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There are currently two sites I'm building which will require a forum at some point, should they pick up enough readers. One of them is due to launch by the end of next week, and will probably have enough readers to sustain a forum by around June or so.
The thing is, I feel a little uncomfortable laying down $200 for a forum system until I'm absolutely sure the site will recoup the investment, and that the forum's members are really dedicated enough to justify that the money was not spent in vain. Last thing I want is to start up a forum and watch it die.
This is why I'm thinking of having a phpBB forum on the site to start, and upgrading to vBulletin when I feel the members "deserve" it. I've read around and am aware of the ImpEx importer that will supposedly get the job done, but it's important that I know just how clean the import will be.
The potential problems I'm most concerned about are as follows:
And of course, anything else I should know before starting a phpBB forum with the intent of moving it to vB in the future. Thanks!
The thing is, I feel a little uncomfortable laying down $200 for a forum system until I'm absolutely sure the site will recoup the investment, and that the forum's members are really dedicated enough to justify that the money was not spent in vain. Last thing I want is to start up a forum and watch it die.
This is why I'm thinking of having a phpBB forum on the site to start, and upgrading to vBulletin when I feel the members "deserve" it. I've read around and am aware of the ImpEx importer that will supposedly get the job done, but it's important that I know just how clean the import will be.
The potential problems I'm most concerned about are as follows:
- How smoothly will attachments be transferred? E.g.: will direct links to them, or embedded images break after the move?
- Links: this is a big one. Of course, posts on the forum will contain plenty of links to other posts and threads. Will all of these break if I move to vB, and if so, is there an automated way to redirect them?
- Custom modifications: I will probably save the majority of "big" modifications (like a point-based reward system, that kind of thing) for when I move to vB, but is there any way to transfer the data that some smaller ones create? For example, I've modified one phpBB3 forum of mine to "soft-delete" posts, mimicking a similar feature in vB that I've seen at a site I frequent. Will it be possible to transfer these "soft-deleted" posts, or could they create potential problems?
- User groups: how does ImpEx handle those, particularly ones where members are automatically added based on certain criteria (like post count)?
- Permissions: there are a huge number of different types of permissions in phpBB, some of which are assigned to user groups and some to individual users. How smoothly do these make the transition, if at all? Would I need to do any manual work to get those back in order after the move?
- Private messages: my primary concern with these is attachments, actually. The vB manual states that all messages on a user's account are imported and stored in the sent/received folders appropriately, but what happens when a PM has one or more attachments in it? I don't know if ImpEx treats PMs differently from posts in that respect.
And of course, anything else I should know before starting a phpBB forum with the intent of moving it to vB in the future. Thanks!
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