Tactical Command boards - discussion

[Chroma]

Is there any way to tell what the actual problem is?

And might I suggest posting a notice on the actual Tactical Wargames Network homepage?

[AxelFendersson]

I've had good experiences as a mod and admin on PhpBB boards.

It is a popular target for bots to sign up to, but keeping them out doesn't require a vast amount of work.

[MiniatureReview]

Hi Cyber,

I have set up several forums and my favorite thus far is Simple Machines Forum.  As you know it is coded in PHP.  Simple Machines is working on the next version 2.X, but I am currently using the 1.X version.  I found that for me it is the easy to administer and adding mods is incredibly easy as well.  One of the mods I applied virtually eliminated any spamming from bots and others.  It is easy to add stuff like Google Analytics and Ads.  

The interface IMO is much more intuitive than say PHPBB.

http://www.miniaturereview.com/forum2/index.php

[horizon]

Old forum as archive.

New as Simple Machines.

[Flogus]

I wouldn't mind changing forum. If I can get my daily dose of Tactical command, I'm happy.

Invison forum are my favorite.

[Onyx]

As long as the old stuff is still available to reference, I'm happy for any solution that brings back TacComms.

I miss it... 

[Dwarf Supreme]

As long as the old stuff is still available to reference, I'm happy for any solution that brings back TacComms.

I miss it... 

Me too. I'm having serious withdrawals.

It might make sense to choose the best long term solution. If cost is an issue, I'd be more than happy to contribute.

[CyberShadow]

As an update to this.... I have been looking around to see if any boards would be able to convert the previous forums to a new format. Since the issue appears linked to the guest swarms, and because guests cant log in or post, I am worried that even having the old forum locked and available will cause exactly the same issues.

However, it appears that no other boards have systems to convert the current/previous TacComs format to something new. Therefore, I will double check this, but most likely will go ahead and go with phpBB.

phpBB is currently the lead candidate as it is free (always a good price) and offers a good all-round package. I am currently investigating the support system for the boards, as this can make or break a forum system.

I will post here when I have more news.

Thanks for your continued patience.

[jodrell]

As an update to this.... I have been looking around to see if any boards would be able to convert the previous forums to a new format. Since the issue appears linked to the guest swarms, and because guests cant log in or post, I am worried that even having the old forum locked and available will cause exactly the same issues.

As part of my day job I deal with large scale web server deployments. I think you have a couple of solutions:

1. Put the old forums in a private sandbox and use a program to mirror the entire site as static HTML files (wget should do this nicely). Then make the static HTML files public.
2. Put a caching proxy such as Squid in front of the old forums so that a particular URL gets loaded once and then cached.

I'd be happy to help you with either of the above.

[Hena]

I've never done a database transformation as such before. However I'm fairly used to parsing files with perl and using databases to store information. So I'm going to soon look into how much work would it be to retrieve the information from ikonforums format and put it into phpBB format. Now if I only had much time at my hands to do this .

[MiniatureReview]

I have administered PHpBB and feel it isn't as good as the Simple Machine Forums.  Both are free, but SMF seems much easier to administer and IMO looks better.  The other biggie IMO is when you add mods.  SMF's approach to adding mods is way easier.

I would also check out the newer version of SMF, you may find that you like that even better than the 1.x.  It is still in beta, but it looks great.

[jodrell]

1. Put the old forums in a private sandbox and use a program to mirror the entire site as static HTML files (wget should do this nicely). Then make the static HTML files public.
2. Put a caching proxy such as Squid in front of the old forums so that a particular URL gets loaded once and then cached.

3. Run ikonfurms with mod_perl, a quick look at the source code tells me that it should play nice.
4. Try using query caching on the MySQL database.

[Mephiston]

Does SMF support private mails? I don't think the SMF boards I'm on have that function, and its kinda crucial to that the Tac Comm boards do 

[Hena]

I have administered PHpBB and feel it isn't as good as the Simple Machine Forums.  Both are free, but SMF seems much easier to administer and IMO looks better.  The other biggie IMO is when you add mods.  SMF's approach to adding mods is way easier.

Well phpBB is free software while SMF is not (it doesn't cost money, but that is a different matter). Which is why I'd rather support phpBB than SMF.

I found following for conversion, but since I'm on linux can't try this myself: Ikonboard 3.x Converter. However you would need to convert the result to phpBB 3.x next: Convert from phpBB2 to phpBB3.

[adam77]

I think longevity of support should be an important factor choosing a new board. I get the feeling that SMF is not as stable a community as phpBB, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Machines_Forum#Simple_Machines_restructuring for example.

@Hena, I have much experience in programming databases so I can help you with sql scripts for having a go at ikon database transformation (at least the user details), i'm getting deja vu ;-)