Atlaua
June 20th, 2010, 08:55 PM
Soon, (that's about as granular as I can get since I became a MWC instead of DINC) I'll be upgrading the forums to a new major release of vBulletin (aka the forum software).
When I say major I mean major. Almost every aspect of the board will be somewhat different. I know some of you don't like change but believe me this really is an improvement. This release has actually been around for about 6 months. I've avoided it so far because I just haven't had the time and I wanted to wait for it to stabilize. To put that into perspective I used our less popular forum as a test and I've spent at about 16 hours on it. I'm still only 80% there. I've gotten the hard work done but there are a number of features I had done with third party apps that are now just supported out of the box. This may sound great, and it is, but I now have to convert those... On the bright side, I don't think you know who is even thinking about it since they have everything so munged up it would take them weeks instead of days.
Anyway, mainly I just wanted to give everyone a "heads up" that a new version is coming. For those of you wanting to get a sneak preview, you can head on over to http://www.thescubastop.com/ and take a look. Most of you should already have accounts there. While you're there feel free to post something, God knows it could use the traffic. No really it could. TSS is IMHO a far superior site to you know who but lacks one thing...traffic. You could make the difference.
IMHO the biggest change is that the new software has come into the 21'st century. It's "Facebook" enabled meaning 2 things: 1. Facebook users can create an account with minimal effort and 2. You can "like" posts, articles, blogs, etc. on your Facebook page (read...great way to increase users and content...). You can also auto post new threads, blogs etc to your Facebook page. I haven't tested this thoroughly so feel free to do so for me an let us know how it works!. The user profile is much enhanced to be more "social" as well.
Finally I have a big question for you guys/gals. Are you happy with the status quo, i.e. MWD continues to remain just a forum or would you like it to expand? I ask because the upgrade has 2 options. One options is just the forum upgrade. The other includes a full content management system (read articles) and a complete blogging system (aka you can each create your own personal SCUBA blog). The http://www.thescubastop.com/ site is the full package, and the remaining work for me is porting all the old articles over. Right now there are no "blogs" for obvious reasons but the interface is there.
Take a look, play around, POST SOMETHING, and let me know what you think. There is not a huge difference on price between the full system and the "just the forums" system but if there is enough interest I'll update MWD to include the other stuff.
Oh yea, and please vote to let me know you opinion AFTER you've played around at http://www.thescubastop.com/.
James
When I say major I mean major. Almost every aspect of the board will be somewhat different. I know some of you don't like change but believe me this really is an improvement. This release has actually been around for about 6 months. I've avoided it so far because I just haven't had the time and I wanted to wait for it to stabilize. To put that into perspective I used our less popular forum as a test and I've spent at about 16 hours on it. I'm still only 80% there. I've gotten the hard work done but there are a number of features I had done with third party apps that are now just supported out of the box. This may sound great, and it is, but I now have to convert those... On the bright side, I don't think you know who is even thinking about it since they have everything so munged up it would take them weeks instead of days.
Anyway, mainly I just wanted to give everyone a "heads up" that a new version is coming. For those of you wanting to get a sneak preview, you can head on over to http://www.thescubastop.com/ and take a look. Most of you should already have accounts there. While you're there feel free to post something, God knows it could use the traffic. No really it could. TSS is IMHO a far superior site to you know who but lacks one thing...traffic. You could make the difference.
IMHO the biggest change is that the new software has come into the 21'st century. It's "Facebook" enabled meaning 2 things: 1. Facebook users can create an account with minimal effort and 2. You can "like" posts, articles, blogs, etc. on your Facebook page (read...great way to increase users and content...). You can also auto post new threads, blogs etc to your Facebook page. I haven't tested this thoroughly so feel free to do so for me an let us know how it works!. The user profile is much enhanced to be more "social" as well.
Finally I have a big question for you guys/gals. Are you happy with the status quo, i.e. MWD continues to remain just a forum or would you like it to expand? I ask because the upgrade has 2 options. One options is just the forum upgrade. The other includes a full content management system (read articles) and a complete blogging system (aka you can each create your own personal SCUBA blog). The http://www.thescubastop.com/ site is the full package, and the remaining work for me is porting all the old articles over. Right now there are no "blogs" for obvious reasons but the interface is there.
Take a look, play around, POST SOMETHING, and let me know what you think. There is not a huge difference on price between the full system and the "just the forums" system but if there is enough interest I'll update MWD to include the other stuff.
Oh yea, and please vote to let me know you opinion AFTER you've played around at http://www.thescubastop.com/.
James