Greetings!

[Adam Zeis]

Hey all. Just wanted to stop by an introduce myself. Not sure if many (or any) of you know who I am, but we'll be getting to know each other very soon. As part of the new Mobile Nations, I'll be taking the Admin roll across all our sites forums along with Cory (currently the admin of Android Central forums). So over the next few weeks we'll be working toward unifying the rules and policies across all of our forums (CrackBerry, Android Central, WP Central, Pre Central and TiPB). Along with that we changing up some things you may be used to, so don't be alarmed as it will all be for the best.

I'll be around if anyone wants to chime in on anything, but I look forward to working with everyone. You can always find me at adam(at)smartphoneexperts.com or on Skype at zeisman1. Feel free to shoot me an intro and definitely let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!

 

[Dave Blake]

Um.... What? Your taking over my forums?

P.S. There is no anyone there is just me and I work very hard to keep things moving around here.

 

[Adam Zeis]

We're not taking over anything no. Cory and I will just be overseeing all the communities. Nothing changes for the most part, just unifying everything for better flow between all the forums. No need to panic

Will follow up with more in the coming weeks - but we're not pushing anyone out so don't worry.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

So when will we cease using outdated bulletin board software?

 

[Adam Zeis]

So when will we cease using outdated bulletin board software?

What would you like to use instead? We've never had a problem with vBulletin.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

What would you like to use instead? We've never had a problem with vBulletin.

Well, upgrading to the new version would bring a range of features onto of 3.6 and the template system is reasonable compared to the 3.x line of releases. I've never liked vBulletin, it's clunky, slow, unoptimised and ugly. I've used Invision Power Board for the past 8 years, and have strongly recommended it in the past for Mobile Nation websites.

Then again, taking this version of vB into account, I'd rather use SMF 1.1 or phpBB 2.

EDIT: forgot to say hello. Hello.

 

[Adam Zeis]

Ultimately that change isn't up to me, but I think we're pretty much set on vBulletin (for good or bad) for now. Would be a big undertaking to swap all the sites over unfortunately. We can most definitely update to the latest version and are more than open to changing up the look and features to an extent.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

Not at all, simply dump the db and install a test board locally, de-activate mods and uninstall them, run the Invision Power Board convert script (what's kept and what's lost is detailed on this page) and bam, it's all converted across. The only change that would be left to do is synchronise the account systems together (WPC and IPB) and create a unified login system. The support team could even do all this for us for a small fee (or free should we purchase multiple licenses for the network).

But an upgrade to the current installation is a start Also, two quick things:
- can you host the rank images locally? Currently they're streaming from my box.
- when viewing the index (and topic views too I think) as a guest, the forum width is cut in half (to include the ugly sidebar that AC has I guess), which looks pretty naff. Could we expand the value to 100%?

 

[Adam Zeis]

I stand corrected then

Still not my call, but will bring this up with Kevin and co. and see their thoughts on it.

 

[Rich Edmonds]

I'm in contact with the CEO, so we could inquire about how easy this would be to carry out.

They have a product, IP.Converge, which is a unified login system (and integrates with Drupal), something we're looking to implement across the board. Of course, nothing set in stone, but if integrated tools are already developed and ready for production installation, seems like more work to build everything from scratch?

Just throwing ideas into the air Not sure how familiar you are with IPB, but the Admin and Mod tools are second to none. Would make managing the communities much easier. Not to mention the social networking benefits.