BA Has Changed [XenForo platform and miscellaneous]

[B. Haddrell]

Efforts are going on behind the scenes to modernize BA and secure its future. One step is changing from VBulletin to XenForo. This change will most probably happen in August.

This following quote answers some questions:

Hello,

Once again, I am forwarding you a message, just to keep you informed. This time it's from the web-hosting company that appears as the todo10 admin on BA. The representative of the company has answered questions regarding the switch from VBulletin to XenForo as you will see below.

I was asked to inform you and begin gathering a consensus with people of importance at BA.

Quote Originally Posted by todo10

I'm not forcing you but I'm advising what's the best for the community in terms of software. Here are the answers to your questions:

Why change? Is it mandatory?

vBulletin is dead. vBulletin 4 is unsupported since 2018 and vBulletin 5 has been the worst release. Customers from vBulletin are migrating to XenForo because VB5 is full of bugs and the company doesn't have any roadmap.
This means vBulletin 4 has bugs and may have security bugs. It may be hacked and you may never find how to prevent that. You are basically using Windows XP, users love it but the change will have to be forced for the success of the community in terms of support, performance, and security.

Privacy is also an important issue.

Profiles can be hidden for all members or make them visible for members only. XenForo has the same permissions as vBulletin so you can customize or modify this.

What about existing posts? Would there be any loss of information or data? What about the thousands of posted URLS and photo links to imgur, etc. Would those be lost?

No data loss, no posts loss. All the data will be preserved including attachments, external links, external images, colors and so on.

What about the current skins that were designed to work with VB

They won't work on XenForo. There are more than 100 styles available for XenForo, some paid, some free:
https://xenforo.com/community/resour...styles-2-x.45/
The older artwork can be replicated on the XenForo styles.

Would there be formatting changes to posts? Posting URLS, SPOILERS, VIDEOS, etc. Users have patiently learned how to do this on VB and there are dozens of old tutorials on the site to teach them how to, etc. Would this all have to be redone and relearned?

Posting URLs is just copy and paste.
Spoilers are just pressing a button and insert the spoiler.
Videos are just pressing a button and insert the video link.
XenForo has exactly the same behavior, bbcodes, and editor buttons.

Currently there is no-one to supervise and manage this transition. To post tutorials and answer questions. There is no tech person on the site. SO, again we have to ask you - why change? Is it mandatory?

We can solve the issues that may arise or answer the question members could have. [....]

My hope is that BA will be stable after the change so that the "busy server" problems are gone. XenForo has connections with social media which has in my book advantages and disadvantages. It is certainly part of modernization and might attract more traffic. On the other hand I am sure I am not the only member who finds social media toxic. I made the decision not to be a part of it. Well... I will adapt.

People who are more knowledgeable with this kind of software are very welcome to post more information and/or discuss matters here. Please do, it will give us all an opportunity to learn more.

I feel a bit like I am going to jump into the deep end of a pool but from what I can see, this step has to be taken. Hopefully everything will go well.

 

[Toriko]

I for one approve, if only because xenforo on mobile is LIGHTYEARS better.

 

[Ryin]

sounds like there's really no disadvantages to switching. I think most people will be fine as long as no content is lost.

 

[- Urahara -]

It's better and the Too busy message will most likely be gone.

 

[B. Haddrell]

Thank you - this sounds reassuring.

 

[wanda lensherr]

Efforts are going on behind the scenes to modernize BA and secure its future. One step is changing from VBulletin to XenForo. This change will most probably happen in August.

This following quote answers some questions:



My hope is that BA will be stable after the change so that the "busy server" problems are gone. XenForo has connections with social media which has in my book advantages and disadvantages. It is certainly part of modernization and might attract more traffic. On the other hand I am sure I am not the only member who finds social media toxic. I made the decision not to be a part of it. Well... I will adapt.

People who are more knowledgeable with this kind of software are very welcome to post more information and/or discuss matters here. Please do, it will give us all an opportunity to learn more.

I feel a bit like I am going to jump into the deep end of a pool but from what I can see, this step has to be taken. Hopefully everything will go well.

Thank for the heads up. I don't havr any questions nor any opinions on it so I'm fine with the new progress. I was aware of some bugs (seem likely) with the number of times i couldn't log in atm. Anyways i look forward for August

 

[Polgarena]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

As you may know, the BA has been facing some "busy server" issues. I believe that switching to XenForo just might solve that problem.

I've also been assured by people who frequent forums that operate on XenForo that there aren't many differences between BB codes and posting methods between the VBulletin and XF platforms.

Based on the amount of free time I might have in August (or, when the switch actually happens), I might adapt the existing "How to" and guidelines threads to match the XenForo formatting.

Until then and in any case, you can all read up these XenForo manuals:
~ Main page
~ BB Code manual
~ BB Codes Help.

It's sad that it looks like we'll lose BA's custom skins (both the original light and dark one as well as the beautiful ones Otome-san has made), but what needs to be done needs to be done. I'm sorry that I'm not technologically well educated when it comes to saving, making and uploading skins. We can save the banners and collect them in one thread once the switch happens.

 

[CrayonsToChaos]

Welp I have no idea what XenForo is and I don't intend to use the social media linkup, but if it solves the infernal busy server problem then I am in favour. Good luck with the switchover.

 

[The Outlier]

If XenForo integrates with my Twitter account, I would be happy!
It would be interesting if Bleach Asylum on Discord is integrated with XenForo.(Some might not like this and would want to have more freedom there to work things separately, but it's just an opinion)
Hopefully, the transition is alright and all the content is preserved.

 

[Polgarena]

The Discord integration could be interesting. The biggest benefit would, in my opinion, be better functionality and the fact that we'd no longer have "the busy server" issues. The content should all be preserved.

The only thing that it looks like we'll lose are the custom Bleach skins. Here's a link to the individual banners and background images: https://imgur.com/a/ErrI63s