I think vbulletin is the easy/best choice but if you wanted some alternatives there are:

http://xenforo.com/ - one of the most recent platforms, designed by a lot of the same people that made vbulletin

http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/board/ - similar alternative to vbulletin

...

Photos and ads seem like a no brainer to me. Don't pay out of your own pocket Rob! You've got enough on your plate I'm sure

Best of luck with whatever your final choices are

I say that if needed go for some non flashy (and non flash) ads. As for pics, I think they would be good if it could be done like my G-Mail where when I open an email I have the choice of clicking to load pics or not. Usually I don't but sometimes I do. I can see where pics could be a detriment. Pics should at least be a small file size until you click on it to get the larger version.

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

The primary issue for me is this: Keep Punaweb simple and reduce it's pages to basically just the forum (removing the old bsiness and government listings)

or

Revise the site with broader purpose including business listing and other community resources. This is the are that takes a lot of upkeep. Keeping up with new businesses and closing businesses is heavy maintenance. For these purposes a steady level of income is needed. I would need to hire someone to keep it up on a regular basis.

Personally I prefer to have anyone and everyone in Puna be able to promote their products, services, business and themselves here for free. That was the intention in the beginning.
But the work load is just too much for me. Part of me would love to see some interactive maps of Puna where, for example, restaurant in a village could be clicked on and their hours, menu and contact info would come up. Lots of maintenance for that.

Another part of me is thinking to just keep it simple. Pare it down to what has been proven to work - the forums. Let the rest go.




Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator

I would recommend keeping it simple. I have seen a number of bulletin boards that i enjoyed visiting try to 'upgrade' and it usually ends up disrupting the user experience - and it goes downhill from there.

I know the other pages exist, but I haven't really looked at them, and I agree that keeping up with something like that requires more time, energy and money.

The true value of punaweb (for me) is the forum content. I can use the search feature and find so much useful information on so many different subjects. I would request to not delete any old topics - disc space to store the information surely must be negligible given the text only based content.

As for multimedia - I can see how pictures would be nice to post, and very informative - keeping it text almost forces the users, in an old fashioned sense, to converse with words, thoughts and ideas, which is becoming lost more and more to in your face multimedia trying to solve all the problems. I don't think anything beats a simple conversation.

"Another part of me is thinking to just keep it simple. Pare it down to what has been proven to work - the forums. Let the rest go."

Hear him! The keep-it-simple principle will save you a lot of grief in the long run.

Rob,

Check out V-bulletin. Dunno what it cost to buy it. Tho they make apps for people on Android and Iphone phones/tablets so... People can log in whenever/wherever they want/are. Even if they got dial up at home, chances are where they work they have high speed internet.

Gotta keep up with the times. It's not that hard to redo the forums. ANY platform change is going to have some hiccups. I think you are trying to avoid the unavoidable.

The software platform doesn't make Punaweb... It's members/users make Punaweb. The software just enhances the experience. As far as I am concerned you either get ahead of it now or deal with it later.

Yes to local adverts.

Yeah, but I want to maintain 130,000 archieved posts.

quote:

---

Originally posted by ericlp

Rob,

Check out V-bulletin. Dunno what it cost to buy it. Tho they make apps for people on Android and Iphone phones/tablets so... People can log in whenever/wherever they want/are. Even if they got dial up at home, chances are where they work they have high speed internet.

Gotta keep up with the times. It's not that hard to redo the forums. ANY platform change is going to have some hiccups. I think you are trying to avoid the unavoidable.

The software platform doesn't make Punaweb... It's members/users make Punaweb. The software just enhances the experience. As far as I am concerned you either get ahead of it now or deal with it later.

---

Rob, may want to look here...

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=106303

And Here...

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbu...experience

Sun 10th Feb '08, 1:20pm
From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
Snitz 3.1.?
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
165MB
How many registered members?
5272
How many threads?
22014
How many posts?
130733
How many attachments? (total and file size)
none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
The impex run took 83.37 mins, the tidy up took another 30 mins and downloading and uploading to my server (I did the import locally) took 3 hours

I would also like to thank the support team who are fantastic I couldn't have done it without you.

--------------

If you're using MYSQL, and I think you are. It's WAY easy... I could do it in a day.

I've admined vbulletin boards. They can be a nightmare for the admin. The software has a million different options. And each option is a separate security vulnerability. Security and "feature" upgrades are a continual beast, not an "every now and then" sort of thing. Not part time. And the spammers. Oh, the spammers LOVE vbulletin.