We are getting much closer to a message forum upgrade here! It's been in the plans since at least as early as 2012, though we wanted to wait until new software had evolved enough to make the switch worth the effort for all of us.
We are currently scheduled to transition in May or June 2020. The transition involves finishing up testing and system integration, and then on D-day, importing and converting over 5,000,000 database records, as well as a bunch of manual configuration tweaks. As such, once we begin the migration the forums will be down for an estimated 3 days.
There are two things that still need to get resolved before we migrate: (1) while the main site is able to communicate with the new forums, we haven't completed the integration yet, and (2), we were previously able to rescue tends of thousands of stranded images when a third party image hosting site came down, but haven't restored them to the threads yet. In general we are still exploring how to deal with image hosting here in general.
Also... the admins and mods are trying to understand the nuances (small differences) of the new system.
We have a test system up and running (with all but most recent messages loaded).
The test site can be found at http://betaforums.arcade-museum.com/. If that doesn't work for you, just go direct to: https://q207.webmagic.net/
You should be able to log in with your regular username (or email address now!) and password (assuming you were a member when we loaded the test data a month back). If not, please let me know.
At the bottom left hand corner of the home page, you can change the styling if you wish. There are 2 alternate styles loaded right now, each with a black background.
I know the logo doesn't match the new designs... it will eventually get fixed.
The new software has the same basic development team as created our existing system. The new system is much faster, and with many improvements. We've incorporated a new and fast searching database, which not only measurably increases search speed, but will also give better quality results, especially for shorter words. On our existing site, a search for something like Atari might take 5 seconds. On the new site, much much faster...
Current forum: Search for 'game' (search threads): 9.04 seconds, atari (threads): 4.54 seconds, power supply: 4.05 seconds, ea: rejected (too short), arcade (too common)
New forum: Let's just say it looks like, so far at least, everything is well under a second. And you can search for common and short words if you wish.
We have added a few non-standard features, like a near Feedback system to replace the obsolete iTrader, and as well as a major PM upgrade (now called conversations) that allows you to do thinks like make PM Conversation threads sticky so they appear at the top of your PM if you want for any reason.
Tags: We've retained tags right now. There will be a separate script to provide author info on recent tags. As far as Xenforo itself, we currently have it set up to display the tag name itself instead of author on a hover (yes, a hover to give the same info as displayed is redundant... it's a work in progress).
The next site looks and works a lot better. Especially on mobile phones. I so look forward to dumping Tapatalk. As part of being mobile friendly, there is a 50 character limit on thread titles. In preparation for the move, we changed the limit on this site a few months back. However, older threads will unfortunately likely get their titles truncated after 50 characters.
Also note that the new system doesn't hand user scores the same one the old one does, so it could end up being the last call for the reputation system as it is seen now.
Enjoy, and I hope you like it...
EDIT: Transition launch date pushed back as we discovered complications needing to be addressed, and we decided to incorporate the transition into a larger upgrade project.
We are currently scheduled to transition in May or June 2020. The transition involves finishing up testing and system integration, and then on D-day, importing and converting over 5,000,000 database records, as well as a bunch of manual configuration tweaks. As such, once we begin the migration the forums will be down for an estimated 3 days.
There are two things that still need to get resolved before we migrate: (1) while the main site is able to communicate with the new forums, we haven't completed the integration yet, and (2), we were previously able to rescue tends of thousands of stranded images when a third party image hosting site came down, but haven't restored them to the threads yet. In general we are still exploring how to deal with image hosting here in general.
Also... the admins and mods are trying to understand the nuances (small differences) of the new system.
We have a test system up and running (with all but most recent messages loaded).
The test site can be found at http://betaforums.arcade-museum.com/. If that doesn't work for you, just go direct to: https://q207.webmagic.net/
You should be able to log in with your regular username (or email address now!) and password (assuming you were a member when we loaded the test data a month back). If not, please let me know.
At the bottom left hand corner of the home page, you can change the styling if you wish. There are 2 alternate styles loaded right now, each with a black background.
I know the logo doesn't match the new designs... it will eventually get fixed.
The new software has the same basic development team as created our existing system. The new system is much faster, and with many improvements. We've incorporated a new and fast searching database, which not only measurably increases search speed, but will also give better quality results, especially for shorter words. On our existing site, a search for something like Atari might take 5 seconds. On the new site, much much faster...
Current forum: Search for 'game' (search threads): 9.04 seconds, atari (threads): 4.54 seconds, power supply: 4.05 seconds, ea: rejected (too short), arcade (too common)
New forum: Let's just say it looks like, so far at least, everything is well under a second. And you can search for common and short words if you wish.
We have added a few non-standard features, like a near Feedback system to replace the obsolete iTrader, and as well as a major PM upgrade (now called conversations) that allows you to do thinks like make PM Conversation threads sticky so they appear at the top of your PM if you want for any reason.
Tags: We've retained tags right now. There will be a separate script to provide author info on recent tags. As far as Xenforo itself, we currently have it set up to display the tag name itself instead of author on a hover (yes, a hover to give the same info as displayed is redundant... it's a work in progress).
The next site looks and works a lot better. Especially on mobile phones. I so look forward to dumping Tapatalk. As part of being mobile friendly, there is a 50 character limit on thread titles. In preparation for the move, we changed the limit on this site a few months back. However, older threads will unfortunately likely get their titles truncated after 50 characters.
Also note that the new system doesn't hand user scores the same one the old one does, so it could end up being the last call for the reputation system as it is seen now.
Enjoy, and I hope you like it...
EDIT: Transition launch date pushed back as we discovered complications needing to be addressed, and we decided to incorporate the transition into a larger upgrade project.
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