Looking to convert to SMF but....

[Steelio]

Hello everybody,

My team and I are looking to convert our forums into SMF, but I'm not sure what board app is currently being used by our hosting service, so I cant look further into the conversion solutions that you guys already have listed. Can you please take a look at our site here --

Code Select Expand

http://www.divergentfans.com/forum -- and help us find the best coversion solution for this? The site owner's top priority is to keep our member base during the conversion process into SMF.

Really hope you guys can help us out.


~ Steelio

[vbgamer45]

The url isn't working for me

But google cache shows it is a ning.com based forum/site

[Steelio]

sorry, we've had a few hiccups with the hosting service recently

i just checked it should be ok now.

so with a site like ours, which conversion process would best fit for us?

[margarett]

vbgamer45 is most likely spot-on, at least the ToS are exactly the same (although I've never even crossed with that platform before...)

If that's true, there is no converter, actually
Do you have access to your database or is that a hosted solution on their end?

[Oldiesmann]

There are references to ning.com in the code if you do "view source" in your browser, so it is likely the site is using their custom social networking stuff. You can export the member data, but I didn't find anything on Ning's site about exporting forum data.

[Steelio]

good info guys, i'm checking with the site owner with the details if we have immediate access to the member database. i'll post back in here once we make headway there.

[Hauzer]

As identified by other members, that is definitely "Ning." I'm willing to create a converter for this software over to SMF, if of course that's OK (if not, then I'll willing to hold out) with margarett, or anyone else who had plans.

We just need to know if it's possible to export the database, and if so, we need a sample copy to create the converter; so we understand the structure of the database and so on.

EDIT: I've found this which describes the export process. If the data is exported as XML, then converting over to SMF may include another process of converting the XML files into MySQL (more work for developers.)

All the best.