I would really like a free software website I use to switch to SWF. Currently, their website is based on Drupal. You can have a look at it here:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/users
Maybe by looking at it you will be identify which version of the Drupal forum it is running. It offers very basic functionality.
One very important feature of the forum is that it supports the mailing list. A lot of people, especially those working on development, don't use the forum web page at all, I understand.
Do you think it would be very difficult to migrate to SWF? So far the sort of response I have been getting is:
it would be a major project, not suited to a noob
it isn't broken as it is
I will say one thing for that forum as it is, though: the captcha is way easier!
Let me know what you think about getting the website to upgrade!
Have any of you had a similar situation before?
Define 'supports mailing list'. SMF does not out of the box support post by email but it does have facilities to notify people about posts, and there is a very old (unsupported, doesn't work on current SMF versions) package for post-by-email that might be possible to use as a base of some kind.
Porting that to SMF would be a fairly huge task since I don't believe there's a converter for it so one would need to be written.
The CAPTCHA's not a huge deal, as I said in your other thread, most times we recommend not using the CAPTCHA and writing a question specifically for the site and its content (but there are issues with multi-language sites)
The real question is what do you hope to gain by moving away from Drupal and to SMF?
Thanks for your reply!
That is a real downer about the support for using a mailing list to post to the forums. I will have a hard time getting that past them. I couldn't write the code myself. By "supports a mailing list" I mean that the users ought to be able to interact with a mail client instead of a webpage. I think that is what the developers at that site do.
Until you wrote, what I had in mind was this:
Set up some webhosting of my own
Get Drupal installed and running on it
Install SMF and get that going
Get the other functionality of the original website going: it has a wiki and some other things, like a box which displays donations made to the project.
Maybe add a few more tweaks to improve the website
Ask them to let me have access to the data on their website -
Somehow migrate the data to the new website -
Check that the mailing list is going and that the functionality works
Invite members of the website to check out the alternative
Hopefully they like it better!
Somehow clone the new website onto the existing one's web host
Does that sound like a good way?
Would it matter if I were using the latest version of Drupal, if they were using an older version?
Would it be a nightmare? Haha! :)
By the way, why does it say non active next to the url in my post? Is hyper-linking disabled?
Thank you for your help!
That just means that you can't click on them, I believe. (The [nonactive] thing)
links are disabled/non-active until 10 posts....
posting by email is so 1990s...
I actually disabled all of my old newsgroups years ago and converted them to online forums.
... and with the increase in smart phones, there's no reason they can't just go to the site and post as simply as emailing...
I forgot to say, what I wanted to get was some better functionality in the forum. I especially want improved searching, and different categories for forum posts. That sort of stuff.
From looking at that site, does it look like they are just using the basic Drupal forum module? I know there is an Advanced forum module for Drupal, too:
http://drupal.org/project/advanced_forum
Maybe if I can't get them to go with SMF, I can get them to upgrade to the Advanced Forum.
Posting by email is also a very good way to get spam posts on to your forum because all the usual anti-spam methods won't protect you.
different categories for posts? You mean post tags? There's a mod for that... even if it is a silly idea.
As for search... improve search how?
yes, the forum can be used as the base for an entire site
for example, take a look at 40konline.com - all done with packaged mods
or this site - done with SSI and some custom coding...
By 'different categories for posts', I assumed that meant different boards - a feature SMF has, but that the other forum does not appear to have.
Post tags - I meant different boards in the forum for different posts. (I am not up to speed yet with the forum lingo.) By the way, why are post tags silly? Don't they improve search results somehow?
I wanted to quote you and other people, but there didn't seem to be a multiple quote facility.
Multiple categories for posts - I meant different boards
QuotePosting by email is also a very good way to get spam posts on to your forum because all the usual anti-spam methods won't protect you.
I am so glad you said this! :) Spam on that forum has been listed as a
critical bug! It has been like that for some time now. This might be just the thing that is necessary to get people off of using mail to post to the forum. That might make SMF a possibility! Great!
Quoteposting by email is so 1990s...
I actually disabled all of my old newsgroups years ago and converted them to online forums.
... and with the increase in smart phones, there's no reason they can't just go to the site and post as simply as emailing...
Excellent! What should I propose as the alternative to their use of e-mail now? Just using a web interface? I wonder why they don't do that? Just habit? Is there another reason why they should get off mailing to the forum?
At the moment, in my opinion, that forum is just a dump of posts. There is no organization in it that I can see, except chronological viewing of the latest posts. I would like to be able to browse categories of post, and to search for my own (or somebody elses) posts. When I post a question there, I would like to be able to come back to it later and use it as a reference. With things as they are now, posts just kind of disappear.
Also, I love the beautiful GUI of SMF. And it would be nice to be able to add karma to a forum user.
By the way, I have checked the portal modules, and I would like to know if there is anything like the block on the right of the web page that provides updates on donations to the project:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/users
I would love to be able to get this going!
QuotePost tags - I meant different boards in the forum for different posts. (I am not up to speed yet with the forum lingo.) By the way, why are post tags silly? Don't they improve search results somehow?
Yes, I thought that's what you meant ;) Post tags do not improve search results, the only argument in favour of them is for cross-thread navigation, which usually isn't taken into account much for search engine purposes.
QuoteI wanted to quote you and other people, but there didn't seem to be a multiple quote facility.
There isn't in SMF by default, at least not in the way you mean. You have two choices for this, you can either press Reply and get the full reply area, where all posts are shown below and you can insert quotes that way, or you can press Quote in the main area, and it'll push the quote into the quick reply (if it's open), but then it moves down to where the quick reply is, making multi-quoting a bit cumbersome.
QuoteExcellent! What should I propose as the alternative to their use of e-mail now? Just using a web interface? I wonder why they don't do that? Just habit? Is there another reason why they should get off mailing to the forum?
As I understand it, it's mostly about resistance to change and 'it's what we've always done', but I'm honestly not convinced that using email lists is that practical, I find it generates a lot of noise and makes it harder to concentrate on a single topic of conversation.
QuoteAnd it would be nice to be able to add karma to a forum user.
It's a built in facility however it is disabled by default. Honestly I couldn't recommend it, karma is not per post, it is per user, meaning you get users skewing the voting by voting for their friends etc.
QuoteBy the way, I have checked the portal modules, and I would like to know if there is anything like the block on the right of the web page that provides updates on donations to the project:
I don't know off the very top of my head about donation blocks in portals but even if there isn't currently, it almost certainly won't be hard to custom-add it.