What we lost in the migration

[ponchi101]

As we discussed in the original TAT, moving to a new forum would mean that we would lose some functions and features of the previous location.
To begin with, the previous forum was build on vBulletin, a premier forum software. This one is built on phpBB, an open source, free software that, although functional, does not have all the luxury features provided by vBulletin. Think about it a little bit like Mozilla; being open source, some upgrades have glitches. However, as a Mozilla user, those usually get corrected quickly. I hope phpBB works the same way.
Therefore, we lost the following:
1. No convenient SIDE RIBBON with the recent threads clearly visible. phpBB provides an extension (installed already) that show the most recent topics being discussed, but limited to 5 such threads (it can be expanded). The software also shows NEW TOPICS highlighted under their respective forum. Some getting used to will be needed.
2. We lost LIKES and AGREES. The feature is not easily supported by phpBB.
3. We lost BLOGS. However, a forum for those will be opened, which should make little difference from the past presentation.
4. We lost our medals. Perhaps we can get that feature back in the future so, hopefully, we will regain that count. No longer true. We got the capability back. Please see explanation below.
5. We lost our wonderful Grand Slam themes; phpBB provides for a few ones but they are not, of course, related to the big 4 tournaments.
6. I do not know if we will be able to transfer the Suicide Pool parser, as I do not own it. As of this writing, I think we will have to go back to manual counting. But that is TBD.
7. The collection of smilies is considerably smaller (we will not get the ZODIAC AX MURDERER icon )
8. We lose superior reliability. The previous forum was mounted on a premium service; this one is mounted in a shared server, located somewhere behind a marijuana plantation in a third world location (Florida. Really). So we cannot expect that TAT2.0 will be online 24/7/365. Expect some downtime every once in a while.

Because we also have a smaller, shared server, we will need to prune old topics and extremely large discussions. However, this will not be critical. It will be discussed in the WHAT WE GET thread.

I hope this new site enjoys your approval, and in order to make it more familiar, we can improve it in time. Read the WHAT WE GET thread for some ideas.

Thanks

[Kirkus]

"this one is mounted in a shared server, located somewhere behind a marijuana plantation in a third world location"

LOL.

[Deuce]

How am I going to keep track of when the 4 Majors are if I don't have the coloured themes to help me?
I always set the theme for the next Major coming up. Like now, I know Australia is next, because I have the Aussie Open colours as my theme.
Without that, I'll be lost!!

I was hoping that I'd be able to use my avatar as it was originally (on the TW board). The eye blinks every few seconds. Really. It was frightening some people. I liked that.
If you can enable animated avatars - if only JUST FOR ME - I'd appreciate it. Hell, I've already lost the themes, so it would only be fair if I get my original avatar back as compensation.

[ponchi101]

How am I going to keep track of when the 4 Majors are if I don't have the coloured themes to help me?
I always set the theme for the next Major coming up. Like now, I know Australia is next, because I have the Aussie Open colours as my theme.
Without that, I'll be lost!!

I was hoping that I'd be able to use my avatar as it was originally (on the TW board). The eye blinks every few seconds. Really. It was frightening some people. I liked that.
If you can enable animated avatars - if only JUST FOR ME - I'd appreciate it. Hell, I've already lost the themes, so it would only be fair if I get my original avatar back as compensation.

There are some things that cannot (meaning, I do not know how) come from the original TAT. The color schemes are one of them. Perhaps we can comi$$ion somebody to do it, or if, when we get our members here somebody knows how to modify the original theme to reflect our SLAM season. Right now, as I say, we got some truly cheesy ones. We will see if we get some more.
In your avatar, the eye IS blinking. I don't know what you are talking about!
And, BTW, it is truly freakish. But we would not expect anything less from you
Glad you are here.

[texasniteowl]

I was trying to poke around and re: medals, there is a Profile Flair thing for phpBB. Going forward, would that work? https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... ile_flair/

I haven't dug into it to see if there is some sort of limit though...

Obviously it would be really hard to transfer medals from original TAT though.

[MJ2004]

Would some of these lost features work if we use VBulletin instead, like Kirkus was using? Would VBulletin work on this same shared server space, or does it need to be a dedicated server like Kirkus had?

If it works and it's just a question of paying for VBulletin, I would pay for it if came down to it. It's not that much ($180/year).

[ponchi101]

This server has no issues with whatever software you use. We can/could use vBulletin, Xenforo or any other. I went phpBB because I thought the free software thing would help.
And I am getting to like it...
But, again, vBulletin is paid. And $180/year I thought would deter some people.
I would say: let's play with phpBB and then, if we agree that the cons far outweigh the cons, we can decide.
Now, let's just see how many of us want to come here.

[ponchi101]

I was trying to poke around and re: medals, there is a Profile Flair thing for phpBB. Going forward, would that work? https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... ile_flair/

I haven't dug into it to see if there is some sort of limit though...

Obviously it would be really hard to transfer medals from original TAT though.

Nightowl:
I had not seen thar extension. I am busy right now doing some Xmas cooking, but can check it out later. I will try it offline and then we can decide if we use it. It looks promising.
Thanks for finding it!


EDIT
Ok. I believe we can have our medals back!
I just gave every single original TATer a badge for recognizing they were there.
So there should be no issues getting medals for SP's or anything.

Thank you, Nightowl!

[ponchi101]

By the way. I just noticed that we can have ALL our emojies back. We only need to load them in our smilies folder (paging Kirkus, zip them and send them to me. I will do the rest).

[texasniteowl]

Ok. I believe we can have our medals back!
I just gave every single original TATer a badge for recognizing they were there.
So there should be no issues getting medals for SP's or anything.

Thank you, Nightowl!

Awesome! Glad you were able to play with it and it worked!

[ponchi101]

Dear all:
As I initially wrote that we were going to lose some things that we had in TAT1.0, a quick update of what we lost, but really didn't. As I have been able to learn about the phpBB package, a lot of people put extensions on line that give back a lot of what we had.
So, the what we DID NOT LOSE list:
1. Side ribbon. We have an extension that deals with RECENT POSTS. You can customize it.
2. Likes/Approves button. I just installed a new THANKS vote. I find it likeable, as you are not implying bias. You can THANK and then UN-THANK (you, ungrateful scum, you!), and you can rate the post. I think, because I have not figured it out completely.
3. BLOGS, as a separate page, are lost indeed. A Forum for them has been opened. But we will get them back, as soon as I figure out WORD PRESS and get a blogs page, which can be integrated to this one.
4. MEDALS? We got medals! Nothing lost there.
5. Smilies are back, and can be easily added. Just include them in a post, and I will upload them.

The reliability issues I was expecting so far have been related solely to my learning curve and clumsy fingers. But the site seems stable.

Will post you if anything else. Txs

And we also have chats back!

[patrick]

Can we move the MChat toward the bottom? I got to use to see Recent Topic at the top.

[JTContinental]

I came, I thanked, I conquered

[ponchi101]

Can we move the MChat toward the bottom? I got to use to see Recent Topic at the top.

The location of the chat box is customizable personally. Go to your USER CONTROL PANEL and:

Chat.jpg

You can even decide if you want to keep it or not. I will, personally, see how much that moves and then decide for that option.
If you DO NOT want to keep it in the index page, you can always access it through the mChat link (top left).

[dave g]

Ponchi,

Do we have ability to create restricted threads, such as threads only available to staff? In TAT(1), we had a section restricted to Contest Staff, which allowed us to create all of the start-up posts for different contests, and then move them all to the public threads at one time. Are we going to be able to do that here?

Dave