Update the Forum to latest version of phpBB (3.0.11) about openraweb HOT 21 CLOSED

This is complicated by the forum being heavily customized (the db schema will need to be hacked to something phpBB3 can understand or import), and my not currently having working ssh access to the server it is hosted on.

Both of these can be fixed with some effort, and so this is something I really should look in to.

from openraweb.

I hope you'll find the way to convert the current database to a phpbb3 one soon (in order to purify the code and get a sane base).

from openraweb.

I'd be willing to do this. I have experience with phpBB 2.x and upgrading the installations to phpBB 3.x. I can see there is another issue regarding new theme. I can look into that as well. Let me know if you are interested @pchote

from openraweb.

@adeelejaz , we are actually interested in this, but no one so far had time to work with new forums and theme.
Hosting, setting and customizing is not the only what is needed to be done. The migration is also required.

from openraweb.

@ihptru I actually did come to help with migration 😉 Let me know how you want to proceed. Is there a list of custom mods you have installed? Or the custom features were just coded in by hand. I'd start with a replica of the current forum in my local devbox and start there.

from openraweb.

@adeelejaz that is the direct question to @pchote , the only one with full access to forums and who knows all details.

from openraweb.

Just checking on this, is there a way to get in contact with @pchote to see if he is interested in me doing this?

Thanks

from openraweb.

@adeelejaz for quick conversation, catch him in IRC on #openra channel.

from openraweb.

Thanks for the offer @adeelejaz, however I must decline. The forum db has over 10 years of data, including a bunch of content in hidden forums, and a few thousand email addresses and (salted) passwords. I'm not really comfortable with sharing this data with anybody.

I'll try and do something about this within the next month or so.

from openraweb.

I think I would prefer we switch to something modern like @discourse.

from openraweb.

Man, thanks for reminding me. Some weeks ago I read about the dlang forum software, DFeed, and wanted to tell you about it.

• It's a web forum, mailing list and newsgroups gateway, all in one package, with one shared set of messages/posts.
• It's blazingly fast

I think it would be worth considering. Not sure how hard importing the old threads would be, though. Didn't find much documentation, unfortunately.

from openraweb.

http://www.discourse.org/about/ seems really popular these days.
And a good thing : it features social logins (such as github).

from openraweb.

I find the idea of "modern" websites that prioritize flasy javascript effects and social integration over actual content to be offensive. Discourse is one of the worse offenders in this category, and I would prefer almost any other solution over it.

from openraweb.

I wouldn't say Discourse is full of flashy and eye-candy JavaScript effects.
You can try it if you want : http://try.discourse.org/.

It seems to have many useful and handy features , http://www.discourse.org/about/ is self-explanatory imo.

And BTW, don't you like the idea to log-in with github? :-( Many of our fans and contributors have one.

from openraweb.

Big 👎 for discourse here. It is absolute shit for perf on mobile.

from openraweb.

I've created a converter that can port the forum database to phpBB 3.1, but we can't deploy it until we have an appropriate forum theme (#47).

from openraweb.

Just use a default theme to deploy. #47 is a another issue and the sub silver theme from your phpBB2 descended custom hacked board is the only really readable one anyway.

from openraweb.

Hey,

saw your post @facebook. Do you want to stay at phpBB or are you open to new things?

from openraweb.

Potentially open to new things, so long as they fit the criteria:

• Free and open source.
• Low maintenance for both the board itself and any runtime it depends on.
• Supports importing the database of the existing forum without compromising topic descriptions or attachments - not willing to throw away 15 years of history as part of any move.
• Supports custom themes and other modifications (e.g. OpenRA/OpenRA#2265).

Not a hard requirement, but strongly prefered:

• Implemented in python or php, as this is what most of our maintainers are fluent in.

from openraweb.

With the GDPR coming into force today, the lack of maintenance of the old forum is no longer just sad, it is now breaking the law. It is not feasible to retrofit the old forum software to comply with the requirements for data export or deletion, and we will require help from members of the wider OpenRA community to get this back on track and (hopefully) minimize the amount of downtime incurred.

For the short term I have disabled access to the forum using the generic board-disable feature. When time permits I plan to properly decommission the forum and database, replacing it with a page explaining the situation and directing readers to this issue in order to rally manpower for the next step.

Newer forum software have added features or community mods to support proper data management. We need to be able to finish development of the stalled http://forum2.openra.net project, on OpenRA server infrastructure, and make sure that it complies with the new regulations. When that is ready we can migrate the posts from the OpenRA forums and the subset of users who were active during the "OpenRA era" to the new board.

Sleipnir's Stuff holds a lot of history from the last 16 years, and while it is sad to finally shut it down it has been a long time coming. Most of the content has been archived in a read-only mode for 3+ years to reduce the impact of human spammers. It had a good run, and with the death of Generals modding and the centralization of the 2.5D game modding around PPM I feel that we can retire this content without causing a significant loss to the community. If I'm wrong and there is an unexpected demand to keep this available then it would not be particularly difficult to scrub personal data (emails, ip addresses, etc) and then keep this available somewhere separate to OpenRA.

from openraweb.

Done. See https://forum.openra.net/viewtopic.php?f=81&p=307686#p307683

from openraweb.