Forum website problem
Posted by: dave simpson on 20 October 2004
Dear Adam,
The search engine is very sick.
thanks,
dave
The search engine is very sick.
thanks,
dave
Ah, yes, I forgot about the old SC2. I guess I'd just have to make the bespoke forum even better still 
John
John
Adam,
Mind if I ask what sort of package you're on at Infopop?
Do you have any sort of SLA with them (I appreciate that having one is different from enforcing it
)
I don't think moving package within Infopop is the solution, I know of at least one other way larger forum hosted at Infopop where search is often screwed.
Thinking out loud, other than the search problems, I don't think anything is sufficiently wrong with the forum to warrant the time and effort and cost involved in trying to move it elsewhere - I think it's a case of keeping on Infopops backs when you get time to do so.
Moving things would not be a small job.
Paul
Mind if I ask what sort of package you're on at Infopop?
Do you have any sort of SLA with them (I appreciate that having one is different from enforcing it
)I don't think moving package within Infopop is the solution, I know of at least one other way larger forum hosted at Infopop where search is often screwed.
Thinking out loud, other than the search problems, I don't think anything is sufficiently wrong with the forum to warrant the time and effort and cost involved in trying to move it elsewhere - I think it's a case of keeping on Infopops backs when you get time to do so.
Moving things would not be a small job.
Paul
vBulletin, as used by Pink Fish and Zerogain, seems fine to me. It all works, which is nice.
Moving is no doubt a nightmare, but I know vBulletin has an active support forum and I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone hadn't come up with some tools to import posts from Infopop into vBulletin.
To reduce the workload entailed by moving, my suggestion would be to concentrate on the music room, and not bother with moving any of the rest of the forum.
-- Ian
Moving is no doubt a nightmare, but I know vBulletin has an active support forum and I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone hadn't come up with some tools to import posts from Infopop into vBulletin.
To reduce the workload entailed by moving, my suggestion would be to concentrate on the music room, and not bother with moving any of the rest of the forum.
-- Ian
Calm down guys!
The forum is a great place to drop into during the day, especially for people like me who work alone and have no chats around the photocopier. Naim are not in the business of running an intenet chatroom, and it is maybe unreasonable to criticise when it gets a bit clanky. I think we should respect that we are getting something for nothing here, and I am sure we all appreciate it.
There are obviously members of the forum here that can provide advice and the skills to seek out the way forward, and lets use that and tell Adam what to look for here and who can provide it. We need a list of forum examples that we feel would be great for the format of a new Naim site. Let's all calm down and just get constructive. Let's all get to work on it.
Yeah?
The forum is a great place to drop into during the day, especially for people like me who work alone and have no chats around the photocopier. Naim are not in the business of running an intenet chatroom, and it is maybe unreasonable to criticise when it gets a bit clanky. I think we should respect that we are getting something for nothing here, and I am sure we all appreciate it.
There are obviously members of the forum here that can provide advice and the skills to seek out the way forward, and lets use that and tell Adam what to look for here and who can provide it. We need a list of forum examples that we feel would be great for the format of a new Naim site. Let's all calm down and just get constructive. Let's all get to work on it.
Yeah?
I agree, Minky, but that was the situation several months ago and Infopop don't seem willing to fettle her up (technical term) but would, it seems, much rather Naim hand over 50% more quids a month which will make all the problems go away. They are a bit like the Mafia in that respect.
People taking the likes of PFM and Zr0ga1n as role model solutions for Naim should rememeber that these are run by IT literate enthusiasts and (I guess) Naim/Adam does this without any internal IT support. He is therefore probably looking for a turnkey/managed solution which are significantly more expensive.
Also there is possible a scale issue. This forum is rather bigger than PFM (although I have no idea by how much) so what seem like (presumably) high costs from Infopop might not be that expensive when you actually look at the numbers (issues about the current problems notwithstanding).
If you want a radical solution (and somehting more net-esque than charging fees or giving IT contractors power amp backhanders), Naim could involve the users in the running of the forum.
E.g. Naim would keep their branding, their role as ultimate authority and the ability to use this as a channel to communicate with their users (e.g. "Copy Protection PIC Upgrade"), etc. and continue to pay for the bandwidth. In addition though the volunteers from the existing user community would take on much of the day-to-day management and maintenance tasks: moderation, server maintenance, software updates, backups, etc. a lot of which, presumably, Naim are currently paying Infopop to do.
I.e. we leverage the enthusiasm and vested interests of the community itself to mitigate much of the cost (i.e. Adam's time, two hours at next weeks board meeting, etc.) for Naim. Not least with the current problems where there are obviously people here who could do much of the legwork in investigting and evaluating software soltions, hosting options, migration strategies, etc.
Although in the fisrt instance I agree with Minky and the best option by far is to stay exactly where we are and get Infopop to fix the problems. Try asking them if they have any experience of migrating Infopop communities to externally hosted vBulletin solutions and see if they get a lot more responsive
Matthew
People taking the likes of PFM and Zr0ga1n as role model solutions for Naim should rememeber that these are run by IT literate enthusiasts and (I guess) Naim/Adam does this without any internal IT support. He is therefore probably looking for a turnkey/managed solution which are significantly more expensive.
Also there is possible a scale issue. This forum is rather bigger than PFM (although I have no idea by how much) so what seem like (presumably) high costs from Infopop might not be that expensive when you actually look at the numbers (issues about the current problems notwithstanding).
If you want a radical solution (and somehting more net-esque than charging fees or giving IT contractors power amp backhanders), Naim could involve the users in the running of the forum.
E.g. Naim would keep their branding, their role as ultimate authority and the ability to use this as a channel to communicate with their users (e.g. "Copy Protection PIC Upgrade"), etc. and continue to pay for the bandwidth. In addition though the volunteers from the existing user community would take on much of the day-to-day management and maintenance tasks: moderation, server maintenance, software updates, backups, etc. a lot of which, presumably, Naim are currently paying Infopop to do.
I.e. we leverage the enthusiasm and vested interests of the community itself to mitigate much of the cost (i.e. Adam's time, two hours at next weeks board meeting, etc.) for Naim. Not least with the current problems where there are obviously people here who could do much of the legwork in investigting and evaluating software soltions, hosting options, migration strategies, etc.
Although in the fisrt instance I agree with Minky and the best option by far is to stay exactly where we are and get Infopop to fix the problems. Try asking them if they have any experience of migrating Infopop communities to externally hosted vBulletin solutions and see if they get a lot more responsive
Matthew
quote:
Originally posted by Rasher:
Calm down guys!
The forum is a great place to drop into during the day, especially for people like me who work alone and have no chats around the photocopier. Naim are not in the business of running an intenet chatroom, and it is maybe unreasonable to criticise when it gets a bit clanky. I think we should respect that we are getting something for nothing here, and I am sure we all appreciate it.
There are obviously members of the forum here that can provide advice and the skills to seek out the way forward, and lets use that and tell Adam what to look for here and who can provide it. We need a list of forum examples that we feel would be great for the format of a new Naim site. Let's all calm down and just get constructive. Let's all get to work on it.
Yeah?
Well said.
'Nuff said, IMHO.
jon
Several hundred THOUSAND clients if their web-site is to be believed (including many big names in the IT world!). I presume that they are capable of supporting communities much larger than this one.
I suspect that the problem with the Naim forum is that it is now up against the buffers with regard to capacity and that moving up their range would cost Naim considerably more. A bit like Naim kit I suppose
Though why search no longer works properly I don't know. I tried cutting some text from a current page 1 thread in the Music Room and searching for it. The search returned several other posts in the same thread but not the one I had cut the text from!
I suspect that the problem with the Naim forum is that it is now up against the buffers with regard to capacity and that moving up their range would cost Naim considerably more. A bit like Naim kit I suppose
Though why search no longer works properly I don't know. I tried cutting some text from a current page 1 thread in the Music Room and searching for it. The search returned several other posts in the same thread but not the one I had cut the text from!