Revitalising the Forum

[jd yort]

Dear Moderators,

After 5+ years of the forum fumbling along on old technology, is there any chance of the forum software being upgraded? Reasoning:
- Site is a hub for Spambots (we have 13,950 current registered users). If you ever wonder where all that span in your email comes from, it is generated from spambots using sites like this as hosts. Validation on registration would prevent this.
- Can't embed youtube links
- Not fully compatible with new devices. Anyone tried accessing the site on their smartphone and scrolling down to the bottom of the page?
- Sometimes if you try and type a post over 15+ lines it freaks out and won't hold the cursor position (I end up copying and pasting from notepad)
- Zero chance of attracting advertising pop up dollars in its current form.
- The post count doesnt work
- Its really looking tired and dated.

This site was once the hub of Sports Sedan discussions on the web and now there is more active links elsewhere. I think it is a bit of a shame as we had built up a good amount of interesting reading in the early period. So many of these other sites are just ripping off the information that was originally posted here which is a bit frustrating (I think I am up to 3 counted Chev Monza threads / sites elsewhere).

So can Christmas come early?

[jd yort]

Oh and it looks terrible how it centres your text each time like in the above post. A way around it with HTML but really it should default to left indent.

[MrBoost]

totally agree

[Nadz44]

What troy said^^^^^

[FalconEL]

I'm sure it's something that can be looked at (in our spare time........). My role as a mod here is generally to get rid of the posts concerning "herbal viagra SPAM" etc. but I don't pay for the upkeep/maintenance of the site etc. I'll have a chat to Crompo/CMG about this though.

I haven't done a lot of research with what's involved in creating a new forum. What's the best forum platform? I've been taking fairly regular backups of our forum, it backs up to an .XML, so I suggest we could somehow import the data into a new forum setup.

[jd yort]

Awesome CD.

Now I am no expert of forum software but basically this is a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_software

This will explain the overview of what the differences are.

Then this is the website which goes into a bit more detail. My understanding is that phpBB
is the best free (open source) software.

Vbulletin seems to be the best paid software followed by IP Board.

http://www.forum-software.org/forum-reviews

The most common 3 in forums I frequent are vbulletin, IP Board and PhpBB.

Performance Forums, Pelican Parts, The Roaring Season, lS1.com.au are all VBulletin.
Some are different versions of the software, I think the most common version is 4.2.0.
It looks a bit more modern than 3.8.4

Ausrotary & the Improved Production Forum are examples of phpBB which is open source.

Skyline forum and the nostalgia forum are all IP Board.

The Little Big Web Company should be able to provide some guidance surely?
Migration of the existing intellectual property could influence what avenue to go down perhaps.

[jd yort]

and buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump.......

[FalconEL]

Sorry Troy, I haven't had a chance to speak to CMG about this, nor Crompo as yet.

[Phast Phil]

You need to talk to Liam Curkpatrick from CMG as he rund the websites for the Nationals.
My knowledge on this type of thing is quite restricted.
What I have noticed in recent months is not very many people are using this forum. Maybe more people prefer the facebook page?
Would changing anything here improve the number of users?

[jd yort]

And bump



Note: I would of made this an animated GIF if the forum software permitted it....