Message Forum Upgrade coming

Yes, the header logo is on the todo list, though will probably be updated just before we cut over (in other words, not this month).

Rounded Radius corners -- just eliminated on the vb3 theme.

There are some differences between vbulletin and XF themes. on XF the category bar background colors seem to be the same color as the 'next' and 'page number' buttons when looking at a forum sub-category or multi-page thread. There isn't a great solution (at least not yet) for without editing the templates.

We have at least a month as of now to figure this out...
 
sitting here checking the morning internet grind drinking my morning coffee.

Few things with the new theme that should be updated. no idea what the style properties are for these but here are the css rules.

.label.label--primary
text color should be white

filterBar-menuTrigger
text color should be white
 
I couldn't make those changes you suggested. I ended up throwing out the vb3 style and restarting this morning. The biggest issue is that without template changes it doesn't seem possible to get super close to vb3, and for a variety of reasons, I'm trying to keep template changes to a minimum.

Our vBulletin install uses both white and dark text on each page, while the XF styles seem really geared towards going one way or another (again, without editing templates). So I ended up going with a neutral blue color that could display both white and dark text against, which works pretty well but not perfectly.

Check it out now... I think I've taken the style as far as I can for the moment, but may revisit again in the future.
 
I couldn't make those changes you suggested. I ended up throwing out the vb3 style and restarting this morning. The biggest issue is that without template changes it doesn't seem possible to get super close to vb3, and for a variety of reasons, I'm trying to keep template changes to a minimum.

Our vBulletin install uses both white and dark text on each page, while the XF styles seem really geared towards going one way or another (again, without editing templates). So I ended up going with a neutral blue color that could display both white and dark text against, which works pretty well but not perfectly.

Check it out now... I think I've taken the style as far as I can for the moment, but may revisit again in the future.

I made all of my changes using pure CSS. Anything added to the extras.css template should over-ride anything in the style properties...At least that's what i remember...

This also brings me back to the stylevar/style properties rant of mine. It's quite literally the oddest things Kier and company have ever come up with.

I don't mind helping you out with the theme. We have 3 options here

- You can leave the theme the way it is
- I can work on the theme myself and send you periodic changes
- You can make me a temp admin on the test forums with style editing privs and i can work on it from there.
 
I'm happy to leave the vb3-esque style the way it is, but if you are able to improve it (without editing the templates), all the better. I'll send you a PM.
 
Dumb but necessary question:

Are privacy practices going to change with this update? Will any user information be shared with other sites, social media, etc, and if so, what info? Will there be any kind of integration with social media sites?
 
Does this new software allow us to upload videos directly to the site or hosting service ? Or Do we still have to rely on putting Youtube links in ? One thing I could not stand is going through the effort of making a Youtube video then putting the link in the KLOV only to have some ass hole take down my Youtube site claiming the content belongs to someone else when it wasnt.

If we're making arcade related videos it would be nice that they stay on the site so no one can do that claiming bull shit or mess with it. I had several video edits that were linked to the KLOV games titles that were lost because of that situation. They were my own home made game videos.
 
andrewb - Any changes if any should be modest, and most likely to be simply modernizations. Nothing jumps out at the moment. Implementing something like 'Login with Facebook' or 'Join with Facebook' isn't a feature I'm convinced is critical. It's also something that would have to be built from scratch (as opposed to using some built in functionality in Xenforo, which apparently does exist). There is still a lot I don't know about the new system yet. Due to my schedule, I really won't have time to look at it much more between now and month end, but have scheduled time to dig back into it at the beginning of November. If there is some type of integration you think we should add, let me know.

sg6970 - One thing that I know that I really need to look at, but haven't had time yet (and won't until early November) is what options we have in regards to image hosting and inserting images into posts. While I already planned to investigate video options along with images, your post and question was valuable as now we'll add extra emphasis to planning for video instead of thinking of it as an afterthought or ride-along to image issues. In short, Xenforo supports video uploading, however, I'm not convinced how it stores and processes them is optimal. Additionally, we need to figure out and decide whether a image and video solution here has any overlap with the main site. In other words, I'd like to see how we can store video images hopefully in their own file location internally here, and I'd like to find a way to allow video uploads to game records in the encyclopedia (for broken links and other reasons). Back to image & video hosting options in the broadest strokes, we have multiple options: (a) stock functionality built into our new system, (b) an add-on to the base system provided by the same developers, (c) third party add-ons, and (d) writing something custom.
 
andrewb - Any changes if any should be modest, and most likely to be simply modernizations. Nothing jumps out at the moment. Implementing something like 'Login with Facebook' or 'Join with Facebook' isn't a feature I'm convinced is critical. It's also something that would have to be built from scratch (as opposed to using some built in functionality in Xenforo, which apparently does exist). There is still a lot I don't know about the new system yet. Due to my schedule, I really won't have time to look at it much more between now and month end, but have scheduled time to dig back into it at the beginning of November. If there is some type of integration you think we should add, let me know.


Personally, I'm anti-integration. I'm totally fine not having a 'Login with Facebook' feature, and don't feel social media features make forums any better. But I'm pretty anti-social media.

I just want to know that these changes won't shift this forum to more of a 'surveillance model', where user-specific info is shared with and/or sold to outside entities. We all know Google, FB, and every other major internet player records every action and click these days (and often shares info in a non-transparent way with other companies), and I always appreciated that KLOV was not part of that ecosystem.
 
Personally, I'm anti-integration. I'm totally fine not having a 'Login with Facebook' feature, and don't feel social media features make forums any better. But I'm pretty anti-social media.

I just want to know that these changes won't shift this forum to more of a 'surveillance model', where user-specific info is shared with and/or sold to outside entities. We all know Google, FB, and every other major internet player records every action and click these days (and often shares info in a non-transparent way with other companies), and I always appreciated that KLOV was not part of that ecosystem.

I'm in complete agreement here.
 
Does this new software allow us to upload videos directly to the site or hosting service ? Or Do we still have to rely on putting Youtube links in ? One thing I could not stand is going through the effort of making a Youtube video then putting the link in the KLOV only to have some ass hole take down my Youtube site claiming the content belongs to someone else when it wasnt.

If we're making arcade related videos it would be nice that they stay on the site so no one can do that claiming bull shit or mess with it. I had several video edits that were linked to the KLOV games titles that were lost because of that situation. They were my own home made game videos.

if you mean host the video as an attachment and play it back then the short answer is no.
 
...I'm totally fine not having a 'Login with Facebook' feature, and don't feel social media features make forums any better... We all know Google, FB, and every other major internet player records every action and click these days (and often shares info in a non-transparent way with other companies), and I always appreciated that KLOV was not part of that ecosystem.

I've never been big into social media integration, and I'm not much of a social media user myself. We are actually going to try some integration later this year on a very different (non-forum) web site having nothing to do with arcades, but even then, all it will be is a tool that allows someone to log in with Facebook or Google and then our site will ask them to please set up some basic account information to make account recovery easier and to help wean them off the integration.

It's pretty impossible or at least impractical to have a site and not be part of 'that ecosystem'. We try to have a minimal footprint, but we still have some. It's permitted in the terms and conditions of the site. In short, we participate with Google Analytics/WebMaster and Quantcast on the site to help us understand use of our site, what is working or not, and in general, the nature of our userbase and how we should plan for the future. In the future we might release broad data to our supporters, like number of visitors, where they basically come from, etc for, for example, fundraising purposes (though we aren't looking for any grants or similar now.)

Additionally, our eBay tools, while 100% custom built (and IMO opinion great---I'm a frequent users of them) take part in an eBay affiliate program so there is that touch there.

On the main site, add social media buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. A total of 3, down from maybe 7 at the max.

If any of this bothers you too much, there are ways to adapt. For example, the Ghostery plug-in for the Chrome browser. It will block among other things, Google and Quantcast as you wish and is customizable.

On our site, it currently blocks Google, Quantcast, and eBay by default. For the most part we aren't running other many ads anywhere on the site, but in the past have worked with Yahoo and Google. One, and only once as I write this post, Ghostery said it blocked something called Tinypass on these forums for me. Tinypass is usually used for Paywalls. I couldn't figure how where it came from, but it clearly came from one of of the three. And I really don't care if eBay knows I'm interested in amusement machines.

On FoxNews.com, Ghostery finds 19 things and blocks 14. On CNBC, it finds 19 and blocks 16. On CNN, it finds 26 things, and blocks 24. On redcross.org, it finds 12 and blocks 9. nature.org finds 19 and blocks 15. metmuseum.org finds 14 and blocks 9. Strong museum of play finds 9, blocks 7. In fact, in a quick look at charities right now, I only found one that was as gentle as our site (the Salvation Army). That's probably because most organizations are more advertising oriented.
 
if you mean host the video as an attachment and play it back then the short answer is no.

There is a setting in Xenforo for 'Allow video uploads with maximum file size'. It defaults to not allowing, and defaults (if allowed) to a max size of 1MB. On the test system, it is currently set at the default (off). Again, I'll look at it all in a few weeks.
 
There is a setting in Xenforo for 'Allow video uploads with maximum file size'. It defaults to not allowing, and defaults (if allowed) to a max size of 1MB. On the test system, it is currently set at the default (off). Again, I'll look at it all in a few weeks.

Last i remember, XF didn't have an embedded video player. Been a while since I've tried. Might be time to do a quick test on the forums.

edit: you have all video extensions disabled. we can test that when you get back, assuming you want to allow video uploads to begin with..
 
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Actually, a link to Social Media sites wouldn't really be a bad thing. For myself, I had lost my password to a service I occasionally used... and the e-mail account attached to it was no longer accessible. I had to jump through hoops to get the PW reset, but it did end up happening. Could have been avoided if there was a Social Media connection(Facebook, Twitter, MEWE, etc).

My $.0137.

(taxes taken out, because Baltimore)
 
This is an ongoing issue here... people losing access to their accounts and then wanting help. Typically it is because they suddenly lose access to an account for some reason (they forgot their password and their password management software puked), and it then turns out they lost access to that email account years ago...

Now if people actually left a phone number or a secondary email address in their account settings, life for all would be a lot easier.

We have a few things on the to-do list: (1) implement optional SMS verification of accounts which would also help recovery, and (2) create ways to hassle users if we detect their emails addresses aren't current. We do typically turn off all forum email notifications for a -few- users if we determine email addresses bounce...though that isn't the norm yet
 
We are getting much closer to a message forum upgrade here!

We could end up starting the transition sometime before November 15. 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.

yay! T-1 week away! woot woot! /me excited!
 
"could end up starting the transition sometime before November 15"

It's unlikely to happen by November 15. 'could' and 'starting' are the keys words. I am in town though and working on prep issues: (a) infrastructure, and (b) getting familiar with XF admin and mod features.

(a) infrastructure. We are working on upgrading all our infrastructure (this site and others that I host) in a multi-month process. A new tech employee starts on Monday which should help. It will be a while before this trickles down to this site (we are starting with simpler issues first), but it is in focus. Just this month along we are exploring over a dozen software packages we haven't used before (ie: Nginx vs apache).

(b) there is still a lot that both I and the mods aren't familiar with, and some forum software behaviors that I don't fully understand yet. I'm working on it though. On the plus side, we continue to work with the makers of forum addons we are using and they are getting better (code base wise).
 
Sad sad. I'm going to miss this old forum.

We need progress & change! That's like keeping old facebook and nothing new:

initial-facebook.jpg


or sticking with geocities or myspace for centuries... and now all the people have left
behind BBS and IRC for the likes of lame discord... and long ago are the days of private
FTP sites that are now replaced with torrents.
 
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