Moving the Forum

[Will 4,660]

Hello all, 

 

This is an important announcement regarding the Forum. Higgins and I have been discussing this for a bit as well as the other admins and we've come to decide that we're going to move the VHL Forum off of IPB's hosting and migrate it to the same server holding the VHL Portal and, as of the other day, the indexes/games. 

 

The two major reasons behind this are: 

1) As most people know, we've had some issues with not being able to use 3rd party addons like chat with IPB hosting

2) Cost

 

So first, we will be able to bring back Chat immediately, which there is pretty much no way we can do with IPB hosting due to restrictions put in place. Chat is the main thing but this move will give us much more control over the site for other things in the future.

 

Second, IPB hosting is very expensive compared to outside hosting companies - we aren't have issues paying the bills or anything but when you consider the restrictions we face on it and that we already have another capable server running that's free of said restrictions, it doesn't make much sense. Moving requires a upfront cost of about $200 for the self-hosted license, but should also reduce our monthly expenses by approx. 20-30 dollars so it will pay for itself eventually. 

 

What to expect

I'll have another announcement with the exact day we plan on making the move and some more details. However, you shouldn't expect much more than some temporary downtime. Everything will be transferred to the new site, including the vhlforum.com domain.

 

Any downtime we have should only be related to waiting for the vhlforum.com domain to update so that it points to the new server. They say it can take 24-48 hours to correctly point in all cases - in my experience it starts to work on and off pretty quickly but tends to take about a day to work correctly every time. That said, I believe I'll be able to provide you with a direct link to the new site before we move the forum (I'll also include in the message you'll see if vhlforum.com directs you to THIS community) so you'll be able to access the site that way while we wait for vhlforum.com to come along. 

 

We will probably do this late this week or early next week. 

 

 

[Bushito 1,945]

Nice, can’t wait to have chat back

[Possum Queen 58]

11 minutes ago, Bushito said:

Nice, can’t wait to have chat back

 

The only part of this announcement anyone's gonna read.

 

Cutting down costs is great, and it'll be good to have more control over the back end. Very interested in seeing what other features/integrations are planned moving forward.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

What is it going to look like? The same as this? Or will it have that SHL/GOMHL look to it? I much prefer this SBA/EFL/VHL look.

[Beaviss 4,957]

43 minutes ago, DollarAndADream said:

What is it going to look like? The same as this? Or will it have that SHL/GOMHL look to it? I much prefer this SBA/EFL/VHL look.

 

I was also wondering this. I’ve checked the SHL out before it’s hard on the eyes

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

if chat is brought back, and 'bring back chat' will change his name to 'eaglesfanrandomnumber', we can call him a bandwagon fan right?

[Will 4,660]

50 minutes ago, DollarAndADream said:

What is it going to look like? The same as this? Or will it have that SHL/GOMHL look to it? I much prefer this SBA/EFL/VHL look.

 

The exact same

 

Nothing really changing other than chat

[hedgehog337 3,483]

2 hours ago, Will said:

we will be able to bring back Chat immediately,

 

When's your recreate coming out? @Bring Back Chat

[Banackock 8,049]

Cool. Hope it works out. 

[boubabi 4,725]

Nice

[STZ 5,360]

Draper 2 gud to us

[Beketov 9,026]

2 hours ago, DollarAndADream said:

What is it going to look like? The same as this? Or will it have that SHL/GOMHL look to it? I much prefer this SBA/EFL/VHL look.

On the user end here won’t be any difference at all visually, aside from having chat back. We aren’t changing the way the board functions or anything, just the server that hosts it.

[Baozi 1,658]

Whats wrong with discord that we need the old chat back? You can also embed discord chat into the websites.

[boubabi 4,725]

17 minutes ago, tfong said:

Whats wrong with discord that we need the old chat back? You can also embed discord chat into the websites.

Stop it

[Baozi 1,658]

3 minutes ago, boubabi said:

Stop it

 

Wut?

[boubabi 4,725]

The discord was garbage

[Baozi 1,658]

15 minutes ago, boubabi said:

The discord was garbage

 

Whats wrong with it? you mean discord or just how it was utilized? Discord is pretty comprehensive, what about normal chat can it not beat?

[Kendrick 4,741]

46 minutes ago, tfong said:

 

Whats wrong with it? you mean discord or just how it was utilized? Discord is pretty comprehensive, what about normal chat can it not beat?

I liked it. Weeded out the bad apples as well haha

[Baozi 1,658]

I think its just lacking general widespread adoption and integration with the site for the moment. Which can be fixed.

 

My other hockey forum discord is popping and hyper active too. I recently put in a free music bot in there too lol.

[Baozi 1,658]

4 minutes ago, Banackock said:

SHL seems to like it - but the league is full of 16 year olds. GOMHL too, but it doesn't consist of conversations and more so retarded words, pictures and well, what seems like 16 year olds.. lol 

 

 

[Baozi 1,658]

The other discord i manage is a bit more comprehensive but thats cuz its user based driven conversations of different types.

[Beketov 9,026]

1 hour ago, tfong said:

Whats wrong with discord that we need the old chat back? You can also embed discord chat into the websites.

We looked into embedding discord but everything we could find claimed that Discord no longer supports that.

[Will 4,660]

1 hour ago, tfong said:

 

Whats wrong with it? you mean discord or just how it was utilized? Discord is pretty comprehensive, what about normal chat can it not beat?

 

I just think the IM facebook-style chat is so well-suited for a forum like this where there's constantly a need for communication between GMs, players, ect. And I don't think you can really beat the convenience of old chat, I don't know how far you can go with discord integration and IPB but I can't imagine it being more convenient. Plus, we already have the chat purchased from long ago anyways so its just a matter of being able to install it. 

 

Plus, moving opens the door to more than just chat. Right now we're basically restricted from installing anything that requires us accessing the site files. 

[Da Trifecta 1,899]

Now there is only one thing left to bring back.

[Beaviss 4,957]

10 minutes ago, Bring Back Player 2 (Tri) said:

Now there is only one thing left to bring back.

 

@Tagger ?