Modern forum software - upgrade on the cards?

Franco Cozzo · 06-10-2022, 02:50 PM

Good afternoon admins,

Has there been any thoughts about moving AFF to a more modern forum software? Would be nice to have some of the social media features that modern forums have, things like community hall of fame, reactions to posts, notifications when being quoted, the ability to tag other members for alerts, tagging threads with search terms to group them together, personal profiles with cover photos, automatic image resizing for embedding into posts and stuff like blogs, integrated phone/tablet support without needing exta things like Tapatalk et al.

https://invisioncommunity.com/features/

The achievements are integrated into the forum, you can have badges and same with the thanks stuff.

It takes the nice stuff from modern social media, adds it to a forum environment and boosts engagement further.

**aussiblue** · 06-10-2022, 05:46 PM

No thanks; please leave it as is. Let Franco go and play in Tiktok if he must.

Franco Cozzo · 06-10-2022, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiblue

No thanks; please leave it as is. Let Franco go and play in Tiktok if he must.

Tiktok is for videos

**PG2** · 06-10-2022, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Good afternoon admins,

Has there been any thoughts about moving AFF to a more modern forum software? Would be nice to have some of the social media features that modern forums have, things like community hall of fame, reactions to posts, notifications when being quoted, the ability to tag other members for alerts, tagging threads with search terms to group them together, personal profiles with cover photos, automatic image resizing for embedding into posts and stuff like blogs, integrated phone/tablet support without needing exta things like Tapatalk et al.

https://invisioncommunity.com/features/

The achievements are integrated into the forum, you can have badges and same with the thanks stuff.

It takes the nice stuff from modern social media, adds it to a forum environment and boosts engagement further.

Franco, I 100% have no doubt you made this post in good faith and that you do actually care about AFF.

The first one would be cost. I know you have previously supported AFF financially and would so again but but it costs a lot of money to change software.

Secondly would be who is going to do all of the grunt work to move all of the data over to a new platform? Russ is the only admin these days. Falcon couple, Raptor, GT, Gaso and myself are supermods that don't have the back door access that Russ does (I only assume that GT does).

Personally I have made several attempts to improve the graphic design of the forum through a number of ways but we don't have a graphic designer who is willing to work for the correct money - the money being zero.

I would like to see it made much simpler to load pics up onto the forum without having to use third party software/website and subsequently resize them to suit but that would cost money not only terms of software but storage as well.

We do have the gallery in AFF but I will admit I find it cumbersome to use.

Once again Franco, I appreciate where your post is coming from.

Franco Cozzo · 06-10-2022, 08:02 PM

A lot of the stuff thats been modified into this forum has native support in newer software, stuff like the embedding youtube videos but also other things like no more BB code to embed images into posts but extra functionality like embedding Twitter posts as well so it can be viewed internally in the forum without having to click links et al. Also stuff like the search functionality which doesn't work too well here works quite well on the modern forums with the thread tagging and much more indepth search abilities.

It also has integrated functionality like a content management system/portal so forum sponsors could have front page real estate rather than being buried at the bottom of the forum near the sales area - but its still easy to navigate to the forum, that might be valuable to them as they're getting much more exposure in a community with 90,000 members and around 700 viewers.

I think there's a migration tool with the above forum software that supports this version of the forum AFF uses to move all the content and accounts across.

But the technical database would probably be an issue and it would have to be set up manually which would be a pain in the ***, it would probably have to be done as new posts in a section of the forum, I'm part of another community with that software I've linked which has something similar to what AFF has at the moment, but its got over 2500 'folders' with threads inside them all, so its possible, maybe it could be done by volunteers from the community - I'd put in the hours to help with something like that if that was on the table.

It is coming from a good place, the scene as a whole (not just AFF) has been bleeding members towards social media groups - facebook blows goats in comparison to a forum because its not set up for indepth discussions or a technical database like a forum is, but thats where the scene has been moving to for a long time as its a better user experience.

I understand it costs money but I think its worth a discussion internally between the admin team and a look into it for pricing, then make a decision once the facts are known.

Maybe it won't cost as much as we think, maybe there's some volunteers or people who would chip in towards a refresh of AFF in the form of a fundraiser to cover it and to bring it into the 2020s - Its not the looks of AFF, its just the other stuff thats either janky to use because its patched in or just the functionality we don't have that would be nice.

**aussiblue** · 06-10-2022, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Franco, I 100% have no doubt you made this post in good faith and that you do actually care about AFF.

What?? I thought the unwritten forum netiquette was that any posts from either Franco or Cav were to be taken as an invitation to stir.

Franco Cozzo · 06-10-2022, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiblue

What?? I thought the unwritten forum netiquette was that any posts from either Franco or Cav were to be taken as an invitation to stir.

Only 99.9% of the time

**mad2** · 06-10-2022, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Only 99.9% of the time

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0son

I find most idiots can be avoided by steering clear of utes and Camrys.

**russellw** · 07-10-2022, 09:12 AM

It's been considered multiple times and frankly, whether anyone likes it or not, the easiest migration path for us would be a current version of vbulletin.

Having said that, the version we currently have does support facebook integration, social 'groups' and user galleries but all of those things are currently turned off along with other things.

Frankly, the biggest barrier to upgrading is the time to build, test and fix the upgraded version which is likely to be in the order of 100 hours work and that's time I just don't have.

**Charliewool** · 07-10-2022, 08:12 PM

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

MITCHAY · 07-10-2022, 08:51 PM

I have been working on not only upgrades but data centre moves over the last year and it is a **** load of work even when paid for it and drained the ****en life out of me. It is not easy

We can not give Russ enough credit for this place just to keep it running

**janddbone** · 25-01-2023, 02:26 PM

I personally done have an issue with how this works. Its pretty bulletproof.

Poetic Justice · 25-01-2023, 02:38 PM

Probably my only request ever is that there is a function that takes you to your last viewed post on any given thread (if you have been in there before.) I enjoy that about other forums and it is about the only other thing I ever dislike here.

That is to say, if vbulletin has that upgrade feature available for current versions etc.

**Charliewool** · 25-01-2023, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poetic Justice

Probably my only request ever is that there is a function that takes you to your last viewed post on any given thread (if you have been in there before.) I enjoy that about other forums and it is about the only other thing I ever dislike here.

That is to say, if vbulletin has that upgrade feature available for current versions etc.

Not sure if you’re aware?
The dark blue arrows on the right (just left of last post column) indicate your latest post in that particular thread..
Clicking on the arrow will take you to your last contribution.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**janddbone** · 06-02-2023, 01:23 PM

Also top left of page has an option to take you to your last unread post. However only if you login and remeber it does refresh / go away if you login again as it resets.