Upgrading forum systems... Xenforo?

mclemore

Administrator
Staff member

Donor 15 years: 2010-2024
Joined
Apr 3, 2001
Messages
5,360
Reaction score
1,940
Location
Pasadena, California
I've had an interest in updating these forum systems for a long time now.

vBulletin 3.x is a product we moved to over 10 years ago. It's far from 'modern.'

vBulletin 4.0 was a bug ridden ugly product when it was released. Finally, upon reaching 4.2, it became usable (but still had something like 200 reported bugs.) Further development on 4.x is coming to an end as Internet Brands wants to focus on 5.x

vBulletin 5.x is a disaster.

So 3.x and 4.x are basically end of life products, and I and many others have no interest in moving to 5.x even if they fix the product in the next few years.

All of things means that practically no one uses vBulletin 5.x even a year after its release, and to this day as many boards use vBulletin 3.x as 4.x (4.x has finally passed 3.x...finally). Many forums operators have been stuck in pergatory for years with the hope of finding something that would make the move worth it. This system and many others have tons of customization to the back-end, making moving to a new system a non-trivial task.

That brings us to Xenforo, written by folks that worked on vBulletin 3.x. It's been modern and pretty, but the back-end admin tools in my opinion have been greatly lacking compared to vb 3.x. Xenforo continues to grow, and the ecosystem supports paid plugin additions, unless vbulletin's ecosystem which didn't. I support the paid plug in concept as it encourages serious development of quality plug-ins. I'm happy to pay $150 for a plugin instead of try a free one if it means that plugin actually works better...

Xenforo seems to be reaching a tipping point. It's beginning to see more system migrate from vb 3.x, and now has almost twice the apparent market share as IPB. In the coming months I'd like to take a closer look at Xenforo, with the possible plan of migrating (if we like it and the product continues to improve) later in 2014 or in 2015.

Now what we have, while looking dated, does work, which is why I feel no need to have to migrate that quickly. At some point though, a migration to something should likely happen.

I haven't spent much time with Xenforo, and welcome your opinions.

Here are 3 great posts from admins of large forum systems that did migrate from vbul 3.x to Xenforo:

http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbu...net-brands-have-killed-off-vbulletin.1855705/

http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbulletin-is-dying-no-vbulletin-is-dead.1793735/

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/one-month-after-switching-from-vbulletin-to-xenforo.2637721/

Forums switched to Xenforo include AVForums, DigitalPoint, IGN, Sony...more: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/the-big-forum-list.26352/

It doesn't work for everyone: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92244

I would especially love to hear from people with Xenforo experience, users and admins... Can you even do a global announcement in Xenforo for example? Not a year ago...without a plug-in.
 
Last edited:
Every 2-3 years I look at Forums software. I started looking at the 'modern' (post vBulletin 3.x) systems like Xenforo in 2012 and found them lacking but promising. Then again in 2014. Regularly since. It's been 2 1/2 years since I've posted to this thread... so here goes.

In short, I would really love to get off of vBulletin, but I find all the modern choices sub-par. Systems have to work from an admin perspective, not just a user perspective, and many modern offerings haven't been fully fleshed out yet.

Things seem to be at a standstill. When you look at the top million sites, vBulletin is loosing steam. However, when you look at the top 100k web sites, vbulletin is strong and stable. It's more popular then the other alternatives, which are also stable and not particularly growing in popularity.

https://www.similartech.com/categories/forum-software

vBulletin stats (1.1% of the top 100k sites use it)
https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/vBulletin
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-vbulletin/all/all
https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-vbulletin/3/all

Xenforo (0.2%)
https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/XenForo

SMF (0.1%)
https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/SMF

phpBB (0.1%)
https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/phpBB

ipBoard (<0.1%)
https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/Invision-Power-Board

In another thread, someone mentioned pinside's site. It's a modified bbPress site (from the WordPress universe). That's not a direction I'm interested in going in.

I'm guessing at some point we could end up with Xenforo (has issues) or even vBulletin 4.x (ug) At some point we may have a user committee help with a review of a conversion test process... It would be a big job for both users and admin....
 
Last edited:
I'm grabbing comments from a 'Mobile Friendly Theme' thread since they seem more appropriate here. http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=347397

like you mentioned in another thread, vBulletin is dead. the owners/designers of xenforo actually got sued by vBulletin cuz members came from there and now are majorly improving xenforo and the vBullies are jealous of their popularity! :)

vBulletin (especially v3) is (unfortunately) far from dead. There is a reason it's still the most popular software used by big boards. It's great at a lot of things, but unfortunately has some highly dated aspects and will have zero evolution moving forward. It's still ultra popular because the other offerings have been lacking in some ways, there hasn't been a desperate need to change, and that change is very resource intensive.

vBulletin v4, besides having a different development team (and a history of bugs and headaches), it also tried to be jack of all things, master of none. Instead of just trying to make a forum/member communication system better, it wanted to be some full time of CMS to run a whole site or something. Instead of worrying about blogging or article posting they have kept the core uncluttered and just worked to improve it.

As far as a comment made that a downside of XF is the $90 or $99 a year in support fees. That's of zero concern to me. It's a small single digit percentage of the cost to upgrade here..

...the biggest step for klov to consider is exporting all its current data and re-importing it back into another forum. and then setting up all the 1000s of users too with security groups, etc... its a shitton of work (hours, weeks, months)... but it's fun! :)

That's a huge issue. We've updated forum software packages maybe 4 times already... I forgot the name of the first 2 systems we ran, but then we converted to UBBThreads and then vBulletin. Each time it has been a fair amount of work, and now, with the custom integration and other issues, it's likely to be a huge job.

Xenforo 2.0 has entered a publicly accessible alpha. https://xf2demo.xenforo.com/

We will be watching the development of 2.0 series...

I could see us moving to XF 2.x in late 2017, depending on a number of things including their development schedule.

Alternatively we won't make a change in 2017.

I don't envision considering moving to the currently available XF 1.x stable. If we are going to do all the work to migrate, I don't want to do more work to upgrade to the the newest.

As XF 2.x enters beta or beyond, we may install a demo for people to play around with so that members, admins, and mods can get familiar with it. If we like it and want to move forward I'm sure a full migration would take several more months (unless we had a really enthusiastic volunteer that could deal with tying XF to our membership system. (XF won't be allowed to install new users, just as vBulletin isn't allowed to now).

When XF 2.x is stable enough to be considered usable, I'll look around again to see if any of the many other systems have improved enough in features and popularity to be worth considering. Who knows how this will turn out, but I'm guessing that eventually we will be off of vb3 and XF2 is the most likely candidate currently.
 
An update update:

In absence of a better roadmap, it is likely we will transition to Xenforo later this year. About once or twice or three times a year I'll explore available options. Over the last few years the answer is always the same: There are downsides to moving to Xenforo for both users and especially on an admin side, but it appears to be our best option moving forward, especially with their releases of versions 2.0 and 2.1. There will be a period of learning and getting used to the new system of course, and some of this will be stressful for member, moderator and admin alike.

A key part of upgrading to Xenforo is integrating properly between our user management system and Xenforo's API. If you happen to have experience in this area, or can recommend a consultant who does, please let me know.

We are imminently about to start a redesign of a site totally unrelated to arcades and gaming that is simpler and in more urgent need of help. Assuming that process goes well, we will then likely start working on upgrades here sometime after Sept 15, on both the forums and the main site.
That said, if we can find Xenforo API help now, we might not have to wait.

As part of that upgrade, it will probably be the end of Tapatalk on these forums. I've had some issues with Tapatalk to date as a server admin, I'm not a fan of some of their policies, and I have security concerns.

Additionally, even the Xenforo development team says that the Tapatalk "code must be avoided at all costs":

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/tapatalk-and-v2.138001/page-3#post-1204335
 
For those interested in hearing more regarding Tapatalk, here is another thread about it:

https://theadminzone.com/threads/tapatalk-on-xenforo-2-0.146403/

"This is not a new feature of Tapatalk at all, this has been an ongoing complaint for a number of years that they don't exactly integrate cleanly into the respective platforms."

"IIRC they used a similar approach for vbulletin 3 & 4 and hooked straight into the database while ignoring large part of vbulletin."

"The only reason I use Tapatalk at all is because older vBulletin versions (specifically vB3 and vB4) are not responsive and don't have decent mobile styles. Why anyone would install Tapatalk on a responsive forum (Xenfor0, or vBulletin 5 if you don't mind waiting 10 minutes for pages to load) is completely beyond me."

"It's not about speed. It's about Tapatalk nagging visitors to your forum. It's about limited or no options for your own advertisements, depending on whether you pay for premium and which plan you pay for. It's about not having Google Analytics available for your Tapatalk users unless you pay for a premium plan."

Now the rest of the thread goes back and forth and explains some of the benefit of a native app vs responsive and hopes some day Xenforo creates one.

Now I just found another anti-admin thing Tapatalk did, but it isn't worth giving this more airtime now.
 
The forum is really familiar with what we're running now.

I'm of the younger generation, and even I'm not excited to see a change (because I've seen forums do it before and crash and burn, and I'm not a huge fan of XenForo), but I think the older generation this site primarily consists of is going to be even more uncomfortable with any sort of change especially the site hasn't really been updated even in a small step in many years... people are comfortable and it is relatively not just easy but familiar for people of all ages to understand.

While I'm saying tread carefully with any upgrade decision making (sometimes it's better to leave it as is, we as users are not encountering any issues besides the eBay ad tracker nobody really cares about and if there was a time to be modern "just because" it was 5 years ago, so who cares now), DEFINITELY make about 1,000 backups. Data transfer from one forum system to another is ALWAYS messy and often breaks, and with the size of this forum it is very likely something will go wrong. If there is one forum with a wealth of incredibly important and timeless information it is this one... more than the usual forum. Please be extremely careful with how it is handled as there are literally thousands or maybe tens of thousands of threads here dating back many years that are extremely crucial from common issues to specific issues, whether it be highly-publicized repair guides, or some guy's troubleshooting thread from 2011 that comes up in Google for a guy in 2019 and fixes his problem... it's all very important, even the little threads. The whole "googling" thing is really a mainstay this site provides for most of us (although we don't talk about it much), so make sure you don't trim any of the fat/old threads, either (please)... at times they are more useful than any repair guide could be.
 
Last edited:
I'm aware that it isn't a simply process, for anyone. That's why it's been delayed for years.

BTW, we've done several major changes in forum software before. Before vBulletin we used UBB Threads. Before UBB Threads we used Gossamer Threads. Before Gossamer Threads... I don't even remember what that short lived Perl script was called.

We've been through it before. We are getting to the point where this end of life code base is getting really end of life. People are having trouble with some searches, I'm seeing compatibility issues with upgrading to the current PHP and MySQL versions, it isn't as SEO friendly as good be (especially now since Google punishes it for not being mobile friendly), it's not scaling well as the database gets bigger, I'm dedicated to getting rid of Tapatalk which is admittedly a challenge for users while we are using antiquated software, etc. etc.

Also, we won't just switch to the new system one day. A test system will likely go semi-public at least first.
 
Last edited:
I realize progress moves forward, and there's no stopping it. And there will continue to be more issues keeping something old running, etc. I get it.

I used to be on another forum (laserpointerforums.com), which was on vB forever, and switched to Xenforo last year.

I no longer participate on that forum.

And frankly it was the switch that did it for me. Once you're used to a forum's features (including the advanced ones, which I know well here, and use frequently), it's very hard to transition. Everything in Xenforo was different, and when you've been using a site daily for years (and it's part of your business, as it is mine) it was either a royal pain to figure out how to do all of the equivalent functions you were used to, or just not possible in many cases. As a result, it killed my interest in that forum.

With people already leaving here for Facebook and other arcade forums, do we really want to give people another reason to leave?

If a new software can be used, which still supports many of the useful features vB offers (and the overall look, feel, and function can be kept), then I'm all for replacing the back end. I'd be happy to make a list of the features I'd want to see supported in a new system (and maybe that should be a separate thread).

But if there's a huge shift to something really different, my concern is that you'd see it significantly impact participation here, to the point of even leading to the end of KLOV, as there are already so many other options. (Though none as good as KLOV IMO, in terms of the userbase and history of info in the archives here, which we would not want impacted.)

But in today's online experience, ease of use often trumps quality of content (just look at Facebook). vB is so understood here by the member base that it's almost invisible. Few people fight with it, and many know its tricks. That won't be the same with Xenforo, and a lot of people may not be willing to put the effort into making the switch.
 
I realize progress moves forward, and there's no stopping it. And there will continue to be more issues keeping something old running, etc. I get it.

I used to be on another forum (laserpointerforums.com), which was on vB forever, and switched to Xenforo last year.

I no longer participate on that forum.

And frankly it was the switch that did it for me. Once you're used to a forum's features (including the advanced ones, which I know well here, and use frequently), it's very hard to transition. Everything in Xenforo was different, and when you've been using a site daily for years (and it's part of your business, as it is mine) it was either a royal pain to figure out how to do all of the equivalent functions you were used to, or just not possible in many cases. As a result, it killed my interest in that forum.

With people already leaving here for Facebook and other arcade forums, do we really want to give people another reason to leave?

If a new software can be used, which still supports many of the useful features vB offers (and the overall look, feel, and function can be kept), then I'm all for replacing the back end. I'd be happy to make a list of the features I'd want to see supported in a new system (and maybe that should be a separate thread).

But if there's a huge shift to something really different, my concern is that you'd see it significantly impact participation here, to the point of even leading to the end of KLOV, as there are already so many other options. (Though none as good as KLOV IMO, in terms of the userbase and history of info in the archives here, which we would not want impacted.)

But in today's online experience, ease of use often trumps quality of content (just look at Facebook). vB is so understood here by the member base that it's almost invisible. Few people fight with it, and many know its tricks. That won't be the same with Xenforo, and a lot of people may not be willing to put the effort into making the switch.

+1, have been on many forums, have run forums, couldn't have said it better myself (and I tried above).

You'd be surprised how easily a software switch can kill a forum (especially here where many are old, not super technically inclined, and hates change :D ) so I was pretty bummed to see this thread pop up as it's the exact thing I dread on any forum.

I do think a modern theme selection choice would be cool to where this theme is still the default and the ones who want to change it can do so on the bottom left (tons of great vBulletin themes), but that doesn't fix any of the issues we are apparently facing
 
Last edited:
I've always liked this older style of forum. There are worse ones than Xenforo but it'd be nice if we didn't have to change at all. (yeah right I know)
 
The forum is really familiar with what we're running now.

I'm of the younger generation, and even I'm not excited to see a change (because I've seen forums do it before and crash and burn, and I'm not a huge fan of XenForo), but I think the older generation this site primarily consists of is going to be even more uncomfortable with any sort of change especially the site hasn't really been updated even in a small step in many years... people are comfortable and it is relatively not just easy but familiar for people of all ages to understand.

While I'm saying tread carefully with any upgrade decision making (sometimes it's better to leave it as is, we as users are not encountering any issues besides the eBay ad tracker nobody really cares about and if there was a time to be modern "just because" it was 5 years ago, so who cares now), DEFINITELY make about 1,000 backups. Data transfer from one forum system to another is ALWAYS messy and often breaks, and with the size of this forum it is very likely something will go wrong. If there is one forum with a wealth of incredibly important and timeless information it is this one... more than the usual forum. Please be extremely careful with how it is handled as there are literally thousands or maybe tens of thousands of threads here dating back many years that are extremely crucial from common issues to specific issues, whether it be highly-publicized repair guides, or some guy's troubleshooting thread from 2011 that comes up in Google for a guy in 2019 and fixes his problem... it's all very important, even the little threads. The whole "googling" thing is really a mainstay this site provides for most of us (although we don't talk about it much), so make sure you don't trim any of the fat/old threads, either (please)... at times they are more useful than any repair guide could be.

Get off my lawn. Thanks for your concern, but you are not correct. Many of us elderly folk can do just fine on the Internet.

Tom
 
I am very excited to see these forums get a much needed upgrade...

... and I'm an old-schooler. You have nothing to worry about...

Never be afraid to change...
 
Many of us elderly folk can do just fine on the Internet.

Tom

But learning new forum stuff?
iamtooold.gif
 
When it comes to cell phones, it's not a matter of not knowing how to change... it's a matter of not WANTING to change.... or NEEDING to change. I get by just fine without one of those shitboxes in my pocket, thank you.
 
For those interested in hearing more regarding Tapatalk, here is another thread about it:

https://theadminzone.com/threads/tapatalk-on-xenforo-2-0.146403/

"This is not a new feature of Tapatalk at all, this has been an ongoing complaint for a number of years that they don't exactly integrate cleanly into the respective platforms."

"IIRC they used a similar approach for vbulletin 3 & 4 and hooked straight into the database while ignoring large part of vbulletin."

"The only reason I use Tapatalk at all is because older vBulletin versions (specifically vB3 and vB4) are not responsive and don't have decent mobile styles. Why anyone would install Tapatalk on a responsive forum (Xenfor0, or vBulletin 5 if you don't mind waiting 10 minutes for pages to load) is completely beyond me."

"It's not about speed. It's about Tapatalk nagging visitors to your forum. It's about limited or no options for your own advertisements, depending on whether you pay for premium and which plan you pay for. It's about not having Google Analytics available for your Tapatalk users unless you pay for a premium plan."

Now the rest of the thread goes back and forth and explains some of the benefit of a native app vs responsive and hopes some day Xenforo creates one.

Now I just found another anti-admin thing Tapatalk did, but it isn't worth giving this more airtime now.

I won't lie... I never understood the NEED for Tapatalk. This site(and all of the others I am on) load, scale, and function just fine on my phone's built in browser(Safari). I have an "older" iPhone(7SE, or whatever they called the one with the largest screen). I've never even considered installing Tapatalk, to be honest about it. I simply didn't see the need to.

Also, we won't just switch to the new system one day. A test system will likely go semi-public at least first.

Ummm… if there's a "volunteer list" for testing the new format, I'd like to be on that list.

+1, have been on many forums, have run forums, couldn't have said it better myself (and I tried above).

You'd be surprised how easily a software switch can kill a forum (especially here where many are old, not super technically inclined, and hates change :D ) so I was pretty bummed to see this thread pop up as it's the exact thing I dread on any forum.

I do think a modern theme selection choice would be cool to where this theme is still the default and the ones who want to change it can do so on the bottom left (tons of great vBulletin themes), but that doesn't fix any of the issues we are apparently facing

5DpqlH0.jpg


Pay attention, young'un:

Get off my lawn. Thanks for your concern, but you are not correct. Many of us elderly folk can do just fine on the Internet.
Tom

What these kids fail to realize is that we made the transition from land-lines attached to the wall to cordless phones with a 50 foot range, to cell phones... From going away from home with no means of communication to pagers and pay phones, to constant connections... From no online communities whatsoever to Bulletin Board Systems(which had to be dialed individually via the aforementioned "land lines"), to the internet, and each incarnation of software since it's inception... that we were the first people to experience "the Information Super-Highway" when it was the electronic equivalent of a "dirt road"... from printed(and oftentimes, hand drawn) maps to Tom-Tom GPS units to "Google Maps", From the Atari VCS(2600) to the NES, to the SNES, to the N64/PlayStation/X-Box, etc...(and all of the controller variants that go along with them) ... from Timex Sinclair 1000s, to Commodore Vic-20s, to Commodore 64s/Atari800XLs/Apple IIe, to the Amiga line/IBM PCs/Macintosh... in other words, from blocky 8-bit machines, to arcade quality home units, to pixelated 3D style graphics, to realistic 3D graphics, to full on Virtual Reality(and even Augmented Reality) and yet we are STILL here, still going, still adapting. Why? Because we learned early on that in order to survive, we HAD to adapt. Our parental unit(s) weren't home when we got home from school, so we had to fend for ourselves until he/she/they got home from work. We let ourselves in, made something to eat, and abided by the "house rules" because NOT doing so would result in dire consequences. And yes, we are THANKFUL that we were taught self reliance.

When it comes to cell phones, it's not a matter of not knowing how to change... it's a matter of not WANTING to change.... or NEEDING to change. I get by just fine without one of those shitboxes in my pocket, thank you.

It's quite possible to "get by" without a personal tracking device. I did it for many years. I do have one, now... but we no longer have a "land line" in our house, so a cell phone (for me) was needed, for emergencies if nothing else. I bought an iPhone so that it would be able to access my rather large(and still growing) iTunes library. Music is very important to me, so it only made sense. Thing is... I *COULD* live without it if I needed to. I don't depend on it for anything except being able to talk to my wife when needed. Well, that and making sure I arrive at arcade parties in a timely manner. ;):p It's nice to have my music library in my pocket, though. But that's really just a bonus.
 
If Tapatalk isn't usable after the switch, Im definitely a goner, unless a mobile friendly application takes place of it. This is the future, why would you take social media away from the hand helds. I don't have time to be plugged into a wall, and I don't carry around dinner plate tablets, with no data plans. Thats going backwards not forward.
 
I am about as cellphone averse as they come and I too feel that it would be a negative to eliminate Tapatalk... why limit your users as to the ways THEY can CHOOSE to visit the forums? If they choose to be annoyed by ads via Tapatalk ... why even give it a second thought? It's their choice...
 
12 dollars a year and tapatalk is ad free, I don't see any adds at all what so ever. What I get in exchange is the ability to communicate with people Ive made commitments to at anytime, and its way easier to navigate the forum..

Here is exactly what I see differently than non tapatalk users

I can see a timeline, and find threads Ive participated in quickl.


The bottom and top of these photos is navigation, if I want to find for sale parts only, or list something..

And if I create a for sale I can snap a photo with my phone and grab the photo directly...
You can see the tab at the bottom to add this photo..

Its about as user friendly as you can get..
 

Attachments

  • 22039a8799fceb1635bb66773f85b7f2[1].jpg
    22039a8799fceb1635bb66773f85b7f2[1].jpg
    206.5 KB · Views: 13
  • 205bdd02c8677c3c90df492ff64ea03e[1].jpg
    205bdd02c8677c3c90df492ff64ea03e[1].jpg
    187 KB · Views: 9
  • 918f917f96dc13d4633b667faf2d355b[1].jpg
    918f917f96dc13d4633b667faf2d355b[1].jpg
    161 KB · Views: 8
  • 2bbc28e209351adb3557b60218696697[1].jpg
    2bbc28e209351adb3557b60218696697[1].jpg
    205.3 KB · Views: 7
  • 540f60efeb62863a8350dfe3f107d507[1].jpg
    540f60efeb62863a8350dfe3f107d507[1].jpg
    195.4 KB · Views: 8
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top Bottom