archive idea

[anasci.org]

im not sure if this is already available or what, buy i want to drive alot of traffic to my forums and i have a fairly new community is there any way i can add another forums archive to mine to get more traffic? and can this be done without overwriting whats currently in my forums?

[Steve Machol]

What forums archive exactly are you intending to add?

[anasci.org]

A similar sites forum archive as of now i have no particular site in mind.

[IDN]

A similar sites forum archive as of now i have no particular site in mind.
You steal there content? That would not be ethical nor legal IMO.

[anasci.org]

I never said steal their content, that would defintely be illegal.
what im saying is that the ability to add another archive or add on to an existing archive without overwriting your current archive

for example, say you have another forum based on the same topic and you want to add that archive to your new site.

[filburt1]

Well yes, unless you have their specific consent, it would be plagarism. If you did have their consent, the cleanest method would require direct access to the other site's database which is undesirable from a security standpoint. The second best would be something of an XML downloadable file which would be huge, and the least desirable would be a scraper.

[anasci.org]

so this is possible?

[qxh]

Yes.

[Steve Machol]

Currently to do this you would need to import the other forum info into your forums, then remove the info you don't want. Anything other than this would require custom scripting.

[anasci.org]

any of yous got any links to how to do this with the steps and all

[Steve Machol]

You haven't really been very clear about what exactly you want. The choices are: (1) import the entire forum and delete what you don't want, or (2) write a custom script.

For #1, you will obviously need full access to the database you want to import, permission to import it, and it will need to be one that we have an import script for. For #2, you will also need complete access to the database, permission to import the data, and you will need to either write a custom script or find someone to write it for you. You can try asking for help over at vbulletin.org.

[filburt1]

Note in either case, this is a huge undertaking and nothing that can be resolved in one thread--or for that matter, for less than hundreds of dollars because it is unlikely anybody has the skills or time to take this on for free.

[anasci.org]

i see, well thank you all very much for all of your help and if any of yous would like to recommend a scripter to me go right ahead