Forum Move

[Catalyse]

I think it's about time we (re?)visit this. The transition into Tapatalk is imminent and several regions that were previously using Zetaboards have already transitioned into using other forum softwares, while several zetaboards forum have transitioned into Tapatalk.

I don't know when the change is going to take place for us, I'm not an administrator, and it's likely the administration team hasn't been provided with anything other than a loose schedule, though, since it's been a pretty long while since these imminent changes were announced and since then several forums have undergone the change I think it's fair to assume it won't take much longer.

As such I think this ought to be discussed beyond the legislative implications, which would be ammending the constitution to change the forum link to a new forum. The process to changing what is officially our forums is just ammending the constitution, but I'm unsure how we would decide as a region what fourm host we want to try out.

While there has been plenty of informal discussion about this issue and the consensus seems to be that we don't want to use Tapatalk and a few hosts have been mentioned, and the general idea of paid hosts been mostly refused by the forum admin team and several other people. I would be content with just a general agreement that we want x forum host and that the admin team will start handling the transition - create forums, transfer important threads, select new admins or roots if necessary, etc - and then when the admin team says we're ready to make it official we ammend the constitution, hopefully without any serious detractors.

However, and this would just be a way of making the agreement more official, we could pass a resolution mandating the admin team to create a new forum, and then everything in the process would be the same. The simple difference is that we'd vote on a resolution before voting on the constitutional ammendment, even if just to make it more official.

With that said, I really think we should change forum host, as sad as it might be to potentially lose years of posts and history the community considering no longer used forums will be deleted by Tapatalk. Tapatalk is simply a far inferior, both in functionallities and in visual appeal, option to Zetaboards and to some of the still freely available, of which proboards seems to be the best choice.

There are other options, free or not, but I think informal discussion has mostly discarded those, and while using a new forum service will require some adapting from everyone I think the benefits of a new forum far outweigh keeping the current forum in use after it changes from ZB to Tapatalk.

For reference this is what our forum could end up looking like if we stay with Tapatalk. It's not very appealing.

[Manson]

Oh no.

[Cala]

as sad as it might be to potentially lose years of posts and history

Is there any sort of effort to archive/transfer threads or information considered irreplaceable?

[John Laurens]

There are a few free myBB hosts floating around, we could look into them.

[Manson]

I really hope we can transfer this stuff.

[Nequedum]

Pboards and Tapatalk both look the same to me lol.

Let's explore some other free alternatives.

[Fauxia]

Pboards and Tapatalk both look the same to me lol.

Let's explore some other free alternatives.

ProBoards is way more customizable, I think.

[frattastan]

Proboards is the most reliable free alternative. There are other softwares too, but are in decline (jcink hasn't been updated in a while, has poor support, has frequent downtime - e.g., see here), or are of dubious profitability (which means they might be bought, or close down, or have ever more frequent technical issues).

It boils down to:

• Self-hosted myBB (or similar) forum
  Pros: We will own our forum (no risk of losing it all of a sudden), we might be able to transfer posts and accounts, we can customise it to a very very large extent however we want.
  Cons: We need to pay for it, which has some significant implications no matter how small the amount we pay is - "Does the person who pays for it have a greater say in what we do because they put real money into it?", "Can we get mad if they shut it down, even if it's their property?", "Should they keep paying for it even if they decide to leave NationStates or move regions?", and so on.
  The admins will also need to learn a fair bit of coding to make it work.
• Proboards
  Once ridiculed across NS communities, it has shown some marginal improvement in looks and useability over the years. Virtually the only durable free forum host who hasn't been assimilated by TT.
  Pros: free (and the best of the free options).
  Cons: after fourteen years, we start over with a brand-new forum. All important content will need to be copied manually, and looking into any kind of past stuff (Assembly debates, election history, government decisions, cultural proposals) might be difficult to access for new users.
  Will need lots of work to look decent.
• Tapatalk
  The people who bought our current host (|invisionfree|/Zetaboards).
  Pros: it's free. we keep the current forum, with all posts and accounts, at no effort.
  Maybe good-looking if you're into minimalism.
  Cons: it will look awful, will have less functionality.

A ranked vote (IRV) on the various options would be the best solution (keeping in mind that any forum move requires a three-fourths majority vote, like the other constitutional amendments) to take a decision on it, although any paid solution would be conditional on one or more long-term members being willing to pay for it.

ProBoards is way more customizable, I think.

Yup. As I understand it, CSS customisation on Tapatalk will only be available to users who pay for it.
PB can be made to look acceptable with some (lots of) work: see Spiritus. Still, there's no guarantee that will achieve a result that looks acceptable to us.

There are a few free myBB hosts floating around, we could look into them.

If they are reliable enough. Icyboards was one and it shut down last month, and ideally we don't want something like that to happen to us in a year or two.

Is there any sort of effort to archive/transfer threads or information considered irreplaceable?

If we pick self-hosting, yes, otherwise we'll have to be content with looking at the old board when we need something.
Transferring posts might also be possible with certain free hosts (even if not Proboards afaik), although how well that would work is less clear.

[wabbitslayah]

Proboards.

[Manson]

myBB

[John Laurens]

MyBB

[frattastan]

Not a voting topic.

[Catalyse]

Not only is this not a voting thread, but as far as I know MyBB is a self-hosted software, which means we'd have to pay for a server to host it.

The only way I see that happening was if someone trusted by the community, ideally a member of the administration team, would come forward and offer to pay for the hosting.

I don't want to pressure any of them into doing that, since I would personally not do it either, and since I don't really see anyone else that would be a trustworthy party coming forward and since I don't think a model based only on community donations without a main backer will go great, I think we should stick to the feasible options, and since paying for a host is not one of them, those options would be to either use Tapatalk or to switch to free option, of which Proboards is the main option.

Personally, I have no interest in using Tapatalk, I find it ugly beyond belief, and I can go as far as to say that if we do choose to use Tapatalk I can see my continued involvement in the region be negatively affected by it. I don't mean to say this is a "Do it my way or I'm leaving." but that I simply cannot use a forum software that is fundamentally ugly and lacking in the features that zetaboards offered, from costumization to board support.

[Manson]

Is there a way to transfer all of this board's contents to a new Proboards board?

[Harmoneia]

Is there a way to transfer all of this board's contents to a new Proboards board?

I'm positive there is a way, but we'd have to find someone who knows and can help us to do so.

Even if not, we can always have this one around as an archive, which isn't that bad.

Personally, I'm not bothered with Tapatalk's looks, and my only concern is the administrative constraints. Aesthetic-wise, I do not mind staying or at least trying it out for a while.

[Libetarian Republics]

I'm okay with sticking around as well. Though I do find Tapatalk hideous, I will live (somehow).

If we had to select an alternative, I would pick Proboards.

[Cala]

I'm with Harm and LR on this. Proboards is ugly, but I can live with it.

And like Cat said, trying to figure out payment and ownership of a community forum can lead to problems. I've seen it happen elsewhere, and it turned into nothing but arguments and conspiracy theories about how/where the money is being spent and who is in charge. What a mess.

[Catalyse]

I'm with Harm and LR on this. Proboards is ugly, but I can live with it.

And like Cat said, trying to figure out payment and ownership of a community forum can lead to problems. I've seen it happen elsewhere, and it turned into nothing but arguments and conspiracy theories about how/where the money is being spent and who is in charge. What a mess.

You must have misunderstood us.

This is an example of Tapatalk, which is what every zetaboards forum will be converted to. It lacks costumization and it has some other odd constraints and issues that you can read about here. Harm and LR are fine with at least trying it for a while. I don't want to try it at all.

This is what a Proboards forums could look like with time and work put into it. I'm sure a dedicated adminstration team could do a lot with Proboards that would be impossible with Tapatalk. However, this would mean abandoning our current forum. This* is what I want.

* There's also Jcink, which is another free host which greatly resemebles ZB. I have used it before and I never had issues with it, but someone said they had frequent down times, which I honestly never experienced while using them, but most people seem to have taken that as a warning and would rather use Proboards over Jcink. My only issue with Jcink is that multivoting polls are not possible.

[Manson]

Is there a way to transfer all of this board's contents to a new Proboards board?

I'm positive there is a way, but we'd have to find someone who knows and can help us to do so.

Even if not, we can always have this one around as an archive, which isn't that bad.

Personally, I'm not bothered with Tapatalk's looks, and my only concern is the administrative constraints. Aesthetic-wise, I do not mind staying or at least trying it out for a while.

Koth knows how.

He recently transferred the contents of Osiris's forum to another board. Pretty sure that TNP is currently doing the same thing.

[thechurchofsatan]

After more consideration I think preserving our history is more important. As ugly as it is I think we should go for Tapatalk.

[Manson]

After more consideration I think preserving our history is more important. As ugly as it is I think we should go for Tapatalk.

That's what I've been saying!

Transferring everything would be the best option though. We'd be able to preserve history and be able to have a non-shitty forum!

[Cala]

You must have misunderstood us.

I see that now.

I'm still willing to use whatever comes our way, and as much as I enjoy pleasant aesthetics, transition and preservation of what we already have seems more important I suppose. Probably a lot of fat we could trim, but...

But I don't really know the ins and outs of forum functionality, so I'll sit down and just listen for a while.

[wabbitslayah]

We can talk at Tim or whoever in Spiritus did for theirs for advice on Proboards. Paid isn't an option and I don't want to stay on Tapatalk.

[thechurchofsatan]

But is it really worth it to sacrifice our region's entire history for good looks?

[Manson]

But is it really worth it to sacrifice our region's entire history for good looks?

We could always try to transfer it.