Moving a very large EZBoard to VBulletin

[swampwoman]

Morning

I e-mailed your customer support with this question before I found this open pre-sales forum. We are looking for a more cost-effective board because our EZBoard bills are getting close to $5000 per annum. My question is twofold

Existing EZBoard can be imported to the VBulletin software, when this happens is it copied from the EZBoard and does the EZBoard remain intact after this process (so folks that continue to visit there can find out about the new board and be directed to VBulletin via a general announcement on the old board)?

Second, the ezOp of the board has abandoned having anything to do with the board, HOWEVER still maintains board ownership. We have 3 administrators that run day-to-day operations but don't own it. Does VBulletin need the owner's access to the board to transfer it to VBulletin software?

Thanks so much for your time, its really appreciated

[xmitchx]

When you buy vB you can download ImpEx which is vB's importers/exporters. ImpEx can import your EZBoard to vB no problem and will keep your existing data in tact. Its sort of like spawning a new board, you had one board, now you have two!

[xmitchx]

Im sorry I just looked at the status of the current importers and dont see EZBoard on there so it may not be possible to import...

[Colin F]

Jerry would have to answer that for you, as ezboard imports are done manually by him.
I think he's on vacation though (or was...)

[feldon23]

$5,000 a year. That's just insane. A dedicated host (a 1.4 GHz computer just for your website) is $90 a month from ServerMatrix and vB is $160 + $30 a year.

EZBoard is absolutely impossible to import/export by a user.

vBulletin staff need to run a series of scripts which, I believe, harvest all the data from EZBoard. vB staff also need full access to the web host you are transferring the forum to.

I went thru this process and it was very smooth. One thing you lose is that all posts still have the username that posted it, but otherwise that post is considered a Guest post. Users will start over with 0 posts.

If you want users to have the correct # of posts, then you can run a MySQL query each time someone registers to associate their new account with their old posts. I did this for ever user that asked me to.

[James Kojiro]

You know, you can just try to find some way to scam the boards into producing a sql query

[feldon23]

They use SQL on EZBoard? Who knew!

I left when they were running the equivalent of PhpBB 0.2. I just couldn't stand not having useful search and any number of basic options. Also their moderation system was a joke. I could not see the e-mail address or IP address of someone in the moderation queue so how could I decide if I want them added?

EZBoard... a horrible nightmare that ended in October 2001.

[Tailfeathers]

They only need an admin account -- ezOp not required. The old ezboard will still be there...nothing will happen to it. Only posts can be transferred.

What's your board?

[feldon23]

In order to close my forum on EZBoard, I put a large text box inside a nice border with an announcement, then I put a bunch of black space below it, and finally I changed all the buttons that let you post to transparent pixel GIFs.

[swampwoman]

WOW, thanks to ALL of you for the help, its exactly what I needed to know. Our gold community status doesn't expire until October 30th, plus we have about $400 left in the community chest, so it won't be transferred to new servers until the end of the year.

Here's the URL for the board, you'll have to register to view it - I am one of the admins on there

http://p218.ezboard.com/bjambands

The next step is when to set all this in motion. Should we wait to purchase VBulletin when it gets closer to the expiration of Gold Community? How long does the process take? We already have a domain, and an arrangement with another related forum to co-host the software as well as share server space, does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks soooooooo much everyone

[Shining Arcanine]

WOW, thanks to ALL of you for the help, its exactly what I needed to know. Our gold community status doesn't expire until October 30th, plus we have about $400 left in the community chest, so it won't be transferred to new servers until the end of the year.

Here's the URL for the board, you'll have to register to view it - I am one of the admins on there

http://p218.ezboard.com/bjambands

The next step is when to set all this in motion. Should we wait to purchase VBulletin when it gets closer to the expiration of Gold Community? How long does the process take? We already have a domain, and an arrangement with another related forum to co-host the software as well as share server space, does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks soooooooo much everyone

With all of the down time and slowness ezboard's servers have had over the past several years, you might want to switch as soon as you're sure that the transition will go smoothly.

[feldon23]

When the Gold crap came into effect in August 2001 and the ads went from 2-3 to 6-7 plus 2 popups per page, I think we started paying the minimum to have just text ads and maybe 1 graphic ad.

They forced my hand and I had to make a quick decision between UBB and vBulletin. I was offended at being held hostage for such exhorbitant dollar amounts at EZBoard. Llike you, they wanted many times more than what it would cost to have my own web hosting account and a full license to professional forum software. They used scare tactics to try to make it sound like running your own forum on your own webhost was difficult and problematic -- in fact it is a breeze. The choice between vB and UBB came down to the ease of customization and vB's reliance on a database. UBB at the time still relied on flat files which resulted in pitifully slow searching.

I know you're stuck with the Community Chest thing. $400 that your members donated to YOU yet you can't touch. I thought this was the most evil idea -- money that is yours but not really yours and designed to keep you from switching hosts for as long as possible!

I wish you could switch to vB sooner. You'll just be blown away by all the things you can do, from the customization of how the forum looks to all of the features -- full search of any post, full calendar, useful member list, and the Admin control panel isn't so slow you wonder if you're connected thru 2 tin cans and a piece of string.

[ManagerJosh]

I wonder if there's a way for your members to get their money back from what they donated into the Community Chest. It may very well you can get your money back and ending up having em redonate them to you to maintain your hosting ops and help pay for a vBulletin license.

[feldon23]

Can the money only be used at ezboard?

Yes, the money that you put into your Community Chest can only be spent on ezboard services.

Can I receive a refund?
Our Terms of Use state that ezboard is not obligated to issue refunds, in part or in whole, for services. The only circumstances under which we will issue a refund would be a payment processing error (i.e. if a duplicate payment was processed) and the extra funds have not yet been donated to a community.

[ManagerJosh]

I guess the only solution would be chargebacks... -_-"