CASTE FOOTBALL UPDATE

[Don Wassall]

It looks like we can post in most forums, but not in the main NFL one or Happy Hour. I am unable to reach my webmaster despite many emails and phone calls over the past several days, don't know if he's on vacation, out of business, ill, or just avoiding me.

CF needs a forum software upgrade. I was hoping this webmaster could do it, but it looks unlikely now. If anyone knows someone who is reliable and not expensive let me know by email (mail@castefootball.us). I've tried for years and years now to find a webmaster sympathetic to the cause, or at least someone reliable, without success. And the last two site designers were incompetent to put it kindly.

At this point, I think it's best to do away with the entire site except for the discussion forum, and have the forum upgraded. That should eliminate the dysfunctions of the past year for good as both the board and the rest of the site have been damaged too much by hackers (every day there's still at least two dozen who try to gain entry into the site admin page). Unfortunately I'm not a techie, and can't do what's needed without paying someone, and paying for the software.

I highly doubt anything's going to be done this weekend, and if the webmaster has blown off his duties, I need to find another one. Hopefully what needs to be done can be done relatively quickly as I know the dysfunctional state of the board is making it impossible to attract new posters.

 

[Heretic]

It looks like we can post in most forums, but not in the main NFL one or Happy Hour. I am unable to reach my webmaster despite many emails and phone calls over the past several days, don't know if he's on vacation, out of business, ill, or just avoiding me.

CF needs a forum software upgrade. I was hoping this webmaster could do it, but it looks unlikely now. If anyone knows someone who is reliable and not expensive let me know by email (mail@castefootball.us). I've tried for years and years now to find a webmaster sympathetic to the cause, or at lease someone reliable, without success. And the last two site designers were incompetent to put it kindly.

At this point, I think it's best to do away with the entire site except for the discussion forum, and have the forum upgraded. That should eliminate the dysfunctions of the past year for good as both the board and the rest of the site have been damaged too much by hackers (every day there's still at least two dozen who try to gain entry into the site admin page). Unfortunately I'm not a techie, and can't do what's needed without paying someone, and paying for the software.

I highly doubt anything's going to be done this weekend, and if the webmaster has blown off his duties, I need to find another one. Hopefully what needs to be done can be done relatively quickly as I know the dysfunctional state of the board is making it impossible to attract new posters.

I agree. I know vBulletin v5 has not received great reviews, but maybe in the past year they've fixed some of the issues with code updates.

Considering the present circumstances, the easiest route may be to upgrade to v5. I'm guessing the underlying database that's used in that version would be the same, so at least there would be no migrating of the data to a completely new type of database for a different forum software. Then, maybe address it for the long-term after several months or a year has passed...or maybe v5 will be OK.

I'm guessing vBulletin would have some type of support to perform or help with the upgrade to v5. I'm guessing v6 may not be that far off, either, fixing some of the issues currently in v5, not sure.

 

[Leonardfan]

Here is the upgrade process from vbulletin4 to 5:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/foru...verview-how-to-upgrade-to-vbulletin-5-connect

I would run that by the webmaster Don. Also, not sure how vbulletin licensing/maintenance is managed, if it gives you maintenance/support or if their is a separate line item where that would have to be covered (an additional cost not related to the software itself).

 

[Don Wassall]

Here is the upgrade process from vbulletin4 to 5:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/foru...verview-how-to-upgrade-to-vbulletin-5-connect

I would run that by the webmaster Don. Also, not sure how vbulletin licensing/maintenance is managed, if it gives you maintenance/support or if their is a separate line item where that would have to be covered (an additional cost not related to the software itself).

I'll find out in the next few days if I even have a webmaster. As of now it appears he's abandoned the ship in its current crippled state.

If anyone can recommend someone who is competent to migrate the forum to V-Bulletin 5 and delete the rest of the site, let me know. In the meantime I'll be searching myself. I think after that can be done the board should finally return to long-term stability again.

 

[Westside]

Don how much will it cost to upgrade the site properly? I will be down with a contribution.

 

[Don Wassall]

Don how much will it cost to upgrade the site properly? I will be down with a contribution.

Westside, I don't know. Step one right now is finding someone who is competent to get the job done, if my current webmaster is gone for good. It should be the cost of the software plus however many hours of labor it takes to upgrade the forum and delete the rest of the site, I wouldn't think it would be that involved.

 

[davidholly]

You ever thought about transitioning to a free forum software, especially now that you just want a forum? The recent versions of vBulletin have tried to turn the software into a social networking platform and that part of the reason I don't care for them.

MyBB seems like it'd be a good fit for CF.

 

[Don Wassall]

You ever thought about transitioning to a free forum software, especially now that you just want a forum? The recent versions of vBulletin have tried to turn the software into a social networking platform and that part of the reason I don't care for them.

MyBB seems like it'd be a good fit for CF.

I'm open to suggestions. However a big advantage of V-Bulletin is that migrating all the posts and member information over from the current V-Bulletin to a newer version of it should be a lot easier (and less expensive) than trying to transition to a different software brand. In fact I don't know if transferring everything over to something entirely different can even be done, so it would likely entail starting over with zero posts and no registered posters.

 

[davidholly]

MyBB has a merge script that converts your vBulletin SQL database into a MyBB SQL database.
http://www.mybb.com/download/merge-system/

 

[Leonardfan]

Don, do you host the web and database servers yourself?

 

[Don Wassall]

Don, do you host the web and database servers yourself?

No. I'm an IT layman, not a techie unfortunately.

The problem in the past year has been first that the Las Vegas company hosting the site (which was also the webmaster at the time) took CF down because it had been infested with so many registered spammers, a few of whom had successfully hacked the site, that it was overloading their server.

Next, I found a new webmaster, who had it hosted on a different company's server. That company also took CF down, with no advance warning whatsoever, in October.

A new hosting company was eventually found, but in the process of getting CF back online again the constant refresh glitch came along with it. Now the glitch has gotten worse and my webmaster is AWOL. I was hoping to have the board upgraded to new software in January anyway, so I'll just keep working on it. Meantime we have a crippled board, but at least as of now we can still post on most of the forums.

 

[Leonardfan]

Just any FYI. You can use the Advance search feature to get into threads in the NFL forum:

http://www.castefootball.us/forums/search.php

It seems like the issue is only with the link to get into the NFL forum itself. If you ever hear from the webmaster I would pass that info along Don. It may be a simple fix in the code.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I do hope a change that provides some lasting stability can happen soon. If the webmaster is intentionally shirking his duties, that is worse than pathetic. Going solely to a CF forum sounds like a good idea to me. I'm a big fan of simplicity, and most websites are becoming so crowded and cluttered that they turn me off very quickly.

 

[Heretic]

Last night I found some support forum that dealt with upgrading to vBulletin5 from vBulletin4 and one long-time admin and loyal user of vBulletin4 (and prior versions) said he tried upgrading/migrating to vBulletin5, but ultimately had too many issues, so he downgraded back down to vBulletin4 and then migrated to a completely different forum software called Xenforo and has had no issues and really likes it.

He said that he really wanted to be loyal to the vBulletin platform, since he was on it for 12 years, but was just having too many issues, so he tried everything he could think of first to make it workable before deciding to scrap it, downgrade it back to v4 and then ultimately move it to Xenforo.

Apparently, there's a migration tool that will help in performing a migration to Xenforo from vBulletin4.

Just thought I'd pass that along.

 

[Don Wassall]

Thanks, Heretic, and thanks everyone for your patience. Should have the current screwed-up condition of the board fixed and stabilized relatively soon.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Thanks, Heretic, and thanks everyone for your patience. Should have the current screwed-up condition of the board fixed and stabilized relatively soon.

Thank YOU Don for continuing to provide a place where us like-minded real men can gather & converse. :icon_wink:

 

[BeyondFedUp]

It's good to see CF back online! Hope to see all you guys back here soon. Maybe some of you have ways to contact the members and even those who haven't frequented the site lately. Let's get everyone back on board and the site issues I'm sure will all be tweaked out soon.
BTW, we've got a couple big games coming up this weekend to discuss!!
BeyondFedUp

 

[Colonel_Reb]

This new forum is pretty cool! I'm spending some time getting used to it and making a few needed changes to my profile. Once everything gets moved over here and the setup is perfected, I can see it possibly being the most user-friendly CF forum ever.

 

[Leonardfan]

I've noticed that alot of my updates in the draft thread have disappeared.

 

[jacknyc]

All my recent posts have disappeared, again.
Even the one I made in this thread several days ago, saying that my posts had disappeared.

 

[Don Wassall]

All my recent posts have disappeared, again.
Even the one I made in this thread several days ago, saying that my posts had disappeared.

It's happening to me as well. Webmaster has been notified, hopefully the glitches will be fixed soon. . .

 

[Leonardfan]

Any updates on getting the messages to reappear?

 

[Don Wassall]

I've asked for an update on that, and the inability of some to log in, including mods jaxvid and White Lightning. I don't think posts are disappearing any more, but it would be nice to recover the ones that have.

The duplicate forums have been corrected, the total number of posts listed for each poster is now accurate, and the join date is now listed. Progress is slowly being made.

Keep posting glitches on this thread.

 

[jacknyc]

Another FYI . . . I made comments on a few posts today in the T&F section. These new comments are not showing up in 'New Posts'.
I am using the Chrome browser instead of Safari.
Will let you know if these comments self delete as the previous comments did.

 

[Don Wassall]

Another FYI . . . I made comments on a few posts today in the T&F section. These new comments are not showing up in 'New Posts'.
I am using the Chrome browser instead of Safari.
Will let you know if these comments self delete as the previous comments did.

I see them under new posts. Maybe they aren't showing up right away but do eventually?