Possible BBS Upgrade? *TENTATIVE*

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS ONLY TENTATIVE AS WE ARE STILL DOING FEASIBILITY STUDIES AT THE MOMENT

personally i am getting sick of this bbs system, having to remove spammer accounts multiple times on a daily basis, and not the mention it’s getting old too

unfortunately UBB has given up on all support as of 2006 so there’s no point in getting a newer version from them. shingo and i have been talking about this a bit and we both agree that it might be a good idea to pursue a new BBS system, provided that we can make a smooth transition with most of the important thread data on this BBS intact

there will be some hurdles to go through on our end; we have to speak to our technical staff regarding server setup etc. at the same time, we have no idea which BBS softare would be good to use for the long run, and this is where you guys kick in

we are open to suggestions for possible BBS systems so it would be great if you can give us some insights and contributions. here’s what i would look for as a quick start:

• hopefully the system is free, even for commercial use
• the bbs system license agreement hopefully does not have a clause saying that it cannot be used for porn/adult purposes. as much as we are legal, we dont want to end up getting busted similar to (despite only remotely similar) what happened to hongfire back then
• stable, secure and not easily hacked
• spammer proof (at least have those alphanumeric image verification things before you register)
• ability to post global announcements
• follows a BBS structure similar to the current one we are using (no 2ch/4chan style)
• hopefully based on php/sql, and easy to set up
• be able to ban people
• hopefully be able to store avatars locally (and also detect size restrictions) but this is optional
• be able to transfer all thread data and member data from our current bbs format, which is UBB.classic
• ability to upgrade to a new version when updates are available
• ability to merge/split topics

i have touched with a bit of phpbb setup a few years back but my knowledge is pretty limited (shingo next to nil) but i think it will prolly be me who will handle the transition itself. in the worst case scenario when things dont work out, we will just continue using what we have right now and i continue to track spammers manually on a daily basis

at any rate, i am all ears to all suggestions so hopefully i will be enlighted with your contributions and insights, but if you do suggest a bbs software, please include the developer’s link so i can check it out.

[ 11-12-2007, 09:46 PM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

Invision Power Board (IPB) is awesome. I’m a regular on a lot of forums that use it, and the features for both user and admin are great (i’ve modded a forum with it, it does have lots of tweaking options). I think there’s still a free version, although i don’t know if it’s allowed to be used commercially. It does have a large base of users, so there’s plenty modifications available (from skins to mods, like reputation and such).

(IIRC, all the points you mentioned are covered by a “basic” IPB installation (w/o mods)).

It would be nice if we had IPB here, too.

Official website
Licensing terms

EDIT: Oh, also check here for a preview!

[ 11-12-2007, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: Leon ]

Simple machines forum is one I can throw into the mix as it does have almost everything (all I know about it is from a forum users side) that is required here as it’s free (open source), spammer proof (the sites I’ve gone to that use SMF as their forum software all require a verification code before registration), is written in PHP with a MySQL database, follows a style similar to UBB, allows banning of users and does allow for conversion to SMF from other forum software.
From my experience as well avatars can’t be stored locally (from what I’ve seen) and having looked at the license agreement (what little there is of it) there doesn’t seem to be anything on it relating to the type of content the forum can have and the rest can be explained more easily from the documentation on the website itself.

developers site

thanks for your suggestions

leon, unfortunately it seems that it’s only free for half a year, and then you have to pay for IPB/IPS, although i agree that it’s a nice system since i do frequent a board that uses IPS as well. although peter has stated that he is willing to pay for it if it’s worthwhile enough (i prefer using a free one myself), i do not want to jump to any conclusions just yet

demonix, SMF looks great but it seems that it does not have the convertor for our bbs format (UBB.classic). it’s crucial that we are able to convert our old data; peter (and myself too) will not allow a BBS change otherwise

i just looked at phpBB myself and version3 looked really nice but they only have an “unstable” version released, while version2 does not have some of the features that i would like to have (merging topics/global announcements/attachments, but attachments are optional)

any more suggestions? im all ears

[ 11-12-2007, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

This raises a simple question: how many old data are “important”? Many (Most?) old threads are now obsolete (even you recognized this, do you remember the threads you deleted in the old Review Forum ?), and however http://www.archive.org/web/web.php is always available for historically inclined erogamers.
Heck, this BBS has (currently) 121 pages of threads, maybe something can be dropped (except m… err, the reviews, I HOPE )…

That is weird since the “powered by UBB.classic” link at the bottom of every page here directs to the main page of UBB.threads so I’m guessing that the UBB.threads converter would work but you can also ask in their converters and importers forum to see if the UBB.threads converter will work with UBB.classic and if it won’t then they do also have a converter request thread there.

no, they have stated that UBB.threads will not work with UBB.classic because they are both different systems; i did a search on their convertor forums last night already

sorry, it’s an order from the boss. and plus, some of the help/support threads may prove to be useful if for some reason somebody asks about support older games

Actually I did a check myself and there is a prototype converter for UBB.classic which should work here since it uses the UBB exporter to do the conversion (which was added in version 6.7.1 so the exporter should be in the version of UBB.classic that this forum uses).
Also leons suggestion of using IPB would have similar conversion problems as they also only have converters for UBB.threads and not UBB.classic plus it can be hacked since I’ve been to a site that uses IPB and they got hacked.

Most of the sites i visit use vBulliten versions 3.x + The latest versions seem to have a lot of cool features as well.

I does have (or atleas allows for) image verification which you wanted.

I do not know if it is free, but i know it meets and exceeds everything else, including ability to limit spammers (though not get rid of them entirely).

Jinnai vBulliten isn’t free plus Lamuness won’t go for it since hongfire had their license revoked for adult content and that site used vbulliten

My friend’s forum i visit uses Vanilla. It’s free, it has some decent security and anti-spam capabilities.

It’s free and very customizable. Upside is it has everything you want (except with the image security for registration), but does have ip tracking. Downside is that a lot of these are from extensions, which while easy to use can be difficult to sort through if you don’t know what is best.

[ 11-28-2007, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]

the main reason why i am not willing to pay is because it seems that there aren’t that many convertors that would support paid systems (simply because people will have to pay for system in order to develop a convertor), which seems to be the case for the now obsolete .ubb format

anyhow, looks like a stable release of phpbb3 has just released a couple of weeks ago, i am going to set it up on a temp server to try it out

brutal and time consuming but i managed to convert it into phpbb3, and i think that’s the system i will go for:

THE FOLLOWING WILL BE LOST DURING THE TRANSITION:

• private messages (backup if you need to)
• existing polls (too bad)
• hidden/backup forums
• japanese text since they will be converted to UTF (such as olf’s signature), but any new ones made after the transition will be viewable
• avatar settings (you just need to relink or reupload)
• ban lists (that’s my problem )

THE FOLLOWING WILL STAY INTACT:

• member settings/password/profiles (save for japanese text)
• post counts
• the posts in these forums

anyhow further testing/config is needed before i officially announce the transition where this bbs will be turned off for at least one week

Will this upgrade be able to block the spammers that have been popping up out of the woodwork? Maybe use Captcha for registration or something.

[ 12-28-2007, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: GogetaSS4 ]

yes it does

ADD:
i dunno about this but i think signatures might not be carried over too

[ 12-29-2007, 03:36 AM: Message edited by: Lamuness ]

What about the Rating System? I’ve rated 377 people so far, and I still have more votes to give …

EDIT:
And what about those irritating limits on posting “strange signs” or symbols which often prevent certain direct Links on this BBS?

Let’s try again:

(n_n)

(._.)

(-__-)

(;_

(T_T)

(@_@)

(O_O)

(^)

(^_^)

(^O^)

(^o^)

(Ê_Ê)

(Ê_Ê")

(X_X)

(=_=)

(-)

(!__!)

(o_O)

(O)

(-O-)

(p_q)

(o_o)

(;O;)

(O)

(.O.’)

(-_-

(’_’)

(?_?)

(‘O’)

m(_ _)m

w(^o^)W

(/_\)

(=^_^=)

(u_u)

(√∫_√∫)

(Ê)

(ñ_ñ)

(Y_Y)

($_$)

(ò_ó)

(_​:heart:)

(xOx)

(-_o)

(ô_ô)

(z_z)

(9_9)

(6.6)

(~o~)

(^_^)/~~

(ToT)/~~~

(;_;)/~~~

(^-^)V

p(^^)q

(#_#)

\(^o\) (/o^)/

(n///n)

(o|o)

(U_U)

(.-.)

^(-)^

(^-^)b

\(O)/

(^^)//

((((((

((+_+))

(^o^)y

($v$)

(-.-)zzzzz

(~_^)

( )( O . O )( )

( L_____L ) ~zzz

(^w^)

(OwO)

(^;_;^)

(ò_ô)

(õ_ó)

(Ê_Ê)

[ 12-29-2007, 06:03 AM: Message edited by: Baldo ]

ratings are dead, sorry; i dont even know if it is available in phpbb

as for your symbols, i just tested them and they work

“Ratings are dead”… OUCH !
And the background colors (stark white is bad for my eyes… )?

i am thinking of using php’s default blue/white style, but that will depend on which server this new bbs will be located