Poll: Should this forum be upgraded to phpBB3?

[Winston]

Hi all,
The new version of this phpBB forum, phpBB3, has passed its beta stage and is now available as a stable version. It is now very comparable to vbulletin and has many of the same features. Its new features over this old one are listed here:

http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

Do you think I should attempt to upgrade this forum from phpBB2 to phpBB3? Sure phpBB3 contains more popular features, such as the quick reply box at the bottom, forum subcategories, stats above and below that show how many users and posts there are, who's been here this week, what the latest topics are, etc.

However, I'm not sure if we really need those or not. Maybe they don't make a difference to anyone here. As they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Or maybe some of you like those new features?

What do you think?

Some of those features are nice and attractive, and would keep in tune with other forums. But I don't see the need for sub-forum categories at this point, since there aren't even that many posts per day to warrant additional sub-categories. And phpBB has many hacks available that can add features such as the quick reply box and others.

The problem is, I'm kind of wary about doing this kind of thing. For one thing, I've been having trouble properly backing up this forum. And I'm not sure if the new version would mess up the changes in the registration process that I made here to keep out spam bots.

So I would have to spend a lot of time in the phpBB support forums to ask many questions, and do some research and reading, and learn a whole new and more complicated forum administration panel too. But do you think it's worth it?

So far, this forum has been working fine, except for a few strange bugs (Do any of you get emails saying that you chose to watch a topic and be notified of replies, when you never selected that? I do.) If I don't upgrade it, I can at least improve it by adding a few hacks from phpBB, such as selecting a nicer theme or put graphic headers like other forums have.

Do you all like the theme and colors in this forum? Or would you prefer the black background that some have?

I'm sure phpBB3 has some nicer and more sleek and contemporary themes, so at least we would have a cooler look to the forum with that version.

Anyhow, vote your opinion or comment about it in this thread.

Thanks,
WuMaster

[jamesbond]

I like the forum the way it is now. You have been able to keep the spam out which is really nice. I like the blue background colors here on this forum, I have seen the black background some forums have and it looks terrible. By upgrading, you may run into more technical problems and that's the last thing you need right now!

[Winston]

Hi all,
Here is what the new phpBB3 forum looks like, from my Paranormal forum which is using it:

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/forum/index.php

Do you all prefer that this forum look like that template? Or like the way it is now, with the phpBB2 template?

What do you think?

Which is nicer? Does it even matter?

Sometimes when I click on forum pages or move around this forum, I get a "page not available" message and have to reload. Does that ever happen to any of you? Is it because this version is outdated? Or is it due to too much traffic? My other Paranormal forum which uses phpBB3 doesn't seem to have that loading problem.

[Winston]

Here are the pros and cons of upgrading to phpBB3:

Pros

YouTube videos can be embedded into the posts.
Subforums can be created
The forum runs faster and smoother with less errors
Unread topics stay unread until you actually read them, not until you log out like with phpBB2
Quick reply feature

Cons

Less templates to choose from
Links don't open in new tabs/windows
Too many mods in this forum would be lost
The latest topics box on the home page would be harder to upload each time (as with my other forum)

What do you think?

I guess as they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Btw, I've been reading some forum threads about phpBB vs vBulletin, and some claim that after switching from phpBB to vBulletin, their forum traffic doubled!

Apparently, Google has penalized phpBB and caused forums with that software to be ranked lower in search engines, for some reason. That sucks.

So, should we switch to vBulletin, cause it might get more traffic here? It might have better search engine optimization features.

[Winston]

Since this issue has come up again, I'm bumping this thread so that all of you can cast your vote on this topic, since there aren't many votes on it yet.

The topic has come up again about upgrading this forum to phpbb3. Do you all want that? Or do you prefer to keep it the way it is?

Just so you know, here is what the template styles on phpbb3 look like:
https://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/

Cast your vote above please. If no one votes again, I will assume that no one cares. So please cast your vote.

[fschmidt]

Newer is usually worse, but I voted yes because I want "View active topics".

[Winston]

We will probably upgrade at some point. Because if phpbb goes up to version 4, then we will be lost and it will be doubly hard to upgrade by then. I hate keeping up with stuff like this.

In technology, newer stuff is more complicated and messy. The coding is more complex.

Btw, why is it that no one voted in this poll, but everyone voted in the "Should Cornfed be banned" poll? I guess that's a more exciting topic than this one. lol

[MeGustanLatinas]

YES! I guess I'm used to having a separate control panel.

[Winston]

Do you think this forum will get more traffic and users after upgrading to phpbb3?

Here are some benefits to upgrading to phpbb3, from the phpbb support forum:

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2102799

phpBB 3 by far.

1) Its still supported
2) It has a better style
3) Its more secure
4) It has Sub-forums
4) It has a much better permissions system
5) It has General features overall.
6) Its Banning & Warnings system is more advanced
7) It has Report Post/PM Features
8) The Compatibility is better
9) It has Custom BBcodes
10) It also has a better Polling system
11) And it has a much better System Changes (Topic Review, Post Drafts, Quick Reply, Attatchments)
12) It has a Caching system
13) It also has better searching and new/active/unread ect., posts pages.
14) It has much better forum features like forum passwords, style forum allocation, url redirect forums, subscrition to forums, bookmarks and email/print topics.
15) It has a better UCP managment
16) A decent Private Messaging System.
17) A much more advanced user groups system
18) Moderation System Improved to have a moderation queue, Global Moderators, Post Editing Locking, Changing Post Author, Merging posts/topic and User Notes
19) It has Nice ACP Changes
20) It also has Permission Roles, Bookmarks, Feeds and alot lot more

[Winston]

Hi everyone,
Ok well I upgraded the forum. But there are lots of bugs and kinks to work out. See the announcement here and list of new features.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=24873

[Paloaltoguy]

Wow, why didn't you just hire someone to design theme for you? Are you that cheap? lol