Forum Migration: Shall we stay or shall we go?

[arclight]

The the server the forums run on has been unreliable again of late and I need to move all my web stuff to a service that a) is reliable, and b) isn't in the back bedroom of a house I no longer live in.

I have a test version of the forums up on a new snazzy virtual server which should make things speedier and more reliable and cheaper for me ($30/mo vs $75/mo or so.) I plan to drop the hammer some time this weekend which involves a small amount of time-sensitive tech crap nobody really cares about. We've done this dance before and it takes a day or so for DNS changes to propagate so I have no doubt it'll go swimmingly (jinx.)

So my question to you peanuts is whether we should take this opportunity to upgrade to forum software that isn't as ass as phpBB2. Sure it works fine for what we do aside from my crazy-ass anti-spam bullshit which has mostly been replaced by the Jeff Atwood Orange Filter.

But seriously, the software is ass. They patched most of the obvious security holes but the fact that I need to add all sorts of janky third-party shite to the software just to let real people in and keep the (mostly Russian) spammers out shows how arsed the system is. It was arguably the best software for the money (free) when I set it up so long ago (props to Jen Cargill for telling me that Austin improvisors should have a forum - that girl is wild amazing!) Now the software is like old celery in the back of the fridge. I really don't want to touch it.

This is as good a time as any to make a change so if you have an opinion, let me know. Take the poll. I'll still move the site to new Dallasy hardware soon, hopefully before the server craps itself again. I just want to know if we should upgrade, when, and to what.

PS: Go see Cochise for the rest of its run. Or else.

[Roy Janik]

My preference is to stay with the current software. Everyone's familiar with it, and it works decently well. Sure, I'd like an easy way to embed YouTube videos, but for the most part, it's fine and simple and doesn't go down *that* often

[bradisntclever]

I'm a huge fan of vBulletin, but that's just me.

[Jessica]

I am unqualified to say what we should do. I always just trust in Bob's recommendations because he is an awesome web guy and I want to make it easy for him. I also want to say that I totally appreciate people who can understand this stuff and make rational decisions biased on what they know.

[Aden]

If the forums live, but become even better and easier to use... that seems like a good plan.

[arclight]

My preference is to stay with the current software. Everyone's familiar with it, and it works decently well. Sure, I'd like an easy way to embed YouTube videos, but for the most part, it's fine and simple and doesn't go down *that* often

The YouTube issue can be resolved by allowing HTML in posts; I've been leery of turning that on because I don't trust the code to filter out malicious crap (which admittedly is a hard problem.) Since the Orange filter has kept spammer signups to a minimum, I can enable it until there are actual problems (if ever.) I'll prod that today.

The forums are such an important social tool that I don't want to make big changes by Executive Sysadmin Fiat. That said, the software is not being actively developed (everyone who worked on phpBB2 is working on phpBB3 now) so at some point we'll want to change before it's totally abandoned.

[kbadr]

I'm a huge fan of vBulletin, but that's just me.

vBulletin's not free, though.

Bob, do whatever is easiest (and cheapest!) for you.

[vine311]

Bob, do whatever is easiest (and cheapest!) for you.

Word. Make life easier on yourself, Bob. Do what you gotta do.

[Lants]

I also really like vBulletin, but if it's a cost issue, I understand.
Simple Machines works pretty well on a site that I admin... though we've been a tad glitchy lately (probably more the server though).

[arclight]

Let's see how this works...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i55sGiAMYGE[/youtube]

[mcnichol]

Let's see how this works...

Hey, that looks awesome man! Thanks!

And I vote for whatever is cheapest / easiest to maintain.