Please vote - Patriotsplanet future

Undertaker #59*

Car'a'carn
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So as many of you know, we have explored the possibility of leaving patriotsplanet.com (owned by Chiefsplanet), and migrating to patriotsplanet.net (owned by me) because of the neglect here and our inability to fix it.

So I worked very hard last week setting up alternative boards, having to be creative to get at the data here, but we have it, all 2.6 million posts.

So I am looking for opinions from the membership, and I will post a poll. Your vote is not visible to the public. The options are:

  • Do Nothing - Stay here and hope it gets fixed eventually and doesn't crash
  • Move - to a carbon copy of here vBulletin 3: https://www.patriotsplanet.net/BB/index.php Same version as here, its comfortable and familiar. It is way beyond end of life and will not be supported or updated further. May be prone to security issues.
  • Move - to vBulletin 4 - https://www.patriotsplanet.net/vb4/forum.php
  • Massive upgrade from 3. Adds a ton of new features while retaining many of the old. Very customizable. Also end of life with no further updates. May be prone to security issues. Last version of vb made by Jellsoft.
  • Move - to vBulletin 5 - https://www.patriotsplanet.net/vb5/
  • Complete rewrite of VB by the new owners. Works very differently. What you see here is not very customized with colors and styles yet. Less customizable than 4. Not reviewed well. Is current and being updated, should be more secure, yet there was a zero day exploit on it just last year that completely ruined boards. Mobile friendly out of the box. Social media sharing and integration out of the box.
  • Move to something else (like Boston Sports Uproar) and lose our history.

I tried to be impartial in my descriptions. Please note, we could take a hybrid approach and upgrade part way, with an upgrade again down the road.

If we move, I will take this massive responsibility seriously and will be invested in the board and its growth and maintenance. If you entrust me with hosting and leading the site on patriotsplanet.net, I plan to reevaluate everything from forums and topics and SEO to moderation and bannings. So the leadership style may change, but I will never stop believing that the board belongs to its members.

If we move, we will need to decide on a day to do it. I will attempt to once again export all the posts from here for a new install. Once that is done, any posts here after that will not migrate. The entire project will probably take a full day.

Thank you for your time and opinions.
 
I don’t want to vote. I’ll just defer to whatever you choose to do in the best interest of the Planet. You’re FAR more invested and knowledgeable of the pluses and minuses of each option and are the one maintaining things so my vote goes to you and your decision to pick what you think is best.

Just like at work, when a different platform for our daily work assignments come down, we’ll adapt accordingly and learn the nuances of the new if that’s the choice.
 
I vote any version without security issues. Though U have tried to be impartial my take is you think VB4 to be the best going forward and I know nothing about the issue. In this case I will vote straight party ticket without even looking at the candidates.
 
Apologies. I am incompetent to form even a remotely valid opinion. And as a minor shareholder, I tender you my proxy.

I.E. as others have said, here and in your other thread, I am ready to follow you, wherever you decide and I am immeasurably grateful for all you do.

Thank you.

Cheers, BostonTim
 
I feel that the history of this board is important, as long as it remains on the VB platform, I'm down with whatever is decided upon.
 
I'll go vb4 but any will do if we can regain functionality.
 
I'm not super familiar with the technical issues inherent in all of this, but based on UT's description my best guess would be going with VB4 would be the best compromise to get rid of a majority of the issues that have plagued the current address without losing the good stuff.

Also, I trust UT absolutely to move the Planet to a better place even if that place isn't necessarily perfect or foolproof.

I'm optimistic about our future and encourage others to weigh in here.

Unlike 99.9% of websites out there this place still belongs to the people and I'm willing to contribute financially if that will help keep it that way. It seems that several of the members feel the same way, so don't be shy about letting us know how we can help.
 
I don't know the first thing about this tech stuff so whatever you decide is the best way to go works for me.
 
What is the difference between VB4 and VB5? Sorry for my techie ignorance. Right now I'm playing with VB5.
 
I voted VB5 because the others seem obsolete based on the brief description. I hope whichever option UT goes with fixes the popups. I miss coming here and that is the reason why.
 
What is the difference between VB4 and VB5? Sorry for my techie ignorance. Right now I'm playing with VB5.

To be honest, I have not delved too far into 5. It was a challenge to install and I had to do it twice. I just noticed that none of the political posts survived and I have no idea why. VB4 was the last version by the company that invented VB. They were bought out, and VB5 was a complete rewrite. Its mobile friendly by default as its more modern. VB4 is what I had Soxplanet on. There are not very many mods available for vb5, but it includes more out of the box. The look and feel are a lot different. They all seem to have some security issues and that makes me nervous, but no matter which way we go, I plan on automated backups.

VB5 is the current version though, and still being updated. Features might be added down the road. Some people love it after getting used to it.

There are a lot of mods for VB4, but not as many making and updating them anymore. A lot of people went away from vBulletin when vb5 came out and went to a different platform like Xenforo or IPB.

It's a difficult decision. VB4 is no longer being updated or supported. Its reached end of life. If we go with VB4, I will do what I can to modernize it for mobile. VB5 even has an optional mobile 'suite', but all it really is is a way for me to write our own branded APP for android and Apple. I would then have to open developer accounts with both and pay a yearly fee to maintain it. VB4 will work on Tapatalk for free.

So there are plusses and minuses for both, and there are probably a lot more I am unaware of as yet.

Whichever way we go, the migration is only the first step. It will take me weeks (but will be usable during that time) to customize the install for us. And troubleshooting. For example, this morning I added 'facebook connect' to the vb4 installation, but get an error when I try to use it. Yesterday I tried to add a mod for Twitter and that didn't work right either. But since these are temporary installs, I decided not to look into the errors further until I need to.

Sorry for rambling.

---------- Post added at 12:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 PM ----------

I hope whichever option UT goes with fixes the popups. I miss coming here and that is the reason why.

They are gone on the temp installs and those sites are already more secure than here. That's not to say they won't still have vulnerabilities, but having complete control should enable me to address any issues like that much quicker. I hope. I'm a bit nervous about it and carrying that weight of responsibility.
 
OK, I voted to let you decide.

Part of me says 5 is a better option, since it’s the only one supported.

Moving to 4 may mean you’re going to have to move again in a bit due to it being vulnerable.

On the other hand, I noticed that 4 has the option to open the last page of a thread and 5 didn’t. Not sure if that’s simply not enabled in the test page or the feature doesn’t exist.

Considering how long many of our threads can get, that’s a handy feature.
 
I'm not super familiar with the technical issues inherent in all of this, but based on UT's description my best guess would be going with VB4 would be the best compromise to get rid of a majority of the issues that have plagued the current address without losing the good stuff.

Also, I trust UT absolutely to move the Planet to a better place even if that place isn't necessarily perfect or foolproof.

I'm optimistic about our future and encourage others to weigh in here.

Thank you for the kind words Hawg. As a pillar of this community, it means a lot to me. I just hope I don't fuck it up too badly.
 
OK, I voted to let you decide.

Part of me says 5 is a better option, since it’s the only one supported.

Moving to 4 may mean you’re going to have to move again in a bit due to it being vulnerable.

On the other hand, I noticed that 4 has the option to open the last page of a thread and 5 didn’t. Not sure if that’s simply not enabled in the test page or the feature doesn’t exist.

Considering how long many of our threads can get, that’s a handy feature.

Yes, we could go to 4 and go to 5 later. My license has both.

Regarding last post - it is so unintuitive. I spent about 20 minutes looking for a setting to enable that and it doesn't exist. I finally googled it and

Click the square double right-arrow next to the last post information to go to the last post in a topic.

Which is located right next to the name of the last poster on the right.
 
I didn't vote. Do what you want. I like the site as is except for the popups when I use my tablet are exasperating. Everything is fine with the desk top. If you move or change the site, I will visit. If I like it i will continue to visit. If I don't, I won't. For the most part the software the site runs on is immaterial to me. The few forums I visit regularly all run different software. It is the people that visit and the tone and tenor of the site as well as how the moderators go about their business that matters. I expect we all can figure out the software features and limitations.

BTW, thanks for a great forum/site. Exactly what I was looking for when I left prosportsdaily several years ago.
 
move to whichever is the most likely to be stable and secure long term...
 
I voted for "Any of the VB options on patriotsplanet.net, I don't care which."

Really, though, whatever UT thinks is best.

I don't get the popups like others. I don't care about casino cash or rep; don't want to lose PM or posting history.
 
Go with VB5. You're going to wind up there (or with one of its successor versions) eventually, anyway.
 
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