Opinions on possible forum changes | Retro Junk

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Vertex 1 year 28 days ago Posts: 384 Site Admin	Ok, it seems like a pretty unanimous opinion on the redesign so barring any sudden change I will be going forward with it. Another change that I have been thinking about and will implement at the same time if you guys want it is to change the forums to run on phpBB or vBulletin. I tried to stay away from those solutions because I wanted you guys to be able to create your own forums and nothing like that existed for those packages. I am trying to reduce the amount of custom code I have to keep up with or as Bilbo Baggins would say “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”. I think that feature is very lightly used and not worth the trouble of trying to reinvent the wheel. I will roll over the top 5-10 or so user forums into the regular forums and allow the admins to mod the forums if they are still active. So what are your thoughts on this?

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thecrow174 1 year 28 days ago Posts: 9806	User Forums aren't getting the attention they used to get, but it would probably be a good idea to roll them into the regular forums anyway.
	There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil and the other one is good. Which wolf will win? The one you feed the most. http://unbelievableyou.com/a-native-american-cherokee-story-two-wolves/
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vkimo 1 year 28 days ago Posts: 2323 Forum Mod Editor	Maybe keep the broad category ones that aren't covered here like music. A lot of them were niche forums that no one posted in anyways. Heck, the request and collector's closet hardly get posts. Be cool to revive those with people selling/trading their retro stuff.

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bassman21 1 year 28 days ago Posts: 4553	The forums have been working much better as of late. IMHO any drastic changes would be a waste of time and may create new bugs which could take months to fix. VBulletin would take away from the integrated feel. I think those resources should be used tweaking the current forum. The user forms were nice when the site had more traffic, but they seem pointless now. A few other official forums in place of them should satisfy the needs of the users should you need to eliminate them.

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vkimo 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 2323 Forum Mod Editor	I agree with bassman, if we have phbb or something else it will feel like we're on a different site than RJ.

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Drahken 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 1239	Another site I frequent is actually trying to move AWAY from vbulletin, primarily due to hassles of attempting to integrate site & forum accts, but also due to high costs, bugs, and some other issues. re user forums: In the entire time that I've been here, I haven't seen those get much use (even before the disaterous site remodel). They could still be used on any forum script though, just not in the same manner. How it could work with some other forum software: There would be a category for user forums. When a user gets 500 posts, they can submit a user forum request to the admins. If approved, the admins would go and add the requested forum as a subforum under the user forums category. While this would be more intensive for the staff, it would (in theory) result in better quality user forums and eliminate duplicate/near duplicate forums. Since most forum software allows mods to be assigned to individual subforums, the "creator" of a given userforum could be made a mod of it & have a similar level of control to the current system.
	*WARNING: The above post may be highly opinionated, read at your own risk. Gee Caspah, you're a twicky one!
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eddstarr88 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 6883	Everyone knows I like Chit Chat and Memory Lane, the user side had good forums but not much traffic. I just like to bounce around any topic at any time - a vast open forum works best for me.
	The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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vkimo 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 2323 Forum Mod Editor	eddstarr88 wrote: Everyone knows I like Chit Chat and Memory Lane, the user side had good forums but not much traffic. I just like to bounce around any topic at any time - a vast open forum works best for me. True. If I want to talk about Tetris, I'm going to do it in the videogame forum, not the pre 1990 Russian gaming sub forum.

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CruJonesIsTheMan 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 381	Can you do something about the unretro design of the site it's self? It's bland and boring. Can you please make it look like it used to before?
	Don't pay any attention to the evil spirited and dead of heart. They're not worth your time.
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Vertex 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 384 Site Admin	Ok, I will hold off on switching the forums for now. I just don't know how much time I will be able to devote to improving it.

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blueluigi22 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 140	Generally speaking, I believe that by having more people on the site was when people took full advantage of the user forums. Now that most of these people left, the user forums were left in the dust along with it. But yeah, I'm not so sure if I like the idea of making it into a phpBB or Vbulletin site. It kind of makes it less individualized, and takes away the use of customization for making a through design.

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Ghost of Vapor 1 year 27 days ago Posts: 360	Having used phpBB AND vbulletin in the past for other sites, I can tell you to stay away. Not just because of costs involved, but as has been mentioned, they just look nothing like the sites that they are connected to (unless that site uses the same software for "front pages", similar to say... RetroMags. Other than the WAY OFF post counts, the forums seem steady.
	The fun doesn't end here. www.retro-daze.com
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chrisno51 1 year 26 days ago Posts: 1577	I agree with what the others are saying. I'm not a huge fan of phpBB or vbulletin. I liked the look of the old forums, and how they worked back when I first joined the site, the ones used before this one were okay too. I wish we could go back to that or something similar. I have to say that when you first brought them in, the user forums were fun, though some got a little on the spam like side. Many of the regular users that used them frequently left after this current redesign, but even before then, I saw them starting to be less used. I originally did like the user forums and had some of my own. We'll have to see if many are still interested in them after you do this upcoming update. Possibly, perhaps we will see a return of old members that left after, once you bring in the redesign you are working on too. Most did like them, and they were used for a good while.

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thecrow174 1 year 25 days ago Posts: 9806	The noobs didn't exactly do their part to help improve the forums.
	There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil and the other one is good. Which wolf will win? The one you feed the most. http://unbelievableyou.com/a-native-american-cherokee-story-two-wolves/
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Derk 1 year 25 days ago Posts: 1471	chrisno51 wrote: I agree with what the others are saying. I'm not a huge fan of phpBB or vbulletin. I liked the look of the old forums, and how they worked back when I first joined the site, the ones used before this one were okay too. I wish we could go back to that or something similar. I have to say that when you first brought them in, the user forums were fun, though some got a little on the spam like side. Many of the regular users that used them frequently left after this current redesign, but even before then, I saw them starting to be less used. I originally did like the user forums and had some of my own. We'll have to see if many are still interested in them after you do this upcoming update. Possibly, perhaps we will see a return of old members that left after, once you bring in the redesign you are working on too. Most did like them, and they were used for a good while. I have to agree about the user forums. They started off fine, but ultimately they ended up in the toilet. A lot of that had to do with the quality of users posting on them, though. From what I can tell, the only populated user forums at this point are the movies and music board. On the new forum, I'd just suggest adding a place for discussion of current and retro movies or music and forget about user forums.

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