IMPORTANT! Board Future

Topic: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE (Read 128 times) previous topic - next topic

IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

February 03, 2026, 04:06:44 PM

So it's been a decade or so since we moved this board to the current ElkArte software. The reason we have ElkArte is that we needed to move over from the costly (and security-hole-ridden) vBulletin to something else in haste, and this was a good stop-gap solution at the time. Well, now that we've been using it for awhile, it's not modern enough and not keeping up with the expectations of the users.

As an admin, I can say that the software mostly works as intended but we do have some technical issues that are not being resolved with updates. For example, Alex and I jointly spent the better part of a day to move the board software to something that was compatible with a newer required PHP version, and it kept crashing until we did things one step at a time. We are literally one PHP step away from losing a bunch of data and functionality, I'm afraid. While ElkArte is still being currently developed, it's not at a consistent rate, and there are a lot of things that are inexplicably difficult to do on the admin end. I think we can do better.

So this means we have to shop for a different board platform. That in itself isn't terrible, it's that we are also trying to move the current database to the new software, which requires some type of database translation that merges the new structure with the current one. In general, another board's software will have roughly the same structure in its database setup, but each table might be called something different. So this is where translation is needed, whether there's an automatic script set up to do that, or a manual conversion. The ElkArte translation software works good when moving TO it, not FROM it. Hence the need for additional translation work.

We'd need to find someone that knows databases very well and can make this move for us. That will cost money...which is fine, I can probably cover a few hundred dollars or whatever. I have some resources that may work. If anyone knows somebody that can do that, we're willing to take suggestions.

NATO is using MyBB and it seems decent. I've also seen sites use phpBB, XMB, Vanilla, and FluxBB. Those are the free options. We could get into paid software again, something like Xenforo or Discourse. Those setups are sweetness but not something I think would be cost-effective with the relatively few consistent users we have. We don't want to nickel-and-dime you guys.

So...this is where we are. Suggestions, comments, criticism welcome. There is no timetable for this, just throwing around ideas but we would like to get going this year.

Thanks everyone!

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #1 – February 03, 2026, 04:17:37 PM

We are still on phpBB for our dirt bike forum, but the forum is open by invite only. I can ask the admin if you have any questions?

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #2 – February 04, 2026, 02:00:07 AM

Quote

So...this is where we are. Suggestions, comments, criticism welcome. There is no timetable for this, just throwing around ideas but we would like to get going this year.

Thanks everyone!

Like others have stated over on Chuck’s thread this is way out of my wheelhouse. The only thing I’d be good for in this situation is some dollars. My thought is do what you think is best and start a collection.

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #3 – February 05, 2026, 11:45:05 AM

XenForo is what Stangnet is on and yes, it is really nice. I think something that will help us make a decision is what would the cost be per year to make a move to something like XenForo vs other options and what functionality would we gain that we would actually use. We also need to realize that migrating over to a new board platform will have upfront costs so the first year is likely going to cost more than successive years.

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #4 – February 05, 2026, 02:38:23 PM

Thanks for the input everyone, it's appreciated and also helps with the direction.

So far...I found a few potential devs that may be able to translate the ElkArte database to something else, likely phpBB or MyBB, and that's fine. This would be the cheapest solution. To buy Xenforo outright would be around $300-400 with the good add-ons. I don't think that's a bad deal. Even if the initial install goes south on us, there are people out there that will install it for us for a fee. These solutions give us options at least.

Hosting...that's kind of another issue. I don't hate our current hosting but it is on a shared server and we very frequently have interruptions or downtime. Dedicated/cloud hosting through them is expensive (US $32/mo). I could move the hosting over to the dedicated server we have at work, but it would chew up a lot of space that we just don't have right now. Or we could go AWS for hosting, but as everyone has experienced, when AWS goes down then so does like 25% of the internet. Money-wise it is probably a decent deal though.

And we still have to think about backups for those hosting accounts which don't offer that. We've been using Backblaze at work and it's automatic, very nice once set up. Probably be about US $5-10/mo.

Lots to think about. For starters I'll look into getting the database translated and go from there. We've only got half a million posts and 40K topics to translate, no big deal.

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #5 – February 05, 2026, 02:54:50 PM

My preference is for not to use AWS, but that's just me.

My webhosting is through ipage and have honestly had no issues over the years, but I don't run a forum or the like on it. I primarily use it for storage and I had my motor mount stuff on it when that was a going thing.

After 4eyedpride fell down and went boom, and the back-ups were lost or corrupted, it was a big shock/loss to the community. I for sure don't want to see this site suffer the same fate.

Re: IMPORTANT! Board Future - DISCUSS HERE

Reply #6 – Today at 05:06:33 PM

I cant speak from the administative or setup end but from the user perspective i have yet to see any forum improve by updating or switching over to a "better" setup. Not once in over 25 years using forums.
Everytime i see this situation it becomes "we lost this when we did this and cant get it back" or "we did this to get these modern social media features that nobody uses but we lost all our archives and images people uploaded 10 years ago" .
It aint just not liking change it always comes with loss.