[Olpc-open] Going forward with the community forum

[Michael Burns]

On Jan 11, 2008 11:54 AM, Harrison - Schaaffe <peter.harrison at bigfoot.com>
wrote:

>  Michael,
>
> I must admit I am very wary of phpBB2, for the reasons I stated, but the
> feature set with phpBB3 seems greatly improved. I chose vBulletin for the
> feature set when the open source product at the time couldn't deliver what I
> needed. I used phpBB2 for about 4 years.
>

Let me tell you, I've said some not nice things about phpbb2 this month, and
don't want to rely on it for more than  the time required. A logical upgrade
path is welcome, and I would like to learn toward a phpbb3 installation
(there is beta work on the mailing list software, which gives us a nice
option if we want to take it. The software looks solid without it as well).

I understand the desire to stick with open source for deployment of similar
> platroms around the world at the local level.
>
> Is there a plan to migrate to phpBB3, or is it in use already? If v3 can
> do what it promises, then it would be best to upgrade before the forums get
> too big.
>

There is not a stated goal, as nearly all of the admin work on the forum has
been in my free time, with assistance from good Phil Bordelon and his
sysadmin skills to assist along the way. I don't want to flip the switch on
the site until we have a full running system (regardless of waht software
package we land with. a BETA forum running in tandem for users to stress
test with the production system seems like the best way to go. Agreed?


>
> I'm assuming it would import phpBB2 databases, can it import vBulletin
> natively? If not a vBulletin export to phpBB2 format should be able to be
> done with a built in utility.
>

It is very much intended to support upgrades from phpbb2 databases. No
experience with vBulletin, but an intermediary step to phpbb2 seems good to
me. I've streamlined the backup process, so we can play around with db
snapshots and not worry about data loss. Whee!


> I'm going to assume phpBB3 will be the planned platform for the unified
> forum.
>

I want to echo the concerns overs file-level modifications to install MODs.
That really isn't a manageable way to keep software packages up to date,
both the phpbb base software as well as updates to the mods. Proper support
of MODs/Addons/Extensions is really important in going forward.


> Please also send a login for the olpc.osuosl.org forum.
>

Will get you a login account as soon as possible. Should be tonight at the
latest, will try and get it sooner (weird issue, don't ask).


> As I said previously I figured that olpchelp.org would have a lot of
> non-technical members, and it does. As a result of this I chose a theme that
> would be attractive with limited use of graphics. Bandwidth can be an issue
> on low speed links, so I have used a 30 day expires header on all images to
> cache them on the client side. The olpc.osuosl.org forum seems to taken a
> different approach by stripping out most of the the default phpBB subSilver
> template images. Is there a phpBB theme out there that is judicial in its
> use of graphics, attractive and could be easily modified to match the OLPC
> brand / feel?
>

The low use of images on the site was a fortunate hack. Few images the
better, if only for rendering quirks and page loading, but proper cache
option settings is a very good thing, and I think we can find a nice middle
ground. As you can tell, I don't have the best artistic touch, so ripping
out subSilver images in place of CSS background colors where it made sense
was just a look-and-feel hack I threw together.


>  This is an area in where technology, form and function could come
> together for the relaunch of the combined forums. For me this is very
> important in attracting membership. It's never just the technology, it's
> people and process too.
>

And not necessarily in that order! :)

I'm glad we're starting to find a path to start going forward on. I can get
a BETA phpbb3 install for us to work on with a snapshot of our db at the
olpc.osuosl.org server (some unique url will be sent out to interested
testers in the community) and we can evaluate how it will work for our
combined uses with a hands on approach. Tomorrow looks like a good hacking
day. Anyone care to join the fun?

-- 
Michael Burns * Student
Open Source {Education} Lab
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