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[mr burns 132]

Please nooo

Actually the forums appeal to me because of the extensive ammount of information that can be found & discussed ( ! ) in ´em. A closure just would´nt feel right, like loosing the mouse-finger used for shooting in ofp or similar handicaps

[berghoff 11]

Why not, if accounts can be transfered easily and being able to upgrade to newer version of forum software.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

That wouldn't solve anything, though.

Can't these boards not be upgraded? And put on a faster server... The server is already having trouble with Czech release... Imagine when the rest of the world gets the game

[dm 9]

As long as ACTIVE accounts can be transfered, it sounds like a good idea to me.

Whilst it seems harsh, something like 70% of the members on this forum are registered in 2001/2 and have 0-2 posts. Transfering ALL those "dead" accounts over would be a hell of a waste of resources.

Does ikonboard store the last-login date? That way any account that hasn't been accessed in >12 months could be purged in the transfer?

[Messiah 2]

seems sensible to me

[klavan 0]

In some forums your account expires after a certain period of inactivity, so it wouldn't be strange or criminal. You've only to create a new account and.......voilŕ you're now logged in. A simple script can redirect to a new forum so you don't even need to search for it.

Klavan

[Journeyman 0]

Whilst it seems harsh, something like 70% of the members on this forum are registered in 2001/2 and have 0-2 posts. Transfering ALL those "dead" accounts over would be a hell of a waste of resources.

I've noticed that a lot of these 'no posters' are not exactly inactive though! If you scroll through the 'whose online' list at any given time you will see countless members that you have never heard of because they never post only read!

Not everyone is noisy like us!  

PS.  I just lost another post! I posted in Armed Assault Videos and it shows me as 'Last Post By: Red kite' but it does not show! That happened to me once before in the Fresnel Lens thread and I think it eventually turned up a few weeks later! ..LOL..    ...Any ideas?

EDIT: OK its come free now! I had to make another post in another thread first though! Something to do with going over to another page, same as last time! The joys of Iconboard software!  

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Whilst it seems harsh, something like 70% of the members on this forum are registered in 2001/2 and have 0-2 posts. Transfering ALL those "dead" accounts over would be a hell of a waste of resources.

I've noticed that a lot of these 'no posters' are not exactly inactive though! If you scroll through the 'whose online' list at any given time you will see countless members that you have never heard of because they never post only read!

Not everyone is noisy like us!  

PS.  I just lost another post! I posted in Armed Assault Videos and it shows me as 'Last Post By: Red kite' but it does not show! That happened to me once before in the Fresnel Lens thread and I think it eventually turned up a few weeks later! ..LOL..    ...Any ideas?

Yea, but if they haven't logged in the last 12 months... im sure you can delete them.

[Messiah 2]

plus unless placebo does enforce the 'members only can see forums' option, those who have accounts but only browse the forums, can still view the forums as a guest.

no loss

[oneoff 0]

Quote[/b] ]plus unless placebo does enforce the 'members only can see forums' option, those who have accounts but only browse the forums, can still view the forums as a guest.

no loss

unless they log in to commuicate thru there messenger board

[xawery 0]

Although I realise that such a decision won't be taken democratically, I would like to voice my support for changing to a new, more modern forum (e.g. SMF), and respond to some arguments against it.

1. Re-registering isn't really that much of a deal, especially as it would be just a one-time event.

2. I agree with Mr. Burns about the impressive wealth of information contained within these current forums, but:

2a) these would presumably still be available as an archive

2b) the current search function is rather poor, and thus makes all this knowledge difficult to access.

3. A good deal of the forum slowness can be attributed to the outdated cgi scripts it is based on. PHP is much better in this regard.

4. Ikonboard, as such, is a rather limited forum software package. I run a forum myself (who doesn't?) and have tested various software packages (Ikonboard, Invision Powerboard, PHPbb, SMF and others). Ikonboard really doesn't shine when it comes to customisability (now officially a word!, user-friendliness and stability.

In conclusion, should Placebo decide to take such a drastic step, I would like to recommend SMF, or Simple Machines Forums. It's free, user friendly (e.g. when posting, you get a warning if new messages have been posted while you were writing), features a very solid search engine, and offers outstanding customisability both for the end user and the administrator. And best of all: it's fast.

Sorry for this slightly off-topic rant but Ikonboard has been a source of annoyance for some time, and I thus feel obliged to applaud any effort at changing the status quo.

[Journeyman 0]

Is SMF better than YaBB 2.1? I know that YaBB 2.1 is supposed to be more secure and feature rich than PHP based software but I've never come across SMF.

Changing forum software is a big upheaval but may prove necessary!  

[Messiah 2]

Quote[/b] ]plus unless placebo does enforce the 'members only can see forums' option, those who have accounts but only browse the forums, can still view the forums as a guest.

no loss

unless they log in to commuicate thru there messenger board

quite true, but then they can always use MSN/SKYP/ICQ instead of leaching off the forums.

[shinRaiden 0]

SMF is the tech.successor to YaBB series boards. Imho, phpBB3 would be worth a look at, for the open phpbb dev community, and for UTF-8 support. It's still in late beta, so there's time to test and evaluate. Plus it's free unlike Ikonboard.

[Ironsight 1]

Plus it's free unlike Ikonboard.

Don't know if this is a good thing per se. Free things happen to be poorer in many ways.

vBulletin would be the way to go. It will also allow post databases from other systems to be imported.

[Supernova 0]

I would go Invision Powerboards.

[JdB 151]

I would stay with Ikonboard. PHP is more vulnerable then CGI, there are alot more exploits for PHP forums then there are for CGI.

[shadow 6]

There is no point in discussing what forum BIS should use next as it is totally up to BIS what they want to use.

As for the recent database issues, there will most likely not be issues like these once the database has been upgraded along with the forum itself. The current forum and database is a dinosaur compared by todays standards.

Oh and one last thing... Ikonboard is free, Shinraiden.

[j w 0]

As a note;

But just as any forum-software, there is a version you can pay for.

Happy to see the new forums soon, but does that mean we have to re-register?

JW

[ralphwiggum 6]

Let's not talk about forum upgrade here or anywhere else for that matter. It's upto BIS.

[XCess 0]

Personally, I would be against disabling guest browsing as, in my opinion, it's a great way to learn before taking the plunge and actually registering into a community. I for one hate regisatering on forums that I can't see any content, and for troubleshooting purposes it can be a major hassle.

Perhaps a paypal donation system or similar which grants anobody making donations the rights to display an avatar and a change of status relating to the donation?

[j w 0]

If they'd have to pay for it, IMO, less people would register at the forums.

[XCess 0]

I didn't mean pay to register, just a donation system to help with server upgrades and such.

[Placebo 29]

We can't charge people to use the forums, wouldn't be fair, maybe we can fine people each time they get a warning level instead

[XCess 0]

lol nice idea

Just to make sure i actually made sense in my post, I didn't mean any kind of compulsory charges, just a voluntary donation system. Can't hurt to try it for a while and see if gets you anywhere can it