500Eboard Forum Software Conversion to XenForo

[gerryvz]

Rotating banners have been completed, thankfully. Whew.

Over the next day or two, I'm going to be tweaking the "redirect" system, so that URLs in threads on this forum that reference threads on the old system, are automatically redirected to the proper thread here. Same with the images. This will allow me to shut down the old forum for good, after I finish the photo albums and Wiki import.

So, there may be a little wonkiness until I get the redirect system perfected. Lots of coding happening. The forum here should be unaffected, and hopefully things are successful. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'll update folks again when I have news to report.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

We're 50% complete on the redirects. I've completed a successful redirect to all of the image calls to the old forum, to automatically redirect them here to this forum (where all of these images are already stored).

Still working on the URL redirect -- which will redirect all URLs to threads and posts on the old forum to the correct/corresponding thread/post on this forum. I'm almost there, but tweaking some code and settings to ensure this is correct.

This too is already partially done -- if you type in (or click) the URL to the old forum's main page: https://www.500eboard.com/forums it will correctly and automatically redirect you to this "new" forum's main page. But when you specify a particular thread or URL, I don't yet have the redirect configuration final.

FYI for you code monkeys, this is the code I'm tweaking this morning.

<?php

// Enter the full path to your XenForo directory here:
$dir = '/var/www/html/500eboard.co/public_html/forums';

require($dir . '/src/XF.php');

XF::start($dir);
XF::runApp('XF301VB\Pub\App');

If you are interested to see the latest status on bugs and issues with the forum, you can find it here: https://www.500eboard.co/forums/index.php?threads/bug-tracker-xenforo-based-forum.12969/

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

We're 50% complete on the redirects. I've completed a successful redirect to all of the image calls to the old forum, to automatically redirect them here to this forum (where all of these images are already stored).

Still working on the URL redirect -- which will redirect all URLs to threads and posts on the old forum to the correct/corresponding thread/post on this forum. I'm almost there, but tweaking some code and settings to ensure this is correct.

This too is already partially done -- if you type in (or click) the URL to the old forum's main page: https://www.500eboard.com/forums it will correctly and automatically redirect you to this "new" forum's main page. But when you specify a particular thread or URL, I don't yet have the redirect configuration final.

FYI for you code monkeys, this is the code I'm tweaking this morning.

<?php

// Enter the full path to your XenForo directory here:
$dir = '/var/www/html/500eboard.co/public_html/forums';

require($dir . '/src/XF.php');

XF::start($dir);
XF::runApp('XF301VB\Pub\App');

If you are interested to see the latest status on bugs and issues with the forum, you can find it here: https://www.500eboard.co/forums/index.php?threads/bug-tracker-xenforo-based-forum.12969/

Cheers,
Gerry

I am VERY VERY VERY PROUD and EXCEEDINGLY EXCITED to announce that the redirects are working for URLs embedded in posts, or that show up via a search on The Google, and they will automatically redirect to the appropriate thread that has been migrated to THIS new forum.

This is the culmination of some major work and is going to make life VERY easy for folks when they encounter URLs posted in threads that reference the old forum. If you find a thread for the old forum on The Google, it will link here. OVER TIME, the Google will also re-index all links from the old forum and re-assign them here. Having these redirects will expedite this process.

I anticipate that all photo albums will be migrated over in the coming days (about 90% of them are now done) and I'm hoping the Wiki can be migrated also within the coming days/weeks. That will allow us to shut down the "old" forum permanently and I can get some bucks back on the 1.5 years remaining on the old contract there.

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY !!!!
JOY JOY JOY !!!!

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

P.S. Test it out:

Here are a couple of links from the old forum:

https://www.500eboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3608&p=37627&viewfull=1#post37627

https://www.500eboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4752

 

[gerryvz]

Today, I am going to re-engage on installing the "Enhanced Search" capability by installing the elasticsearch software on the server, and re-enabling the add-on. There should not be any disruption to the forum during this process.

Elasticsearch just released on April 10th version 7.0 of the search engine, which is supposed to be pretty good. And the current version of XenForo that we have installed, is fully compatible with this version of elasticsearch.

I'll provide updates on how this is going as I have progress to report. This will significantly improve the search capabilities for the site, and will restore the capability to search for VINs and other search terms with as few as three characters/numbers.

Cheers,
Gerry


P.S. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning, I will be getting up early to hopefully complete the migration of the remaining photo albums from the old site to this site.

 

[gsxr]

Gerry, can the search results also be tweaked to show the most relevant first, rather than the newest date? (Or, have this selectable?)

 

[gerryvz]

P.S. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning, I will be getting up early to hopefully complete the migration of the remaining photo albums from the old site to this site.

All photo albums have been migrated from the old forum to the new forum.

51 photo albums that were migrated from the old forum, were deleted on this forum. This is because they were empty. I double-checked this to confirm that these photo albums were empty on the old forum, before I deleted them here.

The only remaining item to migrate from the old forum to this forum is the Wiki content, which I will do after the Wiki software is in such a state where it is mature enough to be installed. Right now (though it is getting steady updates every 2-3 weeks), it is still "alpha" software, and I do not yet feel comfortable installing it on this forum.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Today, I am going to re-engage on installing the "Enhanced Search" capability by installing the elasticsearch software on the server, and re-enabling the add-on. There should not be any disruption to the forum during this process.

Elasticsearch just released on April 10th version 7.0 of the search engine, which is supposed to be pretty good. And the current version of XenForo that we have installed, is fully compatible with this version of elasticsearch.

I'll provide updates on how this is going as I have progress to report. This will significantly improve the search capabilities for the site, and will restore the capability to search for VINs and other search terms with as few as three characters/numbers.

Cheers,
Gerry


P.S. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning, I will be getting up early to hopefully complete the migration of the remaining photo albums from the old site to this site.

The Elasticsearch is now up and running on the server, and the XenForo Enhanced Search add-on has been installed and made active. I rebuilt the search index a couple of times after installing and configuring it.

From what I can see, everything is installed correctly and running well, on the server. The Ubuntu "top" command confirms that the elasticsearch process is running in the Java 8 virtual machine.

There may be some troubleshooting and config needed in the coming hours and days, but at least we have the Enhanced Search up and running.

Cheers,
Gerry


Ubuntu "htop" view of elasticsearch running



Ubuntu "top" view of elasticsearch running

 

[gerryvz]

How has the newly implemented search capability been working for folks?

 

[IslandMon]

I’ve been using the search quite a bit recently and it has been very helpful, yielding the results I’m looking for. Having the links redirect to the new domain has been great too. Thanks again Gerry

Stu

 

[gerryvz]

How has the newly implemented search capability been working for folks?

I’ve been using the search quite a bit recently and it has been very helpful, yielding the results I’m looking for. Having the links redirect to the new domain has been great too. Thanks again Gerry

Stu

I've used the search function a couple of times over the past couple of days, and it seems to be working pretty well. I have not used the "Enhanced Search" button....just the normal search box.

I've attached a small screen shot that shows some mini-stats of the new search capability, since I implemented it. Looks like we've had more than 800 searches done. Elasticsearch just came out with version 7.0.0 on April 10th of their search engine -- I will probably "upgrade" to it later this year when it is at 7.1 or 7.2. It is supposed to offer pretty significant performance increases over the 6.x version. 6.7.1 (what we are using) is the last version before they went to 7.0.0 this month, but it is still perfectly good to use with no modifications for at least the next few years. I think the XenForo software can use any Elasticsearch version from 2.0 or later, which goes back several years.

 

[gsxr]

I think the search results are better now... it had been auto-sorting results by date, instead of relevance, so I had to dig through pages of results to find the old thread I was looking for. Seems improved now, I'll see how it goes as I use it more in the future. Thanks again for implementing this!

 

[gerryvz]

Gerry, we did not have an auto-resizer in vBooletin... if there will be one in the new software, that would be awesome. Too many people upload images from their hundred-megapixel iDevice and have no idea how to make the file small enough to upload. If the forum could swallow any size input file and spit out a forum-happy output file (say, 1600x1200 max in JPG format), that would be fantastic.

By the way, we are using ImageMagick on this new (XenForo) forum as the automatic image resizer. It seems to be working well and seamlessly. If you have any suggestions as to the sizes of things you want to resize to, let me know.

 

[gerryvz]

Wanted to give everyone a significant update: the Wiki has been imported from the old forum. This import is now complete, but the Wiki is not (yet) enabled for everyone.

As I had to do with the photo albums import, I need to literally go through EVERY single Wiki entry and quality check it, make sure that relevant photos are attached, and that formatting is correct. Fortunately there is nowhere near the same number of Wiki entries as there was photo albums to go through and import.

I am heading to Germany this weekend, and will be there all week through Friday, so I will try to do this as I have time. Once I have enough Wiki entries done, I'll open up the Wiki and it will be accessible through the link on the main forum page, and via a "Wiki" button at the top of every page that is between the "Home" and "Feeds" buttons in the button bar.

I'm EXCITED that this Wiki import is almost done. Once it is complete, I can FINALLY shut down the old forum for good and transfer the 500eboard.com domain name to this site.

Thanks to everyone for staying with me during this long transition. We really and honestly do now have a TOP-NOTCH infrastructure for this forum that is fully modern, reliable, secure, and state of the art in every way.

 

[gerryvz]

I have captured all of the "old" wiki pages from the old forum, and I can use this as a direct reference for comparison and correction with the imported pages, if needed. This is good news as no data will be lost.

 

[gerryvz]

I have "enabled" the Wiki for all members, and so you should be able to see it now. I have begun going through the individual entries to edit/fix them, but this is going to take a bit of time. I'll get them one by one. I also have some tweaking of settings to do.

You can find it at the top of the screen in the "Wiki" button, as well as at the Wiki link in the sub-forum list.

 

[gerryvz]

I recently found that the Wiki software I recently installed, due to a "bug" has broken the ability to redirect links from the old forum to the new forum. This means that the forum would return an error page when a link going to an old thread on the old forum would try to be redirected to the correct link on this forum.

I have disabled the Wiki and I have alerted the Wiki software's developer about the issue, as it is unacceptable. This is NOT a problem with the forum software. A lot of migrated forums out there use the redirect capability to ensure that old content is seamlessly and properly linked when when the new forum is migrated to.

Just wanted to let folks know, because it was a BIG FREAKING DEAL to get the redirects working in the first place, and something that I had to work hard on.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[Jlaa]

Thank you Gerry, so much, for looking out for all this accumulated tribal knowledge!

 

[gerryvz]

I recently found that the Wiki software I recently installed, due to a "bug" has broken the ability to redirect links from the old forum to the new forum. This means that the forum would return an error page when a link going to an old thread on the old forum would try to be redirected to the correct link on this forum.

I have disabled the Wiki and I have alerted the Wiki software's developer about the issue, as it is unacceptable. This is NOT a problem with the forum software. A lot of migrated forums out there use the redirect capability to ensure that old content is seamlessly and properly linked when when the new forum is migrated to.

Working with the Wiki software developer, we have found the problem and he has told me how to fix it. I have to go into the Wiki software files and modify some code. I will get to this later today, and then re-enable the Wiki after it's done for testing.

This should solve the problem, however.

Now that I'm back home and at my main computer, I am looking forward to getting the remaining wiki pages tweaked and as they should be (i.e. as they were on the other forum).

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

All,

The Wiki software has been re-enabled for everyone, so it should be good to go. I have gone through about 20% of the Wiki pages to tweak/correct them from the import/conversion to this forum software. A lot more yet to go, but we are making progress.

If you have them enabled, you should also be seeing "pop-up" alerts if you are using Firefox or Chrome browsers as to when you have a reply to a post, or you are a private message, or receive a reaction to one of your posts, etc. I had a small error with the cURL software on the server that had disabled this and caused errors, but that is now fixed.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gsxr]

Is it possible to add a "miminize" button to the Similar Threads bar, that will be persistent across all pages? Do people use that section at all? I mostly find it clutter and annoying. I mean, when posting a new thread it shows up in between the thread title box and the text entry box...!

 

[gerryvz]

Is it possible to add a "miminize" button to the Similar Threads bar, that will be persistent across all pages? Do people use that section at all? I mostly find it clutter and annoying. I mean, when posting a new thread it shows up in between the thread title box and the text entry box...!

I think there are some settings as for placement that can be tweaked, with regard to the Similar Threads bar. This is a useful function, particularly when doing a search or creating a post. I actually have used it a fair bit. I'll review the settings for it and see what can be done. It can easily be turned off as well.

It's a real-time search capability based on the ElasticSearch engine, sort of like when you start typing something in on the Google and it makes suggestions based on popular searches or topics it feels are relevant to what you are typing.

 

[gsxr]

I get the concept behind how it works. And in theory, it COULD stop people from posting yet another thread on something that has already been discussed in a dozen previous threads. However I don't know if anyone actually looks at the Similar Threads which pop up and reads them, and says "Oh, maybe I should read those before posting!". I tend to ignore popups, but maybe it helps n00bs?

 

[gerryvz]

One thing I will be doing in the near future, is I will be de-commissioning and turning off the "old" vBulletin server at the other hosting company, and moving the 500Eboard.com domain over to this site. This means that either the old or new domains will point to this server.

Longer term, I will move 500Eboard.com back to be the main domain that underpins this site. This is somewhat of a technical undertaking on several fronts to do correctly. When this happens (and it's probably 6-12 months out -- no hurry) I will be keeping 500Eboard.co as a "secondary" domain.

 

[gerryvz]

Is it possible to add a "miminize" button to the Similar Threads bar, that will be persistent across all pages? Do people use that section at all? I mostly find it clutter and annoying. I mean, when posting a new thread it shows up in between the thread title box and the text entry box...!

I think there are some settings as for placement that can be tweaked, with regard to the Similar Threads bar. This is a useful function, particularly when doing a search or creating a post. I actually have used it a fair bit. I'll review the settings for it and see what can be done. It can easily be turned off as well.

It's a real-time search capability based on the ElasticSearch engine, sort of like when you start typing something in on the Google and it makes suggestions based on popular searches or topics it feels are relevant to what you are typing.

I get the concept behind how it works. And in theory, it COULD stop people from posting yet another thread on something that has already been discussed in a dozen previous threads. However I don't know if anyone actually looks at the Similar Threads which pop up and reads them, and says "Oh, maybe I should read those before posting!". I tend to ignore popups, but maybe it helps n00bs?

I have modified the behavior for the thread-creation process, so that there are no "suggestions" of existing threads provided when you are creating a new thread. It is just the Title input bar, and the Body input area. No suggestions of similar threads anymore.

Similar threads are still included at the end of individual thread displays, as well as the "autocomplete" function when using the search bar.

 

[gsxr]

Just curious... does anyone scroll to the bottom of the page to read the "similar threads" section? I generally stop at the last post on the page and consider the rest as part of the footer.

 

[gerryvz]

If one is searching for a specific topic, such as say, "distributor caps" when diagnosing a rough-running situation, having the easy/automatic availability of relevant threads provided to you, makes the search process a bit nicer. Whether one chooses to use the suggestions is another matter, but I have found the suggestions useful when performing searches.

Because the suggested/related threads presented at the bottom of displayed threads are unobtrusive, I will not change if -- or where -- the suggestions are presented in this specific use case.

 

[Glen]

Just curious... does anyone scroll to the bottom of the page to read the "similar threads" section? I generally stop at the last post on the page and consider the rest as part of the footer.

Same here.

 

[nocfn]

I do that if I am searching for something....

 

[gsxr]

Gerry, any word when redirects will be fixed? Old thread links are 404'ing.

Example post, #22 here: rear engine cover / rear main seal INSTALLED - THANK YOU JONO

There's a link at the bottom of that post, to another thread, which is not redirecting. And I don't know what it used to point to:
https://www.500eboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3773

 

[gerryvz]

It got broken again when I deleted the old forum and old server a few weeks ago.

I am hard at work on fixing it, I have to re-program the htaccess file on this server from scratch, but I've been traveling this week and haven't gotten to finishing it.

When things are set up again, it will redirect seamlessly -- the redirections use a special table set aside for this specific purpose on the forum's database.

 

[gerryvz]

A bit of a six-month progress report on how the forum is coming along, since the server conversion and software migration.

As you remember, the "new" forum went live on Sunday, March 10th.

Over the months, we've honed a lot of things and the site is humming along very reliably and smoothly. Various software updates are happening on an almost-daily basis, as well as general system administration.

Things I'm most happy about that we've accomplished are as follows:

• Our Google search engine rankings are finally starting to improve, dramatically, as the Bing and Google bots index the site
• The "redirect" system for all of the old 500Eboard.COM posts is working seamlessly, and pretty much all URLs are being sent to the appropriate threads on the new forum
• Our forum's search capability is really wonderful, and quite fast. I've added some enhancements to this, that allows search results to be updated/added in real-time as you type more characters into the search engine box. The search engine is also used to make suggestions and offer related threads to what you are looking for / at, which is also helpful when trying to find information. This is a HUGE improvement over the old forum and its sketchy search capabilities
• The forum displays very nicely on all types and form factors of mobile devices -- phones, tablets, phablets, laptops and so forth. This has allowed us to ELIMINATE the old buggy, security-hole-filled Tapatalk software
• The Wiki is coming along, and we are steadily going through the Wiki pages to ensure that all of the "old" Wiki content is properly migrated over and displayed.
• The forum has been 100% absent from spam, and spammers. All spammers are being caught by the forum's defenses and held for further examination by the moderators. So far, the forum's defenses against spammers have been excellent, while allowing legitimate users to easily sign up and access the forum.
• We are truly the masters of our own destiny. We FINALLY have all the resources we could ever want in terms of being able to store images, files and plenty of data as needed. The forum is set up for at least the next 10 years from a technical standpoint -- all we have to do is just maintain and update it as we go along. If we need more storage, we just expand what we have, and we have pretty much unlimited expansion capability.
• The forum in all respects is running the very latest and most modern software and infrastructure. All of the software that the forum runs is actively developed and updated on a very regular basis.
• The site is generally pretty reliable. Last month we had one episode (not our fault) where there was a hardware error on the underlying server that led to 35-45 minutes of downtime, but the provider quickly remedied it and kept me informed as to what was happening. I have been very happy with the level of support that I have received.

 

[gerryvz]

I am happy to report that things have been working well with the site over the past week or so. No errors or other anomalies, just smooth sailing. It is nice to see this and not to have to scramble to fix any issues. It's one reason why I've been able to devote a little more of my time to the C126 rear suspension subframe rebuild

 

[gerryvz]

Interestingly, looking at current adoption of vBulletin in the world of online forums, its market share has continued to sink. Today, XenForo has more than double the market share of forums out there, that vBulletin does.



What's even more interesting, is that more than one-third of vBulletin sites out there, are still running version 3.8. This version has not been developed since the late 2000s time frame -- more than 10 years ago. Version 4.x of vBulletin -- what this site used to run on, makes up for around 60 percent of the remaining vBulletin sites out there -- again this version has not been actively supported with new features since around 2012, and active development (save for a few security patches) stopped around 2013. The current version of vBulletin, version 5.x, never even took off, and has less than 10% of the total of vBulletin installations.

This says a lot for the current situation with vBulletin, in that 90+% of its forum owners REFUSE to upgrade to the current version that has been out there for the past 5-6 years, with many continuing (in a very @gsxr-like fashion) to use insecure software that is 10-15 years old in a daily fashion.

All of this completely validates the initial direction (started in 2013-2014) and eventual decision (in 2017-2018) to migrate to XenForo.

 

[gerryvz]

More interesting stats and data. You can see that vBulletin peaked back in about 2013, which was when the development on version 4.2 effectively stopped:

XenForo Usage Statistics

XenForo usage statistics and trends.

trends.builtwith.com

XenForo Customers and Market Share

XenForo customers and market share. Learn where XenForo gets their customers from.

trends.builtwith.com

vBulletin Usage Statistics

vBulletin usage statistics and trends.

trends.builtwith.com

vBulletin Customers and Market Share

vBulletin customers and market share. Learn where vBulletin gets their customers from.

trends.builtwith.com

 

[gerryvz]

Today, XenForo released version 2.1.7 of the forum software. This is mainly a bug-fix release (the same as the previous releases we've done since March), and should be of no consequence for anything. We started back with version 2.1.1 in March.

XenForo is releasing pretty much every 4-6 weeks a bug-fix update, which is great support.

They are starting to talk about version 2.2 of the forum software, which will be the next release that will provide a major update in functionality and capabilities. They haven't yet provided any specifics, and I don't expect that 2.2 will be released until the fourth calendar quarter of this year, at the earliest.

If you are interested to see a "changelog" of what's new in the XenForo 2.1.7, here's a list of the bugs fixed.

XenForo 2.1.7 (Includes Security Fix) and Media Gallery 2.1.7 Released

XenForo 2.1.7 is now available for all licensed customers to download. We recommend that all customers running previous versions of XenForo 2.1 upgrade to this release to benefit from increased stability. Most importantly, this release fixes a security vulnerability in XenForo. Only XenForo...

xenforo.com

The forum was off-line for approximately 6 minutes while the software was being updated. I also updated the Media Gallery (photo albums) at the same time.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

It is now looking like the forum transition is going to happen TOMORROW (Saturday) morning, 4AM Eastern Standard Time.

This forum will be turned off as of that time. I expect that there will be no forum running for approximately 12 hours (if things go really well) or up to 24-36 hours (if things go horribly).

If things totally go sideways with the new forum migration, then I will turn this forum back on, and it will pick up where it left off. I'll have to do an analysis at that point as to what went sideways, and then re-schedule a new migration for the near future once any issues that come up, are solved.

If things go well (or decently) with the new forum migration, then this forum will be put into suspended hibernation for approximately 3 months, and the URL for this forum will be re-directed to the new forum URL (500Eboard) when that forum is activated and accessible to everyone.

The new forum should just "work," and your existing password and information should merely carry over to the new forum with no issues. You will probably need to use your forum password (for this forum) to initially log into the new forum, and then things should carry over and you can stay logged in as folks typically do with this forum.

I am very sure that there will be a "rocky" period of configuration and adjustments, when settings have to be tweaked and such. That is to be expected, and hopefully the most major things that need attention are taken care of before the forum opens up.

There is a lot of data that has to come over with the migration ... around 36 GB of files, photos, PDFs, avatars, and signature images. Not to mention the database itself, which is about 675 MB. The database is the most critical thing. I will be making TWO backup copies of this forum's database as a precaution as the very first step I take after shutting this forum down. Of course, I've saved all backups of the database for pretty much the last decade.

In any case, the time and date are set, and this is FINALLY going to happen.

Please have patience and be nice, during this teething period.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the migration to the "new" XenForo forum software.

After the initial migration weekend, it took a few months to get everything tweaked and set up, and we had a long to-do and bug fixing list.

I am happy to say that a year later, I am very happy with how things have turned out. Not only was the overall site migration successful, but it is supported by a cutting-edge infrastructure and software underneath. The technical underpinnings of this site are absolutely state of the art, and they continue to evolve and change as software and technology updates emerge.

We've conquered some big challenges, both technical and pragmatic. We've migrated the Wiki content, the photo album content, implemented a very high-performance and cutting edge search engine, migrated and then removed Tapatalk, and migrated the Members Map over to the new site. We've created a storage volume of unlimited size for all photos and attachments, so that we never have to worry about storage space again. We've created a daily automatic backup regimen for the forum's database; and all images and attachments are automatically backed up once a week.

Notably (and after a couple of false starts), we created a successful "redirect" system by which all links to the "old" forum's posts are automatically translated to the appropriate post on the new forum.

Over the past year, across the entire site, I've performed well over 250 updates of individual software packages, including:

• TWO significant Ubuntu software upgrades
• SIX upgrades to the XenForo forum software
• FOURTEEN minor updates to the php language
• FOUR MySQL database upgrades
• TWO significant upgrades to the Apache web server software
• EIGHT minor updates to the ElasticSearch software (and ONE major update)
• TWO minor updates to the ImageMagick image processing engine (and ONE major update)
• ONE major update to the cURL http handling tool
• FOUR minor updates to the phpMyAdmin database management tool (and ONE major upgrade)
• ONE minor update to the OpenSSL encryption software
• ELEVEN updates to the VaultWiki software (and more than 30 minor code tweaks working with the developer)

Plus many, many dozens of updates to the 37 add-ons that provide extra functionality to the forum.

As far as I can remember, the site has not been down for more than 90 minutes during the entire year (a hardware failure on the part of the cloud provider, last September). Approximately 95% of software updates that I did resulted in the forum being off-line for less than 15-20 minutes. Probably 75% of these updates never had any down-time at all.

One year on, there are TWO issues that I have yet to get finalized:

1) a proper "home page" for the site, that provides an umbrella page (which will be located at https://www.500eboard.co). This will be a site landing page and I am working on it.

2) migration of all of the old forum's "thanks" to the new site. All of the old site's "thanks" exist in the XenForo database, but I have not yet figured out the database code to translate and then "add" them to the existing "likes" that people have. A technical challenge that I have yet to conquer, but will at some point in time.

When we migrated a year ago, the "old" forum had:

• around 12,800 threads (the forum currently has 14,033 threads)
• around 180,000 posts (currently 197,630 posts)
• around 8,100 members (currently 8,671 members)

I didn't do my annual "State of the Board" post in July 2019 like I normally have done, because it had been just a few months since the migration. However, the last SOTB post from July 2018, had the following statistics:

• THREADS: 11,961
• POSTS: 164,778
• MEMBERS: 7,758

So despite the migration and somewhat of an interruption, we have seen continued growth and activity, meaning the site remains vital and helpful for folks. Hopefully the new software, after the initial adjustment period, has led to a happier base of members, and a more "modern" experience.

 

[gerryvz]

I forgot to mention it a week ago, but last Monday, November 30 was the 12th birthday of the 500Eboard.

March 10, 2021 will also be the two-year anniversary of the migration from vBulletin to the XenForo platform, and new back-end infrastructure.

I'll do the annual formal update on statistics around July 4th, like I typically do, but I think the annual birthday at the end of November is always worth celebrating. 12 years of continuous operation is a pretty long time for a web forum. I think the longest amount of time the forum has NOT operated during that time was a couple or three days.

If you count our predecessor site 500Ecstasy, which was founded in August 2003, a dedicated "home" for 500E/E500 owners has existed for more than 17 years.

Per the post immediately above this one, I am happy to say that I have accomplished the second goal, which was to migrate all of the "thanks" from the old site, to their rightful owners here.

The first goal, of having a landing page ("welcome mat") at www.500eboard.co ... I have not yet accomplished. I have all of the fixin's to do this, but I just haven't gotten it done yet. Perhaps something to focus on over the Christmas break, so that we start the New Year with a new home page instead of an error message.

 

[TerryA]

@gerryvs,

Congrats on 12 years of continuous E500E comradeship with fellow enthusiasts/Owners.
I for one feel fortunate to have joined 11 years ago and still look forward to dropping in everyday.

Your leadership is much appreciated.

 

[gerryvz]

@gerryvs,

Congrats on 12 years of continuous E500E comradeship with fellow enthusiasts/Owners.
I for one feel fortunate to have joined 11 years ago and still look forward to dropping in everyday.

Your leadership is much appreciated.

Thanks and yes, I've had to contract user support to @xfadmin, because I don't have time for it, and we seem to have some Android users who need special levels of assistance.

 

[xfadmin]

Taking a look at the forum statistics, it looks like we are going to hit a significant milestone in the coming months. The 500Eboard is going to hit 10,000 members, and also will hit 250,000 posts.

These numbers move the forum from the status of what is generally considered a "small" forum into the lower ranks of the "mid-sized" forum territory. Larger forums, of course, have 10s or hundreds of thousands of members, and millions of posts, but we will of course never get to that stage.

But, it is a milestone that this forum is on the cusp of graduating from "small" to "medium" size. I think this is very admirable for a niche car forum; this forum is already larger than many if not most niche Mercedes model-specific forums out there.

 

[JimmyAMG]

This community is great and Xenforo is a very nice forum software indeed.

Compared to phpBB, I find Xenforo easier to use especially with the SEO friendly URLS (was able to find your topics on Google quite easily when searching for pre merger AMG literature), and the WYSIWYG post reply box is really nice compared to the old BB codes type from phpBB.

My favorite feature of this forum is the reactions.

Anyway love the forum here, so much knowledge and quality especially for a niche. I got replies to my question within the first few hours and was shocked.

The overall vibe is a lot better on here than the larger Benz forums that's for sure

Thanks for letting me join.

 

[gerryvz]

The overall vibe is a lot better on here than the larger Benz forums that's for sure

We have many members here who are also very proud, long-term, and card-carrying members of the "larger Benz forums".

This thread should keep you entertained for a while....

This thread over on PeachParts, about Banzworld, is even better....

A photographic flashback for those of you who are dedicated LPM Benzworld members:

 

[nocfn]

DOH! Michael and Jim (aka mclare and Cascade) RIP

 

[JC220]

DOH! Michael and Jim (aka mclare and Cascade) RIP

Eh? There is an @cascade active on this forum(?)

 

[gerryvz]

Eh? There is an @cascade active on this forum(?)

That sounds like a question for @xfadmin to answer...

 

[JimmyAMG]

That sounds like a question for @xfadmin to answer...

Is the xfadmin the owner of this site or is he the dedicated 500eboards tech?

 

[gerryvz]

It's probably best to characterize him as more of an absentee landlord, or better yet a slumlord.

 

[xfadmin]

Some of you may find the statistics below interesting.

This relates to the rapidly declined market-share of the old vBulletin software, and the rapid ascent of this platform, XenForo.



It also shows how much of each platform's installed base is on what version.

Interestingly, a major percentage of vBulletin-based forums are still using version 3.8.x, which has not been updated for way over a decade. It actually is a major potential target for hackers and other bad actors, because the underlying software below it (such as php) are also so far out of date.



These forums never migrated to version 4.x of vBulletin. Many of you who were originally on the old 500Ecstasy forum may remember that it first started in 2003 on vBulletin 3.8, and quickly migrated to version 4.0. This was about 2004 or 2005 -- nearly 20 years ago ! THIS forum migrated from the "freeware" phpBB forum software to vBulletin 4.1 in 2009, and ran vBulletin up through version 4.2.5 until 2019, when it migrated to XenForo 2.1. At the time of the migration of vBulletin 4.2.5 to XenForo, it also was no longer supported for the past 3 years or so (since 2015-2016), because vBulletin 5.x had been released.

Take a look at the percentages of vBulletin forums that are still on 3.8, and 4.2, as opposed to vBulletin 5.x. It's the majority of sites. One example of a vBulletin 3.8-based forum ..... PeachParts. The PP forum is running software that has not been actively developed nor supported for more than 15 YEARS !!!



Now, take a look at the XenForo stats. Look at how many forums in its installed base are still running XF 1.x software, vs. the current XF 2.x platform. And XF 2.2.x is the current version of the platform. As you can see, XF-based forums tend to stay up to date from a technical standpoint and on relatively current versions of the software.

 

[Jlaa]

Some of you may find the statistics below interesting.

This relates to the rapidly declined market-share of the old vBulletin software, and the rapid ascent of this platform, XenForo.

[ATTACH alt=Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 08.15.27.png]162819[/ATTACH] View attachment 162823

It also shows how much of each platforms installed base is on what version.

Interestingly, a major percentage of vBulletin-based forums are still using version 3.8.x, which has not been updated for way over a decade. It actually is a major potential target for hackers and other bad actors, because the underlying software below it (such as php) are also so far out of date.

[ATTACH alt=Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 08.10.47.png]162821[/ATTACH] View attachment 162825

These forums never migrated to version 4.x of vBulletin. Many of you who were originally on the old 500Ecstasy forum may remember that it first started in 2003 on vBulletin 3.8, and quickly migrated to version 4.0. This was about 2004 or 2005 -- nearly 20 years ago ! THIS forum migrated from the freeware phpBB forum software to vBulletin 4.1 in 2009, and ran vBulletin up through version 4.2.5 until 2019, when it migrated to XenForo 2.1. At the time of the migration of vBulletin 4.2.5 to XenForo, it also was no longer supported for the past 3 years or so (since 2015-2016), because vBulletin 5.x had been released.

Take a look at the percentages of vBulletin forums that are still on 3.8, and 4.2, as opposed to vBulletin 5.x. Its the majority of sites. One example of a vBulletin 3.8-based forum ..... PeachParts. The PP forum is running software that has not been actively developed nor supported for more than 15 YEARS !!!

[ATTACH alt=Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 08.09.53.png]162820[/ATTACH]

Now, take a look at the XenForo stats. Look at how many forums in its installed base are still running XF 1.x software, vs. the current XF 2.x platform. And XF 2.2.x is the current version of the platform. As you can see, XF-based forums tend to stay up to date from a technical standpoint and on relatively current versions of the software.

[ATTACH alt=Screenshot 2023-03-05 at 08.10.53.png]162822[/ATTACH] View attachment 162824

Fascinating. I don’t follow this mkt but I am curious - why did vbulletin cede all this market share to xenforo?