Stafford Forum 2.0 is coming! Help & suggestions needed...

[Admin]

What kind of costs are involved with each option? If it's not ridiculous, I'm sure you could set up a Paypal donations link to raise the funds. I've gained several customers through the forum so a donation is the least I could do and I'm sure there would be others who would be prepared to chip in a few quid. Just a thought

The money isn't an issue, I just want the best solution to make Stafford Forum the best it can be.

vBulletin is £289.00 for the full kit & caboodle, which seems to be a combined forum/CMS/mobile suite/blog package that is seamlessly integrated, so I think it would allow me to do all of the above (and more) with a minimum of effort.

Just the forum element of vBulletin is only £123.00, which I believe I could hack into WordPress (which is free) to provide the frontend/CMS element.

I'm just not sure which is the best route to go down! I like the idea of "one package fits all", but WordPress is open source and so has plug-ins/themes/add-ons coming out of its ears, and is constantly being developed.

If anyone has experience of either, I'd love to hear about it. I've love to have a front page that automatically shows the latest pictures uploaded by forum users, along with the most active/recent posts, users' birthdays, things like that.

I've gained several customers through the forum so a donation is the least I could do and I'm sure there would be others who would be prepared to chip in a few quid. Just a thought

That's a very generous offer, thanks. I pay for Stafford Forum out of my own pocket, and do it just for the love, but now it is taking up more and more of my time I suppose I will have to start seriously thinking of ways to fund all these grand ideas!

 

[gdavies]

i have experience with wordpress my own website is proof in the pudding, i have experience in php, stafforddarts is proof of that one too, but more importantly i am willing to share ideas, experience and even a donation too. I am sure others would do too, I am willing to set up vbulletin on a website so you can have a play before making a purchase as i am sure i made the jump a few years back and have it on a hdd some where.

 

[Gramaisc]

the Forum - I do it just for the love

Oh, God! Do we have to take turns? Is it like jury service?.

 

[gdavies]

the Forum - I do it just for the love

The Forum = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv9zTzlNu-k

 

[wizzard]

There are a couple of vbulletin/wordpress bridges available that wouldn't take much hacking to do.

 

[Admin]

There are a couple of vbulletin/wordpress bridges available that wouldn't take much hacking to do.

Ah ha! This is the sort of information I am after. I have done a fair bit of Googling, but I would really appreciate some help and advice from anyone who has actual experience of trying to integrate the two.

At the moment I'm erring towards buying the full vBulletin CMS package, but if VB & WP can be tightly integrated with a bit of work, I have a feeling that that would actually offer more flexibility, and ultimately a better experience for the end user.

 

[wizzard]

you can search on the vbulletin.org site, but you might be limited in what you can see until you buy a licence.

 

[gdavies]

There are a couple of vbulletin/wordpress bridges available that wouldn't take much hacking to do.

Ah ha! This is the sort of information I am after. I have done a fair bit of Googling, but I would really appreciate some help and advice from anyone who has actual experience of trying to integrate the two.

At the moment I'm erring towards buying the full vBulletin CMS package, but if VB & WP can be tightly integrated with a bit of work, I have a feeling that that would actually offer more flexibility, and ultimately a better experience for the end user.

You would have to install wordpress at the root of the domain name and then install vbulletin as a forums folder

 

[Admin]

you can search on the vbulletin.org site, but you might be limited in what you can see until you buy a licence.

Well, that's half the problem. The support forums of vBulletin won't let you in until you buy a licence, but it's hard to make a decision as to whether you want to buy a licence or not without having your questions answered! I dare say they're aware of this, and do it deliberately.

There are a couple of vbulletin/wordpress bridges available that wouldn't take much hacking to do.

Ah ha! This is the sort of information I am after. I have done a fair bit of Googling, but I would really appreciate some help and advice from anyone who has actual experience of trying to integrate the two.

At the moment I'm erring towards buying the full vBulletin CMS package, but if VB & WP can be tightly integrated with a bit of work, I have a feeling that that would actually offer more flexibility, and ultimately a better experience for the end user.

You would have to install wordpress at the root of the domain name and then install vbulletin as a forums folder

In the sandbox I am running testing on, I have WordPress installed in /wp and the forum in /vb, so you can do either.

Having giving it some more thought, I think I was putting too much emphasis on WordPress/vBulletin integration. Seeing as I would just be using WP as a 'front end', it wouldn't actually require users to log-in, as that element of the site would be read-only. Therefore, there need be no integration really, as there would simply be a link (or links) to The Forum from the front page, and from there it would be your typical forum experience (albeit in shiny new vBulletin form). All the content of the main page would be edited by me/the team, or updated dynamically in the case of social media widgets, so there really is no need for users to log-in. If someone wanted to comment on a front-page article, they would be linked to the applicable Forum thread, and vice-versa.

Does that sound reasonable to everyone? Or would you prefer a more 'integrated' experience, and if so, why, and what would you like to see?

Thanks.

 

[gdavies]

the intergration would be suitable if on the front page you want to display threads etc, but pretty sure you could sort that without full intergration, as long as the forum lives i don't mind

 

[db]

do we really need a front page with so many bells and whistles? i mean, this is stafford forum after all.. surely a nice wordpress front-end, with a few relevant widgets (twitter, facebook, weather, adwords, radio stations, etc.) and a nice big link to the forum would be enough?

you could have a weekly article published to the wordpress front page, written by a forumite, which would be nice.. this could then link to a related forum thread, so people could discuss it.. i'm sure there are plenty of people here who would relish the idea of writing a blog/article for publication on the front page

i like the idea of having a scrolling widget across the top of something, showing the most recently uploaded pics.. how feasible is that with the aforementioned wordpress solution?

 

[MyCult]

One for the Admin.

How much of your traffic comes from search? How much is Big G delivering? If it's enough to worry about be very consious of moving content (threads/posts) from:

www.staffordforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=124297 to www.staffordforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=124297 (or whatever)

They are different URLs - you need to tell G about this.

SkyNet would work it out eventually but it seems a shame to waste trust/equity/rank the different pages of the forum have built up over the years.

Telling G where the content has moved from and where it's new home is will prevent any loss of Respec.

301 to-the-FACE & .htaccess all up in this Bitch!

</cult>

 

[Admin]

One for the Admin to the FACE.

Yes, moving to vBulletin would mean new, 'SEO-friendly' URLs for all threads, I think (i.e. it would automatically parse the thread subject to the URL).

I was already intending to contact you privately, MyCult, to iron out the SEO details (as proper, paid work) once I had got the new Forum ready to unleash, but any information you can furnish at this early stage to make the transition easier is very much appreciated.

 

[MyCult]

once I had got the new Forum ready to unleash

This makes me think you have a beta-site on staging somewhere. On a test domain. A secret test site that you are currently hiding from search engines via robots.txt (or any other way) to avoid the test site getting indexed. With the test site you will test functionality and site architecture before 'official-launch'.

The above statement makes me happy if you don't have that setup it would make me sad

By running to concurrent versions of the site you'll need to be able to test how the old URL's redirect and iron out any other bugs. Then after a very small amount of downtime you could switch to 2.0 and unleash the beast

I fully realise I am teaching you to suck eggs here Admin (with both the concurrent sites and the fapping)

If you need domain(s) | server-space | host-plan for staging I can provide. Happy to help here old friend just give me a nod

 

[gdavies]

clean up on line 59 lol

 

[Admin]

clean up on line 59 lol

Yes boss! Some kid had drank too much Kool Aid and had puked all over aisle 59. I've mopped it up now.

 

[purelymarkg]

Just registered. I would be hapy to get my developers to custom code anything you want just ask! FOC obviously

 

[Admin]

Just registered. I would be hapy to get my developers to custom code anything you want just ask! FOC obviously

Thanks purelymarkg, that's a very kind offer.

I would like to do everything 'in-house', as I feel it would benefit The Forum in the long-run if those of us that run it actually know how to do all the techy stuff/modifications ourselves, but we are definitely considering bringing in third-party support so will bear this in mind.

Welcome to Stafford Forum.

 

[gdavies]

does the in house include those mentioned on the first page lol, or does it mean a bigger selection of peeps that are well hidden

 

[Admin]

does the in house include those mentioned on the first page lol, or does it mean a bigger selection of peeps that are well hidden

As in, the people who created and maintain the current Forum.