to read. So history won't be lost exactly. It is also unlikely that we would transfer Bells over. The new Bell system would be very in depth and we might want to start from scratch. I'm not sure how we would compensate those who have gained Bells here though. If we switch everything will take some time to get used to, but that won't matter after the first week.

So what do you think about this?

Note: vBulletin4.0 is currently in Beta and you can see it here: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum.php

 

[Wish]

Awesome! And I dunno. Is the theme still gonna be AC?

 

[[Nook]]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

 

[Jeremy]

Awesome! And I dunno. Is the theme still gonna be AC?

By theme I assume you mean the look / skin of the forum. I plan on making a new theme either way. It will be AC-themed, but not as much "AC-in-your" face as the ones we use now. But yah... if we use vB, I will obviously have to make a new theme. However, if we stay I still plan on making a new one. I'm sure we will have multiple themes though.

 

[Conor]

Tis a good idea, I'm a member of another forum that uses vBulletin and its great software.

 

[Jeremy]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

No, everyone would have to register again. But I will make sure someone else doesn't steal your name (within a certain amount of time of it opening). And you may be used to ZB now, but wouldn't you get used to any type of forum after you've used it for a little bit?

 

[GetSumSunBK]

woah, that's like starting from scratch...cool

 

[[Nook]]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

No, everyone would have to register again. But I will make sure someone else doesn't steal your name (within a certain amount of time of it opening). And you may be used to ZB now, but wouldn't you get used to any type of forum after you've used it for a little bit?

Please don't give anyone ideas.

 

[Jeremy]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

No, everyone would have to register again. But I will make sure someone else doesn't steal your name (within a certain amount of time of it opening). And you may be used to ZB now, but wouldn't you get used to any type of forum after you've used it for a little bit?

Please don't give anyone ideas.

I don't think people will want to do that. It would be annoying to have your account deleted because you thought it would be funny and steal someone's name. It's not like I can't tell who is who... I would just be PMed here.

 

[[Nook]]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

No, everyone would have to register again. But I will make sure someone else doesn't steal your name (within a certain amount of time of it opening). And you may be used to ZB now, but wouldn't you get used to any type of forum after you've used it for a little bit?

Please don't give anyone ideas.

I don't think people will want to do that. It would be annoying to have your account deleted because you thought it would be funny and steal someone's name. It's not like I can't tell who is who... I would just be PMed here.

They might try to prevent me from using this username there. It's only one I can think of....anyone have ideas?

 

[tazaza]

Im not sure about it but it is a good idea.

 

[Jeremy]

Poll added

 

[Conor]

I don't know about this....I'm kinda used to Zetaboards now.....Wait a minute, can you move the members?

No, everyone would have to register again. But I will make sure someone else doesn't steal your name (within a certain amount of time of it opening). And you may be used to ZB now, but wouldn't you get used to any type of forum after you've used it for a little bit?

Please don't give anyone ideas.

I don't think people will want to do that. It would be annoying to have your account deleted because you thought it would be funny and steal someone's name. It's not like I can't tell who is who... I would just be PMed here.

They might try to prevent me from using this username there. It's only one I can think of....anyone have ideas?

nook, don't worry about someone taking your name, the chances are nobody would want to anyway.

 

[JasonBurrows]

I don't care about what people say, but what about my MMC Topic and TBT Bells stormcommander????

 

[[Nook]]

Quoting limited to 5 levels deep

Please don't give anyone ideas.

I don't think people will want to do that. It would be annoying to have your account deleted because you thought it would be funny and steal someone's name. It's not like I can't tell who is who... I would just be PMed here.

They might try to prevent me from using this username there. It's only one I can think of....anyone have ideas?

nook, don't worry about someone taking your name, the chances are nobody would want to anyway.

I mean, you can't have two members of the same username, right? Well, a person that dislikes me might create their own account then another account named "nook" so I can't have a username called "nook".

 

[Jeremy]

I don't care about what people say, but what about my MMC Topic and TBT Bells stormcommander????

You'd have to recreate the topic. I'm still thinking about how people with a lot of bells can be compensated. Maybe we will let you buy stuff with them. But we are thinking people should start at 0 Bells again if we move. There will be more opportunities to make Bells this time though.

 

[Tyler]

This is a huge change and it's obviously has it's cons, but people need to look at the pros. The pros certainly outweigh the cons, and it's not like we're deleting this forum. It'll just be archived, so nothing will be lost.

 

[Jeremy]

Quoting limited to 5 levels deep

I don't think people will want to do that. It would be annoying to have your account deleted because you thought it would be funny and steal someone's name. It's not like I can't tell who is who... I would just be PMed here.

They might try to prevent me from using this username there. It's only one I can think of....anyone have ideas?

nook, don't worry about someone taking your name, the chances are nobody would want to anyway.

I mean, you can't have two members of the same username, right? Well, a person that dislikes me might create their own account then another account named "nook" so I can't have a username called "nook".

Then I would delete them so you can register it. Unless you come in months later and are like "actually I want my old name."

 

[Wish]

I don't care about what people say, but what about my MMC Topic and TBT Bells stormcommander????

You'd have to recreate the topic. I'm still thinking about how people with a lot of bells can be compensated. Maybe we will let you buy stuff with them. But we are thinking people should start at 0 Bells again if we move. There will be more opportunities to make Bells this time though.

I don't really see the point in TBT bells. We just have them to collect them. Right?

 

[JasonBurrows]

I still want my TBT Bells at 150,000 as they are.

<big><big><big><big><big>It's taken a lot of effort to get them...</big></big></big></big></big>