Next steps for VVO

[Monica Dream]

What are the cost and viability for ditching Xenforo and going pure open source? Don't put too much effort into this, I'm asking out of sheer curiosity, as I'm reasonably certain open source had already been considered and put to one side for various valid reasons.

I'd second this, after seeing the cost of keeping up the xeno forum -I mean, from what I'm reading here we aren't using a whole heck of a lot of the bells and whistles that comes along with it -are we?

IMO the main priorities are security, something current and the ability to change theme and add emojis; at least from my perspective.

 

[NyteWytch]

Every time Sid's raegquit I've never understood what his beef was. This time it's even more inexplicable than usual. Particularly the claim he made above -it's literally unreal, as in -it is not something that was said.

I think you don't get your VVO forum wings until you make Sid flounce. I managed to get slu and vvo wings thus far. Thanks Joshua et al for everything you guys have done to keep the community up and moving ahead. As much as Cris would bitch about running the place he could never let it go, even from mass prompting from us all sounds like.

Rest in power Jefe!

 

[Lexxi]

I'd second this, after seeing the cost of keeping up the xeno forum -I mean, from what I'm reading here we aren't using a whole heck of a lot of the bells and whistles that comes along with it -are we?

IMO the main priorities are security, something current and the ability to change theme and add emojis; at least from my perspective.

My main priority is adding emoji's that are cats displaying different emotions. Like cat (liking a post, is image of a cat licking own butt); dislike cat (dislike post, is image of cat making that puke face); etc. etc.
Makes cat face for lack of more cat faces.

 

[mixvio]

I don't want to single anybody out but I personally don't want Sid, or anyone else, to feel piled on or encouraged to leave even if I'm inexplicably confused by the issue and did my best to address the concerns that were vocalised. If he wants to cool off and hopefully talk, or let it go, I'm open to that, otherwise I don't really want to encourage "so and so always does this," pretty please.

Unless we're talking about Prokofy, who wrote an obituary about Cristiano that in typical fashion is mostly about Prokofy. I did get a several-sentence cameo where the literally-twenty-years-old fabrication that I'd sent him photos of his door in RL or stalked him about having an umbrella were repeated again. What a sad timeline that someone like Cristiano would be taken from it yet Prokofy still has whatever passes for blood pumping through whatever passes for that creature's shrivelled, calcified heart.

 

[Free]

Whoa, did someone do something, for a while there I was getting:

ping: cannot resolve www.virtualverse.one: Unknown host

Nothing happening on our side. In fact, I've been doing only very non-admin stuff tonight.

 

[Monica Dream]

If he wants to cool off and hopefully talk, or let it go, I'm open to that, otherwise I don't really want to encourage "so and so always does this," pretty please.

My annoyance on the subject has nothing to do with you, so don't sweat it. Forum dynamics go brrrr

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

So ecerybody that could not be bothered for years to be around VVO (mind you talking about VVO no other sites Cris was involved with) and can start playing the first violin, as if nothing has happened and as if it is all natural?

Look at Luci, storms in and declares that Joshua can be the only admin.
Duh.
Look at Couldbe, jumps in and calls my critisism mud slinging.
If you want to see mud slinging look back at the posts from Joshua in the past.
Why do others have to pretend that it never happened and never will happen again?

It is sad to see what is happening.
But no longer my beer.
A thanks to all who did stay active here over the years. I liked your posts and stories. I hope that things will not go along the path that I for see for the future. Don't let nowadays strangers from the past (for this site), who could not care less for years and years, trample over you because they need a new toy to play with. It is your VVO, not theirs.

No need to respond on this. I will not show up any longer on VVO for a long time.
If Someone wants to contact me, I'm Harrie Belmonte in Second Life.

Sid, please don't take this the wrong way. I respect you, and I generally enjoy reading your posts here. But I am at a serious loss to understand what it is you're wanting to accomplish here. I get that there is some kind of rift between you and Joshua, for whatever reason. And I can understand your concern about someone who has been absent for so long suddenly swooping in and becoming the VVO Dictator. But that's not what's happening here. Joshua has done the work of pulling the forum out of immediate danger, and has handed control to three very capable and very active members of our community and stepped aside. So I really don't understand why the continued animosity.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Whoa, did someone do something, for a while there I was getting:

ping: cannot resolve www.virtualverse.one: Unknown host

But it's back now.

DNS. It's always DNS.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

What are the cost and viability for ditching Xenforo and going pure open source? Don't put too much effort into this, I'm asking out of sheer curiosity, as I'm reasonably certain open source had already been considered and put to one side for various valid reasons.

As it is open source this just takes some time as well blood, sweat and tears.

There are several long standing and well maintained open source forum engines out there, all of them have there own strengths and drawbacks. Some are more modern, others do feel more traditional.

The issue with migrating to another platform is that a) the new software will off course behave differently, so there will be a learning curve and b) some stuff maybe will not get over. Like custom reactions, reaction points or whatever. So getting most over is normally quite easy, but getting most stuff over people do care about takes some programming, rinse, wash, repeat. We've got about 293K of posts and 1.9K users. Technically the migration to a new engine is done quickly enough, but the finishing is what really takes time and attention then.

There are forum engines around, which ship with official migration scripts from Xenforo to them. Since this script comes from the dev then it is quite well honed out and does a lot of stuff. Discourse, which I setup for a while and you might remember, is one of them. Discourse is everywhere and totally opensource. It comes for example with light and dark theme built in free of charge, while the dark theme here is $60. The probelm with Discourse is not if it has a function, but more likely where to find it.

Then there is NodeBB, which is a little bit more traditional. Other stuff is e.g. Flarum, where community scripts are around but too much core functionality is a plugin only. Or of course the granddaddy of them all, phpBB. phpBB has no such thing from , so there you've got to find scripts on Github and figure out what to do by yourself. Why? Because people normally go the other way around: phpBB to Xenforo, almost nobody is going the other way. phpBB also feels really dated compared to XenForo. Also the admin panel in phpBB is a nightmare for a forum as big as this one. It was never meant to deal with this number of users and posts well.

Our consensus is to make

a) first the move then
b) figure out how to ensure a secure run in the future.

For the users of course keeping Xenforo is the easiest and most convenient option. So we are first looking at this. This of course means not only looking at the payments this year, but take reoccuring payments into mind as well. Also to consider the possibilty that funding might deteriorate over time as well.

But I do agree that rebasing this all on a modern open source engine would really take a lot of pressure off all shoulders, and make stuff much easier in the long run.

If I would be some kind of benevolent dictator I would really make the open source move and ditch Xenforo completely, because it makes so much stuff so much easier after that and for the future.

There's also a big thread in the official forums of Xenforo, where a lot of disgruntled licensees do complain about lack of everything from the company behind: lack of momentum, communication, updates etc. There are threads like that all over the web.

Just take a look for yourself: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/if-xenforos-finished-whats-next.234257/

But it's not about me, it's about what the community wants.

 

[Couldbe Yue]

Dude, as long as you've been around if you don't know Lucifer and the history which legitimately made him a part of this community then that is on you. And you alone.


Every time Sid's raegquit I've never understood what his beef was. This time it's even more inexplicable than usual. Particularly the claim he made above -it's literally unreal, as in -it is not something that was said.

I have no idea wtf is going on here but someone who was not even in sl at the time Joshua left decided to vomit venom at me over him. I really do hate some SL denizens sometimes.

 

[Soen Eber]

As it is open source this just takes some time as well blood, sweat and tears.

There are several long standing and well maintained open source forum engines out there, all of them have there own strengths and drawbacks. Some are more modern, others do feel more traditional.

The issue with migrating to another platform is that a) the new software will off course behave differently, so there will be a learning curve and b) some stuff maybe will not get over. Like custom reactions, reaction points or whatever. So getting most over is normally quite easy, but getting most stuff over people do care about takes some programming, rinse, wash, repeat. We've got about 293K of posts and 1.9K users. Technically the migration to a new engine is done quickly enough, but the finishing is what really takes time and attention then.

There are forum engines around, which ship with official migration scripts from Xenforo to them. Since this script comes from the dev then it is quite well honed out and does a lot of stuff. Discourse, which I setup for a while and you might remember, is one of them. Discourse is everywhere and totally opensource. It comes for example with light and dark theme built in free of charge, while the dark theme here is $60. The probelm with Discourse is not if it has a function, but more likely where to find it.

Then there is NodeBB, which is a little bit more traditional. Other stuff is e.g. Flarum, where community scripts are around but too much core functionality is a plugin only. Or of course the granddaddy of them all, phpBB. phpBB has no such thing from , so there you've got to find scripts on Github and figure out what to do by yourself. Why? Because people normally go the other way around: phpBB to Xenforo, almost nobody is going the other way. phpBB also feels really dated compared to XenForo. Also the admin panel in phpBB is a nightmare for a forum as big as this one. It was never meant to deal with this number of users and posts well.

Our consensus is to make

a) first the move then
b) figure out how to ensure a secure run in the future.

For the users of course keeping Xenforo is the easiest and most convenient option. So we are first looking at this. This of course means not only looking at the payments this year, but take reoccuring payments into mind as well. Also to consider the possibilty that funding might deteriorate over time as well.

But I do agree that rebasing this all on a modern open source engine would really take a lot of pressure off all shoulders, and make stuff much easier in the long run.

If I would be some kind of benevolent dictator I would really make the open source move and ditch Xenforo completely, because it makes so much stuff so much easier after that and for the future.

There's also a big thread in the official forums of Xenforo, where a lot of disgruntled licensees do complain about lack of everything from the company behind: lack of momentum, communication, updates etc. There are threads like that all over the web.

Just take a look for yourself: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/if-xenforos-finished-whats-next.234257/

But it's not about me, it's about what the community wants.

Yeah, that's about what I figured. Priorities, and the first 99% being easy while the final 99%, thst being a real pain to work with. Thanks

 

[Lexxi]

I have no idea wtf is going on here but someone who was not even in sl at the time Joshua left decided to vomit venom at me over him. I really do hate some SL denizens sometimes.

I bet it's because he sucked us into the white void when he left. He took us with him!
I'd show what I mean! But images have been turned off! So I'll leave a link! I got distract mid-post and now do not recall why I'm posting this here! Also, my ! key got stuck on for some reason.

 

[Monica Dream]

I bet it's because he sucked us into the white void when he left. He took us with him!

The 'cosmos betraying fiend' tradition continues!

 

[Puretone]

In regards to tranparency, don't forget the brief moments we're ridiculing Prok.

I'd like to propose a 'Hammer & Sickle' emoji just for Prok. A long lasting cut, imo.

 

[Kokoro Fasching]

Whoa, did someone do something, for a while there I was getting:

ping: cannot resolve www.virtualverse.one: Unknown host

But it's back now.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I'd like to propose a 'Hammer & Sickle' emoji just for Prok. A long lasting cut, imo.

Communism deserves better than that.

 

[Soen Eber]

Oddly, I've only had one conversation with Prok, and it was civil bordering on friendly. It was totally unrelated to SLU or FIC.

 

[Monica Dream]

What's funny to me, personally, is that before I was even active I had prok on my block list. Meaning sometime I had logged in and for whatever reason decided 'fuck prok' and blocked him. I have no idea w.t.f but since my first 'home' was Ross, it's not terribly surprising.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'd like to propose a 'Hammer & Sickle' emoji just for Prok. A long lasting cut, imo.

I'm supportive of the new emoji proposal, but am confused about the Prok reference. I'm a relative new comer after all. I joined SLU shortly before it shut down and moved here.

 

[Monica Dream]

I'm supportive of the new emoji proposal, but am confused about the Prok reference. I'm a relative new comer after all. I joined SLU shortly before it shut down and moved here.

Prok is one of the few people I've seen Cris ban for simply sucking up all the oxygen in the room (back on SLU). And Prok did -thread, after thread, after thread. Lots of hostility and weirdness (from Prok's end) along with being a master of the tldr stream of conciousness rant.

Prok has his good qualities (he's invested in SL history archiving/preservation, if I remember correctly) but just ...no. no, no, no.

He posts in the General section of the SL forum, if you want a teensy, heavily self-censored version of the weirdness.