Can realGM upgrade their boards please

Storm Surge · Post #1 » by **Storm Surge** » Sat May 19, 2012 6:35 am

It's 2012 and threads still have to be locked when it gets too big. Pure embarrassment.

Also, resolution, this isn't 2000 anymore and people have screens that are bigger than 800x600 lol, there is no reason why the board resolution should be fixed as small as it is right now. It is POINTLESS to have it like that.

Just stuff like this that shows how outdated realGM is, I am sure that free boards software has more options than this, I don't think anything has changed with regards to board software for 8 years.

Post #2 » by **blkout** » Sat May 19, 2012 5:11 pm

I like it being this small, makes it easy to read. I've got a 24" monitor I don't even bother with forums anymore that are any bigger than 3/4 page

ReturnofMVP3 · Post #3 » by **ReturnofMVP3** » Sun May 20, 2012 12:59 am

Biggest issue I have with realgm is that it's run on phpBB which is really a lack luster and really ugly looking forum software (imo). Personally I don't get why Vbulttein has never been considered. Those boards look pretty professional, clean.

A lot of the same features found but even more available and it's easier to use (once you get the hang of it).

If one day you take any consideration of mine seriously. It's this one :lol:

p.s: I noticed it says, "Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group." at the bottom. I really hope we aren't using phpBB version from 2007. Chances are their are exploits by now and this forum is hacker prone :lol:

MalikJoakim24 · Post #4 » by **MalikJoakim24** » Sun May 20, 2012 1:31 am

Yeah realgm should use vbulletin or ipb

ChicagoStrong · Post #5 » by **ChicagoStrong** » Sun May 20, 2012 1:58 am

MnM24 wrote:Yeah realgm should use vbulletin or ipb

Simple Machines is the best.

ReturnofMVP3 · Post #6 » by **ReturnofMVP3** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:03 am

Simple machine gives off a cheaper look (though it is free like phpBB), as for IPB the themes and plugins for it are sort of depleting as not many sites use it (no developers for the extras). vBulletin is $285 for licensing but I truly believe it's worth it and I am sure ad revenue from this site could make it fund able.

For example:
http://www.completevb.com/demovb4/forum.php?styleid=7
http://www.purevb.com/demo/?styleid=42

some pretty cool vB themes. I personally think those look more slick than what realgm has going atm.

ChicagoStrong · Post #7 » by **ChicagoStrong** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:22 am

ReturnofMVP3 wrote:Simple machine gives off a cheaper look (though it is free like phpBB), as for IPB the themes and plugins for it are sort of depleting as not many sites use it (no developers for the extras). vBulletin is $285 for licensing but I truly believe it's worth it and I am sure ad revenue from this site could make it fund able.

For example:
http://www.completevb.com/demovb4/forum.php?styleid=7
http://www.purevb.com/demo/?styleid=42

some pretty cool vB themes. I personally think those look more slick than what realgm has going atm.

If you look at KTT, Simple Machines is simply beautiful.

Plus the notification system in Simple Machines is great, you get notified every time when someone quotes your post.

Jaruff · Post #8 » by **Jaruff** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:39 am

It's really not as simple as converting the forum and calling it a day. I've had issues converting 500 member forums to different forum backends in the past. A forum of this size? Momentous pain in the ass. Plus, you would have to redo the main site as many parts of it link to the forums (posts about teams, team pages, etc). Oh, and on top of that, you would have to convert the current forum theme to the new software. That's always fun.

blkout wrote:I like it being this small, makes it easy to read. I've got a 24" monitor I don't even bother with forums anymore that are any bigger than 3/4 page

Agreed.

ReturnofMVP3 wrote:Biggest issue I have with realgm is that it's run on phpBB which is really a lack luster and really ugly looking forum software (imo). Personally I don't get why Vbulttein has never been considered. Those boards look pretty professional, clean.

A lot of the same features found but even more available and it's easier to use (once you get the hang of it).

If one day you take any consideration of mine seriously. It's this one

p.s: I noticed it says, "Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group." at the bottom. I really hope we aren't using phpBB version from 2007. Chances are their are exploits by now and this forum is hacker prone

The copyright line does not reflect the current version being used. That line of text is nothing more than a variable in a file. It has no correlation to updates.

ChicagoStrong wrote:
If you look at KTT, Simple Machines is simply beautiful.

Plus the notification system in Simple Machines is great, you get notified every time when someone quotes your post.

Consider the number of posts that are quoted in a day, in an hour, and even in a minute. That's a great deal of server load on a board of this size for a "luxury" feature.

ChicagoStrong · Post #9 » by **ChicagoStrong** » Sun May 20, 2012 2:45 am

Jaruff wrote:Consider the number of posts that are quoted in a day, in an hour, and even in a minute. That's a great deal of server load on a board of this size for a "luxury" feature.

Thinking about it, it would be constant crashing.

Storm Surge · Post #10 » by **Storm Surge** » Sun May 20, 2012 7:08 am

You can have alerts when somebody quotes your posts on vbulletin as well.

And is it really that much of a load on the servers?

RIPskaterdude · Post #11 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Sun May 20, 2012 8:01 am

Listen pal, this is a free place to post in, and we should be grateful to have people like Howard to lead us. If we upgrade the boards, then they'd probably just make us pay or have more annoying ads. And personally, I wouldn't like that one bit.

ReturnofMVP3 · Post #12 » by **ReturnofMVP3** » Sun May 20, 2012 6:30 pm

xx_skaterdude_xx wrote:Listen pal, this is a free place to post in, and we should be grateful to have people like Howard to lead us. If we upgrade the boards, then they'd probably just make us pay or have more annoying ads. And personally, I wouldn't like that one bit.

Their is nothing wrong with striving for better and thinking it can be free. In fact board upgrades can draw more users. Check out a free board posting site like "www.example.freeboardhosting.com" and check out a site like this. The free boards have less alluring looks and look cheap so less people register (for the most part) then look at this. It looks better so people register. If an upgrade to a more professional board software or even template where possible you could see users increase. The site already supports ads and the amount of ad revenue gained would cancel out the amount lost, chances are you'd gain more money.

It would be a win/win. Regardless the content on the site is here so I won't be going anywhere but it's all about getting more users in the end.

RIPskaterdude · Post #13 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Sun May 20, 2012 6:37 pm

Right, but I can't imagine the pain it would be to switch to a brand new board/template. RealGM has...how many users? That would take forever.

Jaruff · Post #14 » by **Jaruff** » Sun May 20, 2012 7:37 pm

Storm Surge wrote:You can have alerts when somebody quotes your posts on vbulletin as well.

And is it really that much of a load on the servers?

Yes.

xx_skaterdude_xx wrote:Right, but I can't imagine the pain it would be to switch to a brand new board/template. RealGM has...how many users? That would take forever.

Days, possibly a week or more to get everything ready. You would have to shut everything down and lose a lot of traffic, which equates to ad revenue. Converting every user and every existing post? Good luck with that.

Post #15 » by **Howard Mass** » Mon May 21, 2012 4:48 am

We are very likely to stick with the forums we have although we are planning some upgrades.

Storm Surge · Post #16 » by **Storm Surge** » Mon May 21, 2012 5:25 am

Jaruff wrote:
Storm Surge wrote:You can have alerts when somebody quotes your posts on vbulletin as well.

And is it really that much of a load on the servers?

Yes.

xx_skaterdude_xx wrote:Right, but I can't imagine the pain it would be to switch to a brand new board/template. RealGM has...how many users? That would take forever.

Days, possibly a week or more to get everything ready. You would have to shut everything down and lose a lot of traffic, which equates to ad revenue. Converting every user and every existing post? Good luck with that.

yeah but you can't just look at the short-term, you have to look long-term. Long-term a board upgrade might lead to more users and more traffic, whereas continuing with this board might irk some people and you could risk losing traffic or not having as much.

You can also look at it that you would have to upgrade these boards in the future eventually, and if you were to do so, you would have to deal with even more users and more posts than if you just upgraded and future proof this now.

Does realGM think this current board software is up to the standards that would be required in 5 years? I personally think it doesn't even fit the standards right now anymore, it is too old.

Would they rather upgrade the boards in 5 years time or now? It's up to realGM to decide if this board is going to be good enough for the future, and the upgrades that they are planning I feel need to be pretty substantial.

ReturnofMVP3 · Post #17 » by **ReturnofMVP3** » Tue May 22, 2012 12:16 am

Basically what storm surge said.

I'd suggest during the offseason (when traffic decreases) you could make a temp url like realgm.com/forums and start converting stuff while keeping forums.realgm.com open. The other url would only be available to use for the person doing the updates and admins to see. Keep your current ad revenue going and plan for the future. Like I said content is spot on but technology is not (forum software is evolving). I do think open source freeware software will cut it any longer in a day and age where people are making apps and plugins for profit. Chance are the market for new plugins is depleting for phpbb(based off an educated guess) and the look isn't very inviting either :lol:

The point that Storm Surge says that should stand out is that it's better to get it over now than never.

hermes · Post #18 » by **hermes** » Wed May 23, 2012 2:03 am

not a fan of changing, and most everyone else probably isn't either

i remember the last time they changed and there was an enormous thread full of people complaining about it

ReturnofMVP3 · Post #19 » by **ReturnofMVP3** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:38 am

hermes wrote:not a fan of changing, and most everyone else probably isn't either

i remember the last time they changed and there was an enormous thread full of people complaining about it

Besides a more sophisticated it can add some cool features. From the compression stand point a msql datebase can hold 100,000 posts at 140mb. Can realgm give up less than 140mb of bandwidth a month to enable private messaging for instance. Seems plausible to me.

Honestly an investment I do urge you look into. Take your time over the summer doing it and byy the start of the regular season open up the new look. After a while people will get use to it and I am sure like it.

Post #20 » by **dream34** » Fri May 25, 2012 10:00 pm

I don't think we will change forum types at any time in the near future. We have a good thing going here and a lot of people are really familiar with it. The forums aren't without their flaws, but they have a lot of positives as well.

I do think the forums could use an upgraded design though. It's on the radar, just a lower priority. We have been focusing a ton of our time in expanding the content on realgm.com. The International section in particular was basically non-existent and now features data on over 50 leagues. When we finish up some larger projects, I think it would be a good idea to name a new template. Users could optionally switch to a wider, more modern, template. As Howard said, other upgrades are in progress now, so you will be seeing some changes around here soon.