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jar546

jar546

Forum Coordinator
Joined
Oct 16, 2009
Messages
11,051
Location
Somewhere Too Hot & Humid
It has been a few years and we have had many updates for security reasons and to work out a few bugs. We are now officially antiquated in the world of the web and software and are essentially in need of an upgrade of our software. We have worn out version 4 and will be upgrading to the new (2 years old) 5-Connect.

I am waiting for the IT people to evaluate the situation and hopefully keep the costs down. You will see a new look but the functionality of it will be the same with some improvements, including some that have been asked for. Overall this will be good for the maintenance of the site to keep up with changing web-based coding and in functionality and security.

As usual, this will cost money and I have been holding off on a major upgrade for 2 years but at the end of my procrastination to keep costs down.

Now is a good time to renew your Supporter or Sawhorse subscription if it has expired or go to Paypal and contribute money to info@thebuildingcodeforum.com

Thanks,

jeff
 
jar546 said:
It has been a few years and we have had many updates for security reasons and to work out a few bugs. We are now officially antiquated in the world of the web and software and are essentially in need of an upgrade of our software. We have worn out version 4 and will be upgrading to the new (2 years old) 5-Connect.I am waiting for the IT people to evaluate the situation and hopefully keep the costs down. You will see a new look but the functionality of it will be the same with some improvements, including some that have been asked for. Overall this will be good for the maintenance of the site to keep up with changing web-based coding and in functionality and security.

As usual, this will cost money and I have been holding off on a major upgrade for 2 years but at the end of my procrastination to keep costs down.

Now is a good time to renew your Supporter or Sawhorse subscription if it has expired or go to Paypal and contribute money to info@thebuildingcodeforum.com

Thanks,

jeff
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How about a box on the subscription page, for a go fund the software box, for people to contribute, plus the will see it costs to run the site????
 
Jeff:

Don't go to vBulletin 5, it's a disaster, theier are other CMS platforms that are much better, to read about vBulletin's problems read this. The Journal of Light Construction went to 5 in August and they still can't make it work while losing most of their members, why do you have to upgrade anyway?
 
conarb said:
Jeff:Don't go to vBulletin 5, it's a disaster, theier are other CMS platforms that are much better, to read about vBulletin's problems read this. The Journal of Light Construction went to 5 in August and they still can't make it work while losing most of their members, why do you have to upgrade anyway?
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The crank handle on the server broke.
 
conarb said:
Jeff:Don't go to vBulletin 5, it's a disaster, theier are other CMS platforms that are much better, to read about vBulletin's problems read this. The Journal of Light Construction went to 5 in August and they still can't make it work while losing most of their members, why do you have to upgrade anyway?
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vBulletin 5 has been out for over 2 years and the issue with the upgrade is understanding the layout internally. The bugs have been worked out but you need to know how to use it because the internal program has been completely rewritten but offers more usability than what we have. I started looking into other programs too but the transfer of data is the biggest concern.
 
Whatever the 'powers that be' decide will be fine as long as the board stays up and running.
 
jar546 said:
vBulletin 5 has been out for over 2 years and the issue with the upgrade is understanding the layout internally. The bugs have been worked out but you need to know how to use it because the internal program has been completely rewritten but offers more usability than what we have. I started looking into other programs too but the transfer of data is the biggest concern.
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Jeff:

The JLC came back online on August 18th after being down a few days for the downgrade, I started this thread when I saw it was back up and there was no activity, there was still activity on that thread yesterday four months later, I'd say the majority of the members have stopped posting and have gone elsewhere. As or now there are 3 users and 90 guests logged in, they used to have about 20 times that number of users logged in during the daytime.

Again, why do you need to do this? If it ain't broke don't fix it. It's a free forum, I'm thinking of dropping out of there, it's too hard to use, lacks a lot of features of the old program, and most of the better contractors have left leaving mostly small remodelers.
 
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conarb said:
Jeff:The JLC came back online on August 18th after being down a few days for the downgrade, I started this thread when I saw it was back up and there was no activity, there was still activity on that thread yesterday four months later, I'd say the majority of the members have stopped posting and have gone elsewhere. As or now there are 3 users and 90 guests logged in, they used to have about 20 times that number of users logged in during the daytime.

Again, why do you need to do this? If it ain't broke don't fix it. It's a free forum, I'm thinking of dropping out of there, it's too hard to use, lacks a lot of features of the old program, and most of the better contractors have left leaving mostly small remodelers.
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We can't be stagnant which we are right now. The usability of the forum is behind today's technology and I can't sit back and become obsolete while the rest of the world flies by. Change is good and behind the scenes I am getting email and PM requests to do things that we currently cannot. In addition, I am losing money with banner advertising due to the limitations of the software so in essence, not changing or upgrading is costing us money,

Now I have a question for you. Exactly what were you able to do on the old software at JLC that you are unable to do now?
 
jar546 said:
We can't be stagnant which we are right now. The usability of the forum is behind today's technology and I can't sit back and become obsolete while the rest of the world flies by. Change is good and behind the scenes I am getting email and PM requests to do things that we currently cannot. In addition, I am losing money with banner advertising due to the limitations of the software so in essence, not changing or upgrading is costing us money,Now I have a question for you. Exactly what were you able to do on the old software at JLC that you are unable to do now?
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Jeff:

The reason I posted the link above is so you could follow the last 4 months of complaints, if you didn't read through at least read through December's complaints, apparently some people can't get in at all anymore, maybe it's the browser they are using. All I can say is it takes a long time to post anything with error messages popping up all the time, refusing to take posts, then posting them later after you have posted something else. They claim they have several people working on it to try to make it more user friendly and it is "usable" now but not nearly as good as before what they call the "downgrade." I use a Firefox UBB extension to use UBB code but it doesn't work well at all now. At the end of that thread I just posted this question: "Does JLC know how many posters they have lost, or how much activity has dropped since the "downgrade"? We'll see if we get an answer. If they had a program like your "Sawhorse" I doubt that many wold continue to pay, I know I wouldn't.
 
conarb said:
Jeff:The reason I posted the link above is so you could follow the last 4 months of complaints, if you didn't read through at least read through December's complaints, apparently some people can't get in at all anymore, maybe it's the browser they are using. All I can say is it takes a long time to post anything with error messages popping up all the time, refusing to take posts, then posting them later after you have posted something else. They claim they have several people working on it to try to make it more user friendly and it is "usable" now but not nearly as good as before what they call the "downgrade." I use a Firefox UBB extension to use UBB code but it doesn't work well at all now. At the end of that thread I just posted this question: "Does JLC know how many posters they have lost, or how much activity has dropped since the "downgrade"? We'll see if we get an answer. If they had a program like your "Sawhorse" I doubt that many wold continue to pay, I know I wouldn't.
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I just signed back up with JLC (i did belong a long time ago), posted twice including uploading a picture. I am not seeing any problems just yet. Using Chrome as my browser.
 
I took a look at JLC forum....not impressed at all. They have lots of adds, which to be honest, wouldn't bother me. But the rest of it looks drab and unappealing.
 
ICE said:
I took a look at JLC forum....not impressed at all. They have lots of adds, which to be honest, wouldn't bother me. But the rest of it looks drab and unappealing.
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Tiger, it was a lot better before the upgrade, and the upgrade itself was a lot worse when it was implemented a few years ago. It seems like each "upgrade" is both an attempt to monetize the forum and also make the forum more user friendly to social media and smaller format devices. In the JLC's case there was not much we could say being a free site, in this case we (at least some of us) pay for it.

Maybe we should have a vote, pay more money and keep it like it is, or go to vBulletin 5 and make it free.
 
I personally, do not have the time, nor expertise, to research forum databases. If Jeff feels we need to make a jump, I am all in, and will throw dollars at it. Go for it Jeff.
 
Now is a good time to renew your Supporter or Sawhorse subscription if it has expired or go to Paypal and contribute money to info@thebuildingcodeforum.com

Thanks,

jeff

Ok time to get off the horse, empty the piggy bank,

And help update the software!!!!

How old are we?

Keep the site going!!!!
 
So here is where we are one last time:

*We will not be changing software companies because we are with the leader of the industry that has a phone number you can actually call and get answers and help. The 2nd best choice only does business via email which is inexcusably inefficient.

*The upgrade in question is currently running on over 700 forums on their cloud service, countless other sites like ours that have their own server and is over 2 years old. The bugs have been worked out but due to changes is browsers and OS's, like ALL software, it will always have to update to fix NEW bugs.

*We will lose the ability for users to have photo albums but I am not aware of anyone that uses that except me anyway. Posting on threads and attaching photos is still a basic function that won't change.

*I signed up on another forum that uses the upgrade vB 5 Connect and it worked fine for me, including attachments/photos.

So, the upgrade will take place in the near future and I DO expect to have some initial bugs in our system that we will have to work out. The basic layout and way you read and post will not change but the look will be more modern and it will help us to be more url friendly and SEO friendly which is important for growth.

This is a free forum for 98% of the users and the 2% that have stepped up to the plate deserve to have the best out there. We have a fantastic, professional group that I am more than proud of and even more thankful for due to the amazing amount of information that this forum holds.

Jeff
 
I previously participated in JLC, forum traffic slithered away and so have I. Every now and again I'll go on but not often.

I appreciate and support this forum, there's a ton of work put in that we'll never see and most I don't want to even know. Jeff and others have done a great job and I support what they feel is necessary.
 
I noticed a new heading under forum statistics called Active Members. What constitutes "active"
 
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