[quote=Bok;170129]vbulletin styles are fairly simple to create and you can have as many as you wish allowing users to choose their own too (if you want to) whilst retaining a default..

You can always look for a prewritten skin as well. Google vbulletin skins...

I used a free one for another forum I have which was simple to edit [URL]http://www.houseofrahl.com/[/URL] - it's also over at IB's place.

I've used vbulletin quite a lot so have offered to get it up and running for you with some of the same anti-spam tweaks as at Free-DC. I already configured mysql on the server you'll be using so it should be good to go. Apache should be fine as configured. The box actually used to be the freedc stats and forum box on it's own..[/quote]
Okay, cool! Offer accepted--thanks a bunch! :smile:

[quote]I don't believe there is any current way to export a single forum in vbulletin. Only way I can think of would be to get a full export of mersenne installed, then delete all the other forums (which deletes the posts and threads too) but then you'd need to do a manual purge of the users and reset the counters. Would be a pretty major PIA IMO, but is doable..

Bok[/quote]
Okay, that works. I wouldn't mind having to do a manual purge of all the extra stuff, if it meant we could keep the old posts easily.

Xyzzy, what's your take on this? Would it be possible/easy for you to do such an export?

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;170131]Okay, cool! Offer accepted--thanks a bunch! :smile:


Okay, that works. I wouldn't mind having to do a manual purge of all the extra stuff, if it meant we could keep the old posts easily.

Xyzzy, what's your take on this? Would it be possible/easy for you to do such an export?[/QUOTE]

It would still be messy, the userids (not names) are unique numbers and are attached to each post.

Of course exporting the whole database would have privacy concerns too as that would include PM's (though that could be excluded). Would be a LOT of work now that I've looked at it somewhat..

[quote=Bok;170142]It would still be messy, the userids (not names) are unique numbers and are attached to each post.

Of course exporting the whole database would have privacy concerns too as that would include PM's (though that could be excluded). Would be a LOT of work now that I've looked at it somewhat..[/quote]
Hmm...I see. Well, the userid's wouldn't be a problem--I presume they'd simply show up just like a since-deleted user's post does normally (from what I've seen they tend to show up similar to the way a guest's post would). Or, if such a transfer brought all the users with it, I could simply delete all the transferred users with essentially the same end result.

However, the only other alternative to transferring all the posts that I can think of would be to have the NPLB forum here at mersenneforum moved to "archived projects", and then we simply copy over all of the most important information manually at the new forum; we could then set up a subforum there labeled "Old NPLB forum @ mersenneforum.org" which redirects to the one here, which would be locked and in Archived Projects.

What's everyone's opinion on this? Would leaving most of the non-essential posts here at mersennforum and simply redirecting to them as described above be workable? Or would it potentially derail a lot of useful, active threads?

We really only have a few really active threads, and that varies depending on the ranges we are working on. So you should be able to copy over or reconstruct those few threads on the new forum, and just do what you mentioned IRT archiving.

I know Gary is your basic pack rat (only meant in the kindest of ways). I think we need Gary's thoughts on these things.

[quote=Brucifer;170149]We really only have a few really active threads, and that varies depending on the ranges we are working on. So you should be able to copy over or reconstruct those few threads on the new forum, and just do what you mentioned IRT archiving.[/quote]
Okay. I just had a short IM conversation with Bok and he said that he's working on a possible way that (in theory) would allow us to export the contents of the posts in this NPLB forum via SQL, and import them into the new one. Stay tuned. :smile:

Meanwhile, something else I had been considering is the structure of the forum. How does everyone like the following?
[code]
NPLB Forum
+No Prime Left Behind
--New? Start here!
--General Discussion
--Drives & Primes
--Old NPLB forum @ mersenneforum.org >> redirects to old forum*
+Raiders of the Lost Primes
--ROLP Team Forum
+Forum/Administration
--Forum Feedback
--Stats/Website
--Project Administration
* not needed if we end up being able to copy over all the stuff from the old forum
[/code]
We'd break down the content approximately as follows:

-The "New? Start here!" form would contain threads such as the "Welcome/join us" thread, our vision statement, and the threads containing instructions on how to set up and run LLRnet and manual LLR. Probably the "LLRnet servers for NPLB" thread should go here, too.

-General Discussion would contain, essentially, everything that doesn't pigeonhole easily into any of the other categories. For example, this thread would go there, as would rally thread and what have you.

-Drives & Primes would contain, as the name suggests, our team drive and report-primes-here threads. Having them in their own forum would definitely help cut down on all those stickies that we've got, most of which are team drives and report-primes-here threads, and which tend to clog up a general discussion forum.

-We can leave off the redirect to the old forum if we can indeed copy over all the old posts.

-ROLP would get its own category so that it's not taking up valuable screen real estate on top of any of the main NPLB forums, especially since it really isn't an NPLB project forum anyway.

-Forum feedback would be for bug reports/feature requests/smiley requests/etc. that are related to the forum.

-Stats/Website would be for reporting bugs/requesting features related to the stats system and website.

-Project Administration would be for discussing administrative decisions. We already do most of this through PM, which works OK, but sometimes can be a little clunky for discussing things that include multiple people. Probably this forum would only be accessible to users involved in administrative decisions--namely, the mods (Gary, me, Ian, and Karsten) as well as David and Dave.

Thoughts, flames, rotten tomatoes? :smile:

P.S.: I just thought of a couple possible additions to the above. What if we changed the "Forum/Administration" category to just "Other Stuff" and added a Lounge forum there for off-topic discussion not related to NPLB, ROLP, etc.? Would that be a good idea?

ROLP ?????????????? Whazzat????????????? Oh yeah, those people that had it handed to them on a platter at the BBQ LOL arf arf, wheez, cof cof cof

Ok, I think this would work. It's the minimal amount of info you'd want.

create table temp
(forumid int(10),postid int(10),threadid int(10),username varchar(100),userid int(10),title varchar(250),pagetext mediumtext)

insert into temp select b.forumid,a.postid,a.threadid,a.username,a.userid,a.title,a.pagetext from post a join thread b on a.threadid = b.threadid where b.forumid in (a,b,c,d);

replacing the a,b,c,d with the forumid's you are interested in.

export that table and then I can script something to put it into rss feeds which can be easily fed into the forum. You'd just have to decide which users who have posted your wanted to keep and set them up ahead of time. Any others would be replaced with a default user. (Could add a 'originally posted by xxx' to the bottom of each post if necessary).

I just tried this in the free-dc forum and it worked ok

[quote=Bok;170161]Ok, I think this would work. It's the minimal amount of info you'd want.

create table temp
(forumid int(10),postid int(10),threadid int(10),username varchar(100),userid int(10),title varchar(250),pagetext mediumtext)

insert into temp select b.forumid,a.postid,a.threadid,a.username,a.userid,a.title,a.pagetext from post a join thread b on a.threadid = b.threadid where b.forumid in (a,b,c,d);

replacing the a,b,c,d with the forumid's you are interested in.

export that table and then I can script something to put it into rss feeds which can be easily fed into the forum. You'd just have to decide which users who have posted your wanted to keep and set them up ahead of time. Any others would be replaced with a default user. (Could add a 'originally posted by xxx' to the bottom of each post if necessary).

I just tried this in the free-dc forum and it worked ok[/quote]
Sweet! :w00t: Nice work Bok.

How about when we set up the forum, we hold off at first on importing the data, to give all of our regulars the chance to register at the new forum. Once they've done so, we can import the data and it should be all set.

One quick question: I presume the usernames would have to be *exactly* the same, character-for-character?

Regarding an "originally posted by x" at the bottom of each default-user post, that would be great. That way, we can still know who wrote what even if they aren't one of our active regulars and didn't get the chance to register prior to the import (or those, like Flatlander, who have expressed an interest in registering under a different username--unless, of course, that was in jest and I misinterpreted it). :smile:

Edit: one other quick question. I noticed that the postid and threadid's are copied over, also; would that potentially mess things up, since mersenneforum has been around for quite a while and has post ID's in the 170,000's by now, whereas NPLB's would be starting over at 1? Or am I misunderstanding how the import works?

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;170166]Sweet! :w00t: Nice work Bok.

How about when we set up the forum, we hold off at first on importing the data, to give all of our regulars the chance to register at the new forum. Once they've done so, we can import the data and it should be all set.
[/quote]

sounds like a plan.

[quote]
One quick question: I presume the usernames would have to be *exactly* the same, character-for-character?
[/quote]

Nope, doesn't really matter. As long as I had a mapping of userids over here to the usernames over there.

[quote]
Regarding an "originally posted by x" at the bottom of each default-user post, that would be great. That way, we can still know who wrote what even if they aren't one of our active regulars and didn't get the chance to register prior to the import (or those, like Flatlander, who have expressed an interest in registering under a different username--unless, of course, that was in jest and I misinterpreted it). :smile:[/QUOTE]

Would be easy enough.. :)

EDIT:
update temp set pagetext =concat(pagetext,'\n (originally posted by ',username, ' )'); ;)

[QUOTE=Mini-Geek;170097]I agree with what Max said. I simply don't know what kind of people will be attracted through DC-Vault since I hadn't heard of it before.[/QUOTE]

The attention the project will get is not from people who have never heard of the DC-Vault before, but it will get the teams that are currently there. As they will be after more points