upgrade HS to vb4 or not?

forum options

  • stay on vb3

    Votes: 8 30.8%
  • upgrade to vb4

    Votes: 17 65.4%
  • migrate to IPB

    Votes: 1 3.8%

  • Total voters
    26

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Briansol

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vb4 has been out for some time now, currently on vb4.0.5 release.
They have announced vb3 end of life (last bug fix was just released).

Eventually, this is going to have to happen. Either now, or in a year or so.... depending on what exploits surface.

CONS:
A lot of people hate it.
I've seen memberships revolt over it.
There is NO downgrade. Once you're on 4, there's no going back to 3 (without reverting to a backup)
It's different-- stuff is in different places, new menus, etc etc
The gallery may not work (TBD)
other misc add-ons i've built or sourced from others over the years will likely be defunct. Only core vb scripts will be immediately available.
I will need to re-draw the skin.... and i suck at drawing.
I will need to re-do all the advertisements, and other tracking codes, etc.
it still has a ton of bugs, albeit most are minor, certain case, and other happenstance issues that aren't serious to running the day to day postings of the site. 100-500 bug fixes have been released in .01-.05 each, so its gotten a ton better since 4.0.0.
4.1 may need a re-do on the style. Still in talks at vb.

PROS:

The front end is coded better (xhtml divs instead of table-soup)
It has a CMS option, that some of our reference materials can be moved to for better organization.
It has better native facebook integration
It's supported and new releases will be available
I already paid for the upgrade last year, so it's a non-cost issue.




I got used to it, as i work on vb all day for a living.
It grew on me.

As you can see, most of the work is on me, and I'm fine with putting in the time.
But, I don't want you all to hate it either.


There are a few popular sites out there running vb4.
Here's some examples

default skin:
vBulletin Community Forum

custom skins:
VWVortex.com
Online Internet Marketing & Search Engine Optimization Forum




A 3rd option is to migrate over back to IPB. We started on IPB and moved over to vb as vb proved to be more secure and offer more features at the time. Since 2006, IPB has made wave lengths at catching up, especially with their v3 version just released a few months ago. Suffice to say, I've considered it. But there are some limitations with going to that platform as well.
It's #3 on my list. I think i'd rather stay on vb3 than migrate. It was a nightmare with 600k posts. I can't imagine doing it now with 1.4 million posts.

default skin:
Invision Power Services

customized skins:
Game Maker Community



Moving to IPB board will have massive re-do's. All new skin, all new back end to learn for me and the moderators, finding plug ins, somehow dealing with the gallery.... there's a lot of things to consider here. It may be rough at first, but the long term may be the best way to go.



So, I'm open to thoughts/ideas/suggestions.
I know most will say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".... and i've had that mentality for the past 7 months now. But, being on an old version with no more security patches available is generally a bad thing.
 
as long as it has a user friendly user cp button to keep up with you post and threads and a new post button that shows all new post in ever area, it will be fine with me. i for one hate the way hondatech is laid out if its anything like that it will suc lol. oh and i hope i dont lose another 1300 post count lol
 
I hate it. The UI took me a while to get the hang of, and even after I figured it out, it still sucks.

I vote to stay at 3.
 
I have absolutely no idea what any of that means, so you should add a fourth option that says "I don't care, I won't stop coming here anyway".
 
I'm down for moving to VB4. If we're going to have to do it eventually anyway then we might as well get started...
 
eh, if you have another solid year on the track we are on now, i say hold off a bit longer and let them fix the bugs they can fix til you actually want to switch over.

im no fan of the layout, but thats only because im so very used to the one here. its like home. but moving to a new layout wouldnt be a bad thing. just take a bit to get used to it.

and i sure wouldnt go back to something thats going to be a much bigger headache than necessary and didnt prove itself the first time around.



is it possible to be building the site with the new vb on another server or something (without actually changing the actual site yet) and getting everything ready, then when you are actually confident in the updates switch it out with the old one?
 
i do have a dev area set up at vbtest.hondaswap.com but it is closed to the public and several versions out of date at this point.
 
I like V4 a lot It's used at another site I frequent. I've been wondering when you'd update this place.
 
I'd prefer a jump to 4 mainly because of the security aspect. Also, if it is easier for you kids that run this glorious machine that is equally important to me. Not that I work on anything but if it cuts down on frustration and what not you guys will be more inclined to keep it running. Which does benifit me. Menus and what not being diffrent and such is not a big deal, I come for the people and the content. It really doesnt seem like its going from windows 3.1 to Windows 7 as far as a learning curve goes.

Although... Looking at the VB forum, it appears that we will lose the gold jew stars for rep though so that is a con. Unless the "badges" are one of the custom tweaks you mentioned.

I will be creating an account on the VB forum to play around with it for a bit before I cast my final vote.
 
i can tell you that Ct DraG.com the site im a mod on recently switched and it blows...not everything works right and theres always problems happening.with alot of downtime..feel free to check out our site and determine for yourself if its user friendly..
IMO stay with what you have now until everything is straightened out
 
yeah, i would hold off a bit longer.
maybe update the dev area just to play with it and see how it goes in tests.
but, if its having that many issues, let them work those out before swapping everything.

i dont want to lose my gold jew star :(
took me forever to get the damned thing. lol.
 
I say upgrade. Yes it will be a PITA, but it sounds like keeping vb3 will only put off the eventual pain we will have to go through.
 
I say upgrade. I played on some other forums for a bit and it seems pretty good from an end user perspective.
 
I've seen memberships revolt over it.
haha, our old Evo board; NorCalEvo revolted over it. We started our own forum on IP.
 
I say stay on vb3 for a while until you feel that most of the major bugs are worked out, then move over. I really don't have anything against the new look, but if bugs are gonna cause issues then you might as well wait.
 
bringing this back up.

4.1.2 is due out just around the corner and has a lot of nice stuff on it, namely a built in mobile/lightweight skin. It's also been getting better with over 1000 bugs fixed since i first posted this thread.


I'm leaning towards doing it soon.

I feel like anything I do now is a wasted effort as I'll just have to do it over again after the upgrade.

I found an importer for the gallery so i can ditch the POS photopost software
Importing PhotoPost Pro photos to vBulletin Albums « Balanced Braces
actually worked with this guy a bit helping out his forum via vbseo
 
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