New forum - discussion thread

[Snake Plissken]

All

Just an update on the new forum progress. I've put a proposal into the powers that be at WSC, which is basically moving to a more modern forum software and includes various costs and schedules.

The main question right now is around migration of content. As mentioned, the current forum has 1.2 million posts across 35,000 threads and 19,000 users.

I think I am right in saying that we all want to keep those posts, threads and accounts and migrate them across to newOTF. However, that is going to come at a cost in money and downtime. The money side of it can be ignored right now.

There are two options.

1. Option 1 is to shut down Kunena at a specified time, backup the database, send it to a conversion company and migrate to the new board. It would require testing before relaunching to make sure that everything works before we can come back up. All in all, lets take a pessimistic view and say that the forum will be completely offline for 4-7 days.

2. Option 2 is to shut down Kunena for a brief time (lets say, 24 hours, max). Then backup the database, send it to the conversion company and migrate the content to the new board. In the mean time, the current Kunena would be back up and running as normal. Once the migration has been tested and completed, we shut down Kunena again, back it up, send it off, convert, migrate, test (more briefly) and we are up once more. In this scenario, we are down for 2-3 days.

Option 2, by the way, costs 25% more. We have to pay for two migrations.

So, what do people think? What is acceptable to you?

Finally, what would you prefer - that newOTF has the same structure as Kunena (Football, World, Film & TV etc) or would you prefer a better structure with sub-forums, and the current content in "Archive"?

[Guy Profumo]

New forum - discussion thread

One thing’s certain, a “click-through” board will never work…

[Ginger Yellow]

New forum - discussion thread

Is there not a third option? Just do one migration, but leave Kunena up (after whatever minimum downtime is needed) as an ephemeral thing where new posts would just vanish after the migration is complete?

[WOM]

New forum - discussion thread

Option 1 sounds like the more pragmatic plan. I don't have enough experience of other message boards to have an opinion on the best way to structure them, so use my vote toward your best opinion...as you seem to know about these things.

Oh, and put me in the 'money but no expertise' camp from the other thread.

[Sean of the Shed]

New forum - discussion thread

If Brexit has taught us anything it's that you can demand everything possible at no extra cost, so I want option 2, I want it straight away and I want it for nothing.

[Snake Plissken]

New forum - discussion thread

Ginger Yellow wrote: Is there not a third option? Just do one migration, but leave Kunena up (after whatever minimum downtime is needed) as an ephemeral thing where new posts would just vanish after the migration is complete?

In doing that, you will definitely lose a few days worth of threads and discussions and won't be getting it back. New accounts wouldn't move across either.

Basically, you would be stuck in waiting room, idly passing small talk and reading three year old copies of Chat! and Autocar.

[Ginger Yellow]

New forum - discussion thread

Yeah, I understand that. I think we can handle a few days of limbo. Better than having nothing at all during that time period.

[longeared]

New forum - discussion thread

On the face of it option 2 sounds the more robust, simply because testing will presumably flag up various faults and issues and these can be resolved over a more relaxed period. The danger with option 1 is that either the board is down for weeks while testing faults are resolved or we end up going live with another dog's dinner and continually pushing post go-live updates through. (I assume we're not going to be told what "costs 25% more" equals in monetary terms)

Out of interest is the new board still planned to be hosted on wsc.co.uk?

[Snake Plissken]

New forum - discussion thread

Right now I'm assuming it will still be wsc.co.uk.

That's how I'd like it to be, anyway.

[hobbes]

New forum - discussion thread

Option 1, definitely. Every conversion carries a chance of it not coming back properly.
Can we make it look exactly like Oldtf?

Personally I like that World has a total mish-mash of stuff in it. If by sub-forums you mean world-politics, world-chit-chat, world-total bollocks etc. I think that would be a major mistake. It might ghettoise sub forums even more than Books is now.
5 or 6 headings with everything in a pot below is the simplest structure and I think it fits the tone here. Simplicity is key, OTF has always been about the words.
Just my tuppence, anyway.

edit.
Happy to have all the old stuff in an archive though. Don't need it cluttering up the shiny new space.

[ad hoc]

New forum - discussion thread

Snake Plissken wrote:
Finally, what would you prefer - that newOTF has the same structure as Kunena (Football, World, Film & TV etc) or would you prefer a better structure with sub-forums, and the current content in "Archive"?

(my bold)

Something of a leading question methinks. (Seriously, though, what does that actually mean? What are sub forums and how would they be different from what we have now?)

As for the main question, I'm easy either way. When we went from onetouchfootball to wsc.co.uk did we not just start afresh with the old board sitting there on the internet as its own archive? Honestly that would be fine for me now too - that way we'd have a new board which we could all fairly easily sign up to, and stuff here would still be accessible (I have no idea if that's possible, but that would seem just as good to me)

[hobbes]

New forum - discussion thread

Oh and can we have an ignore poster button?

[Sean of the Shed]

New forum - discussion thread

I hope we get to keep the ignore poster button.

[nmrfox]

New forum - discussion thread

Option 1 seems a better fit to me, though longeared's point about more testing is a very valid one in light of what we have ended up with since October last year.

You can delete posts by A Doctor Speaks and Luke R - that will save valuable space, time and money.

[ad hoc]

New forum - discussion thread

How are there 19,000 users? I bet at least a couple of thousand of them are spam bots that have come on here briefly to post about live streaming NFL or some such.

[ursus arctos]

New forum - discussion thread

When we went from onetouchfootball to wsc.co.uk did we not just start afresh with the old board sitting there on the internet as its own archive?

Indeed we did, and I think that is an option worth considering in this case.

If anything, the somewhat improved search function makes it more user-friendly than the one touch football archive was.

[WOM]

New forum - discussion thread

ad hoc wrote: How are there 19,000 users? I bet at least a couple of thousand of them are spam bots that have come on here briefly to post about live streaming NFL or some such.

Everyone asks this but nobody ever answers it. Do you need to register at wsc.co.uk to read some articles? If so, that would explain the volume. Because, poster-wise, we're surely down to the low hundreds by now.

If we simply hived-off all accounts with fewer than five posts, we'd drop that 19,000 number quite nicely. And so what?

[Snake Plissken]

New forum - discussion thread

Forums

Ha. Hadn't realised it had become a leading question.

In terms of forums and sub-forums, it isn't subforums per se, more kind of grouping things together under headings on a home page. So, speaking hypothetically, if I was starting from scratch I would probably set it up thus:

Football
|
--- General
|
--- Tournaments
|
--- WSC Daily

Non-football
|
--- World
|
--- Film & TV
|
--- Music
|
--- Books

Board
    |
--- Announcements and Feedback

In the above, Football, Non-football and Board are just group headings. The ones a level below that are actually forums (mapping onto what we have now). It gives us the possibility of adding in subforums, so if we wanted to, maybe under Tournaments have World Cup 2018, Euro 2020, African Cup of Nations etc etc. Or just leave it all in Tournaments, depending on traffic as I'm not a fan of lots of individual forums on low-traffic boards.

Accounts

19,000 accounts is probably spam signups. TBH, the 1.2 million posts is the important thing. What is going to save more space/migration time, deleting 10,000 accounts or cutting TABs posts in half?*

Not migrating

An option. I think we can leave oldOTF and Kunena in place and have a new URL (off both wsc.co.uk and onetouchfootball.co.uk) but that is down to WSC in-house techies. A little unwieldy and everyone would have to re-register, but if the users want it that way, who am I to argue? Certainly the cheapest, quickest and simplest option.

*Oh God. I can't make jokes about this stuff any more, can I?

[Crusoe]

New forum - discussion thread

I would be happy with just archiving everything and starting from scratch. This place has never been precious about post counts or upvotes, so as long as the previous content is accessible and searchable I'd be happy not to migrate anything. Or is there a problematic hosting or license cost in keeping the current version available even as a read-only archive?

On the structure, does it matter in terms of cost/admin overhead/maintainability which approach is taken? If not, keep it simple and stick with what we have now. Less complaints about things not looking familiar.

I'm hoping the new board has a mobile-friendly version even if it looks more like the previous boards. But right now I'd probably accept that as a reasonably sacrifice.

[ad hoc]

New forum - discussion thread

Snake Plissken wrote:
*Oh God. I can't make jokes about this stuff any more, can I?

Oh I think you can. You're only the tech bloke at this point, not a moderator.

Alternatively you could register a new account to make digs at TAB or anyone else, under an unrecognisable other name. I suggest Ken Snakepiss.

Thanks for the clarification on the sub forums question. Just as with the other questions, I'm happy to go with the majority. No strong feelings either way.

[Snake Plissken]

New forum - discussion thread

Actually, the account thing raises a good point - the single sign on to WSC and the board will probably go as the main site is staying on Kunena.

I can't see a way of avoiding that short of introducing something like Facebook / Twitter / Google account integration into the board and WSC. (No! No! Thrice No!)

[Crusoe]

New forum - discussion thread

Crusoe wrote: I would be happy with just archiving everything and starting from scratch. This place has never been precious about post counts or upvotes, so as long as the previous content is accessible and searchable I'd be happy not to migrate anything. Or is there a problematic hosting or license cost in keeping the current version available even as a read-only archive?

On the structure, does it matter in terms of cost/admin overhead/maintainability which approach is taken? If not, keep it simple and stick with what we have now. Less complaints about things not looking familiar.

I'm hoping the new board has a mobile-friendly version even if it looks more like the previous boards. But right now I'd probably accept that as a reasonably sacrifice.

Forgot to add: thanks Snake.

[Snake Plissken]

New forum - discussion thread

Interesting idea.

Option 3

Kunena is switched to read only, new board installed at http://www.wsc.co.uk/gloriousnewforum

Cons
Three boards, two of which become incredibly low traffic museum pieces
Re-registration required

Pros
Cuts costs by either 70% or 100% depending on board chosen.
No downtime
Fast switchover

[ad hoc]

New forum - discussion thread

Reginald Christ wrote: It would mean having two "old" boards and one new one, wouldn't it?

Two? Oh the innocence of youth.

[ad hoc]

New forum - discussion thread

My vote is for Option 3 then.

Oh, and thanks Snake.