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The Great Boards Migration

TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
UPDATE: Our schedule has changed a bit since we created this post, so here's an update on where we're at:

Initially, we said we'd aim to have the migration finished by April. Due to a few technical setbacks, we've had to push things back a little bit and give ourselves some more time. Now, we're currently aiming to have the beta testing underway by the end of this month. For those of you who signed up to help us with that, we're hoping to be in touch with you fairly soon to set everything up. We don't know for sure when the migration will be complete, but we're hoping for everything to be wrapped up by May. Again, this isn't a guarantee, so we'll keep everyone updated with what our plan is. :)
Hey everyone,

As you will have noticed by the '3 days to go', '2 days to go' message we've had up (we may have possibly forgotten to change it to '1 day to go'), we have an exciting announcement to make. This year marks the 18th birthday of the discussion boards, and we thought we'd mark it with a gift. A gift that we're sure everyone has been wanting for a while now... :hyper:

We're moving to new boards software!

You've probably been aware of a thousand and one annoying bugs, features that just aren't working, and the very retro, 90's/00's feel of this forum. The most prominent and 'in your face' problem we've had for a while now is that when you hit 'post' on anything, 90% of the time the loading wheel goes round endlessly and you have to refresh the page. When you guys rightfully report bugs like this, it sucks that we can't fix them. The reality is that the software we use right now is just too old and unsupported.

So, we're going to be migrating to Vanilla forums. This software is leaps and bounds more modern and sleek (and functional!) than vBulletin, the software we use now, and we're pleased to say it's miles better in just about every way it could be. We'll have whole new features to experiment with, new ways to customise the boards, and we'll say goodbye to a lot of little annoyances that have been annoying us and you guys for a bit too long. :rolleyes:

We've started the groundwork now, and are aiming to have the migration to Vanilla finished by the end of March. We also made a super cute video, outlining what's going to happen (shoutout to Esther and Aife for putting this together!).

<iframe width="800" height="450" src="https://www.powtoon.com/embed/b34EgEo2NKs/&quot; frameborder="0"></iframe>

As you can see, there are a few new features that we'll have at our disposal. This is your space, so we'll be inviting you guys to help us decide how we can use them and what would work best for you. We'll be posting a thread asking for your opinions and feedback next week (hopefully Tuesday), so look out for that. :)

In the meantime, if you have any questions or general thoughts on this then let us know below. We're keen to hear what you think!

Mike, Aife, Emma & Esther :rainbow2:

PS: Bonus points to anyone who can spot the Lego person hidden in the picture of us at the end of the video. ;)
We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.

Comments

  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    Looks great! Love it.
  • Jacob101Jacob101 Posts: 687 Incredible Poster
    Ooooh it looks great!
    ''You were in the wilderness
    Looking for your own purpose
    Then you became a butterfly, a butterfly
    I knew you always would''

    - James Arthur (YOU)
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    I've spotted where the Lego person is. ;)
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    Got a question about this new software: Will we be able to edit our posts, please? :)
  • TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
    Glad you folks like it! :d

    Great question, @Mirabelle. You will, yep. Similarly to how things work now, there will probably be about an hour or so after posting where you can edit. After that, any edits will need to be done by a moderator (again, similarly to how things work here). :)

    Mike
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    The Mix wrote: »
    Glad you folks like it! :d

    Great question, @Mirabelle. You will, yep. Similarly to how things work now, there will probably be about an hour or so after posting where you can edit. After that, any edits will need to be done by a moderator (again, similarly to how things work here). :)

    Mike

    Thank you for clarifying! :)
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    New question for you.

    On Vanilla forum would it be possible to have a friends list? As with some forums, you put in a request to 'friend' a member and they have the option of accepting or refusing. And, vice-versa.
  • TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
    Mirabelle wrote: »
    New question for you.

    On Vanilla forum would it be possible to have a friends list? As with some forums, you put in a request to 'friend' a member and they have the option of accepting or refusing. And, vice-versa.
    Hey Mirabelle, thanks for the question ...keep em coming! Also you have probably seen we have a live chat Q&A with Mike and James this Saturday. It doesn't look like it's possible to have a friends list with Vanilla, but we are still exploring some of the more advanced options we will have with Vanilla...so we will see!! :cool: Emma
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    The Mix wrote: »
    Hey Mirabelle, thanks for the question ...keep em coming! Also you have probably seen we have a live chat Q&A with Mike and James this Saturday. It doesn't look like it's possible to have a friends list with Vanilla, but we are still exploring some of the more advanced options we will have with Vanilla...so we will see!! :cool: Emma

    Thanks Emma, but though I was planning to be here this Saturday, Jules remains ill so I'm having to lead our band and will be in Spain. It doesn't matter not having a friends list, but check Askismet's spammer zapping addon is suitable for your version of Vanilla software because there have been vulnerabilities.

    All the best,
    ~ Belle
  • TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
    Hey everyone,

    Our schedule has changed a bit since we created this post, so here's an update on where we're at:

    Initially, we said we'd aim to have the migration finished by April. Due to a few technical setbacks, we've had to push things back a little bit and give ourselves some more time. Now, we're currently aiming to have the beta testing underway by the end of this month. For those of you who signed up to help us with that, we're hoping to be in touch with you fairly soon to set everything up. We don't know for sure when the migration will be complete, but we're hoping for everything to be wrapped up by May. Again, this isn't a guarantee, so we'll keep everyone updated with what our plan is. :)

    And as always, any questions, just comment below. :thumb:

    Cheers,
    Aife & Mike
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    Since the latest Vanilla software was released, its version sounds exciting - but will it accept members' VPNs? :chin:
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl
    I should think that like me, every member has been wondering what exactly is holding up our board's migration to Vanilla? And, I don't think my request is unreasonable because my guess is that every one of us members want to know something concrete.

    Thanking you in anticipation,

    ~ Belle
  • TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
    Hey @Mirabelle

    That's a great question :)

    There's a few reasons for the delay in migrating to Vanilla. Our tech team have been working hard to replicate the current theme of the discussion boards for Vanilla. Over the past few weeks, we've been testing a beta version of the forum and we've been spending some time fixing any bugs and re-testing everything. We're almost ready for the migration though which is great news! All we're waiting for now is for Vanilla to confirm a date for when we can migrate everything.

    When we have any further news we'll be sure to update you as soon as we can. It's coming very soon though which is exciting!

    - Aife
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,040 Boards Guru
    Mirabelle wrote: »
    Since the latest Vanilla software was released, its version sounds exciting - but will it accept members' VPNs? :chin:


    ​Hey @Mirabelle

    I'm aware we got back to you about this in a PM, but I thought I'd answer your question here again if anyone else wants to know the answer too.

    Vanilla will work for members who use a VPN :)

    - Aife
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Emma_, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 6pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • MirabelleMirabelle Posts: 1,020 Wise Owl

    Hey @Aife

    Thank you for your reply above on #15, but it won't let me quote you. Another vBulletins bug, pehaps? :rolleyes:

    Bugs have been worked on by your development team for several weeks now, and the beta forum some of us volunteered to test, must by now surely have been sorted? Git.hub's open source software coding is not in itself difficult, because I've done coding for a business experimental forum of aunty's and found it quite straightforward, so this is why I've been wondering why it's taken so long. Hmmm. :chin: I guess that we shall just have to wait out the migration.

    Personally I only wanted to know because my band will be touring eastern europe during May and into June, and I may be unable to access this forum. An example of this is Pabs. Presently she is holidaying in her home country, but alas cannot access this forum either.

    I'll get back into my teapot now

    Attachment not found.


  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 Just got here
    Some suggestions.

    Being able to edit new or old posts would be extra useful. Doing it yourself would save staff time, also a box stating reason to edit.

    Preview would be helpful to check spelling etc.

    Rich text, choice of fonts.

    Attachment option would be welcome.

    Peer Moderation, however, could be abused.

    Spam zapping? Could one be allowed to hide spam posts?

    I'm not fussed about badges etc. That would be a bit Girl Guides if you ask me.

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