Hi guys,
Over the past month, we've had major changes take place. In early December, Smashboards was bought by AlphaZealot. In place, the Senate discussed forum changes. On January 8th, the servers were transferred off of MLG forever. You may even notice the site loads faster compared to when we were on MLG's servers thanks to Paul (TheTempleHost). Smashboards is continuing to change, and in AZ's last site update, he pointed out that we are getting a homepage redesign and an upgrade to the forum. This isn't just an upgrade to the forum, it's a whole new forum software. Enter XenForo, that was made by the original developers that were in charge of vBulletin 2.0 to 3.8, who quit Internet Brands before 4.0. I went through three options as to which one would better suit Smashboards and which one would help Smashboards the most: vBulletin 4, XenForo, and Invision Powerboard. Upon further research, I found that IPB when testing, would not have the best performance in mind, as well as the infrastructure to maintain the site. vBulletin was bought by Internet Brands, and released with 4.0, which not only would've been absolute hell on the server performance but between hundreds of bugs, exploits and tested benchmarks, it would not be the right fit alongside the controversy. In the end, I choose XenForo because of its clean code, its fast performance, and its social networking features. It has been announced for two years that vBulletin 3.8, the software we are using now, will not be receiving any new features or bug/exploit patches, meaning we are at a risk and cannot stay on vBulletin.
Keep in mind I made a proposal to switch to XenForo on April of 2011, which was 21 months ago. During this 21 month period, we were stuck in limbo because of a lack of communication between MLG and the Senate, and the Smash community at large, which included much needed upgrades and features. A lot of our current software can still be exploited and currently have a lot of security holes, including in our forum system and blog system. With our forum update and new home page, Smash News will not be relegated to a subsection of the forum! We are the safest on XenForo security-wise. With XenForo's "ElasticSearch" replacing our current search software Sphinx Search, you can now search for three-character words like "lux", "joe", "m2k" and "bio", you namesearchers you.
Now, we are not able to get search up right this instant because, in order for that to happen, this would cause approximately 50 hours of downtime. Because of this, we're waiting on the completion of the new forum to re-introduce search, as that same process would only take 30 minutes.
Here are some new forum features to expect:
There's many more that I can't list, as it's too long, but those are the major changes.
There will be some missing functionality as we transition to XenForo, these include Brawl Albums, Custom Stage Viewer and Live Topic. We will attempt to get all three up as soon as we can.
Within this timeline, I expect to be done in 2-3 weeks, with the site conversion expected anywhere between February 8th and February 15th. I will also be intermittently posting screenshots in the announcement thread detailing progress, and inviting staff to beta test before rollout.
Finally, please support Smashboards by getting premium membership! The money you donate goes towards Smashboards' server costs and the funds needed to help transition from vBulletin to XenForo. Thank you!
Discuss here
Over the past month, we've had major changes take place. In early December, Smashboards was bought by AlphaZealot. In place, the Senate discussed forum changes. On January 8th, the servers were transferred off of MLG forever. You may even notice the site loads faster compared to when we were on MLG's servers thanks to Paul (TheTempleHost). Smashboards is continuing to change, and in AZ's last site update, he pointed out that we are getting a homepage redesign and an upgrade to the forum. This isn't just an upgrade to the forum, it's a whole new forum software. Enter XenForo, that was made by the original developers that were in charge of vBulletin 2.0 to 3.8, who quit Internet Brands before 4.0. I went through three options as to which one would better suit Smashboards and which one would help Smashboards the most: vBulletin 4, XenForo, and Invision Powerboard. Upon further research, I found that IPB when testing, would not have the best performance in mind, as well as the infrastructure to maintain the site. vBulletin was bought by Internet Brands, and released with 4.0, which not only would've been absolute hell on the server performance but between hundreds of bugs, exploits and tested benchmarks, it would not be the right fit alongside the controversy. In the end, I choose XenForo because of its clean code, its fast performance, and its social networking features. It has been announced for two years that vBulletin 3.8, the software we are using now, will not be receiving any new features or bug/exploit patches, meaning we are at a risk and cannot stay on vBulletin.
Keep in mind I made a proposal to switch to XenForo on April of 2011, which was 21 months ago. During this 21 month period, we were stuck in limbo because of a lack of communication between MLG and the Senate, and the Smash community at large, which included much needed upgrades and features. A lot of our current software can still be exploited and currently have a lot of security holes, including in our forum system and blog system. With our forum update and new home page, Smash News will not be relegated to a subsection of the forum! We are the safest on XenForo security-wise. With XenForo's "ElasticSearch" replacing our current search software Sphinx Search, you can now search for three-character words like "lux", "joe", "m2k" and "bio", you namesearchers you.
Now, we are not able to get search up right this instant because, in order for that to happen, this would cause approximately 50 hours of downtime. Because of this, we're waiting on the completion of the new forum to re-introduce search, as that same process would only take 30 minutes.Here are some new forum features to expect:
- Search will include three-character terms, as mentioned above.
- XenForo includes a like system, so you may "like" users' posts.
- The login and registration page is improved. You can login without leaving the page, and you can link your forum account to your Facebook to log in with Facebook.
- Alerts. Alerts let you know when somebody has replied to a thread you're "watching" (aka subscribed to), quotes you, likes your post, posts on your wall (your "Profile Page"), have a new follower or trophy, etc.
- Private messages have been updated to a new conversation-style message system. It is now "Private Conversations". This way, you do not get a whole bunch of nested quotes when messaging each other. You may also include more than one person in a conversation.
- The Friends system of vBulletin is now becoming the follower system. Follow people you know for status updates, blogs, etc.
- Reporting a post will ensure that you get a response to your report. A moderator will now answer to a report saying that the thread has been locked, and you may add additional information.
- User Blogs will be gaining its own blog system, replacing the current Drupal & forum link.
There's many more that I can't list, as it's too long, but those are the major changes.
There will be some missing functionality as we transition to XenForo, these include Brawl Albums, Custom Stage Viewer and Live Topic. We will attempt to get all three up as soon as we can.
Within this timeline, I expect to be done in 2-3 weeks, with the site conversion expected anywhere between February 8th and February 15th. I will also be intermittently posting screenshots in the announcement thread detailing progress, and inviting staff to beta test before rollout.
Finally, please support Smashboards by getting premium membership! The money you donate goes towards Smashboards' server costs and the funds needed to help transition from vBulletin to XenForo. Thank you!
Discuss here