Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

daz · 2009-07-27 16:44:00

Does anyone know where connor is? His last post on this forum was 2009-02-04 19:27:21.

His advertiser supported mypunbb fluxbb based service now contains too many popups, obnoxious and offensive (porn ads) and the UQMC club wishes to change from it. I've sent him an email about the problem but realize that just in case it's a sign that the service will abruptly end I'm making contingency plans.

Is there a way to export the member's list (username and password) to another free message board service? And perhaps even the topics and posts? The club was thinking about using yuku.

I've done a search on this forum for yuku and a search for export on the wiki documentation but that's no help

Thanks
Daz

Smartys · 2009-07-27 20:31:43

MyPunBB is a third party service that is not affiliated with FluxBB or PunBB. Its administrator, Connor, is the only one who can answer questions about it.

As far as I know, nobody has written a tool to export a PunBB or FluxBB forum by "scraping" the contents, as you propose doing. However, my guess is such a tool wouldn't show up here in any case: this is a site for supporting users of FluxBB, not users migrating from FluxBB to other software.

daz · 2009-07-28 03:44:43

Thanks for your prompt response.

I guessed that fluxBB is not officially affiliated with MyPunBB. However I note Connor is also a developer for fluxBB so I thought you might know if he's still active (or alive?) in the internet community and/or fluxBB community. As I said I've sent him a email. If I don't get a response I'll use the whois information to try and contact him by phone.

Also MyPunBB support forum is down so anyone in the myPunBB community with problems might come here as well as there is a link on every forum to the fluxBB website. The mypunbb community might have a solution to the export problem.

I wasn't actually thinking about "scraping" but more along a plugin/extension that could be installed to support export of data. If necessary we could ask for access to the main database to export data but that might be a hassle if connor is uncontactable.

As well since fluxBB is GPL I thought the development philosophy might support data portability. As opposed to say Facebook which is a walled garden which locks in your data to a proprietary service. Admittedly resources would probably be better spent on import filters then export filters.

Actually thinking about it more, ideally if there was another fluxBB or punBB advertiser supported or low cost service it would be better to transfer to that. Does anyone know of such a service and/or if it's possible to downgrade to punBB from fluxBB (if absolutely necessary)?

Last edited by daz (2009-07-28 03:47:51)

hcgtv · 2009-07-28 04:11:41

daz wrote:

Actually thinking about it more, ideally if there was another fluxBB or punBB advertiser supported or low cost service it would be better to transfer to that. Does anyone know of such a service and/or if it's possible to downgrade to punBB from fluxBB (if absolutely necessary)?

Smartys runs http://www.punbb-hosting.com - I actually get a kickback for every referral

Smartys · 2009-07-28 04:19:21

daz wrote:

I guessed that fluxBB is not officially affiliated with MyPunBB. However I note Connor is also a developer for fluxBB so I thought you might know if he's still active (or alive?) in the internet community and/or fluxBB community. As I said I've sent him a email. If I don't get a response I'll use the whois information to try and contact him by phone.

Connor was a developer here, like I was, but as you noticed, he hasn't been around for quite a while. Best of luck trying to contact him though: if you need any help, let us know (I don't know how much help we can give though).

daz wrote:

Also MyPunBB support forum is down so anyone in the myPunBB community with problems might come here as well as there is a link on every forum to the fluxBB website. The mypunbb community might have a solution to the export problem.

Fair point

daz wrote:

I wasn't actually thinking about "scraping" but more along a plugin/extension that could be installed to support export of data. If necessary we could ask for access to the main database to export data but that might be a hassle if connor is uncontactable.

You can't install plugins or extensions. The only option you have is scraping (or contacting Connor, who likely will tell you that he can't provide exports of data).

daz wrote:

As well since fluxBB is GPL I thought the development philosophy might support data portability. As opposed to say Facebook which is a walled garden which locks in your data to a proprietary service. Admittedly resources would probably be better spent on import filters then export filters.

It's one thing to promote data portability (that is, making sure your data can be taken and used elsewhere), it's another to actually write tools to move someone's data from your service to another service. The onus is usually on the developer to write import tools (not only here but in most other software I can think of), on the basis that the developer knows the most about his/her software and thus could write the best import tools.

daz wrote:

Actually thinking about it more, ideally if there was another fluxBB or punBB advertiser supported or low cost service it would be better to transfer to that. Does anyone know of such a service and/or if it's possible to downgrade to punBB from fluxBB (if absolutely necessary)?

As hcgtv said, I own a similar site, PunBB-Hosting. I would be happy to take your data if it came in a format I could load. However, without a database backup, there's not much I can do.

hcgtv wrote:

Smartys runs http://www.punbb-hosting.com - I actually get a kickback for every referral

Actually, I think I promised a back kick

hcgtv · 2009-07-28 13:21:15

Smartys wrote:

Connor was a developer here, like I was, but as you noticed, he hasn't been around for quite a while. Best of luck trying to contact him though: if you need any help, let us know (I don't know how much help we can give though).

When you say best of luck, are you saying that nobody on the FluxBB team has been able to contact Connor?

Smartys wrote:

Actually, I think I promised a back kick

Wax on, wax off

daz · 2009-07-28 14:26:16

Smartys wrote:

daz wrote:
I guessed that fluxBB is not officially affiliated with MyPunBB. However I note Connor is also a developer for fluxBB so I thought you might know if he's still active (or alive?) in the internet community and/or fluxBB community. As I said I've sent him a email. If I don't get a response I'll use the whois information to try and contact him by phone.
Connor was a developer here, like I was, but as you noticed, he hasn't been around for quite a while. Best of luck trying to contact him though: if you need any help, let us know (I don't know how much help we can give though).
daz wrote:
I wasn't actually thinking about "scraping" but more along a plugin/extension that could be installed to support export of data. If necessary we could ask for access to the main database to export data but that might be a hassle if connor is uncontactable.
You can't install plugins or extensions. The only option you have is scraping (or contacting Connor, who likely will tell you that he can't provide exports of data).
daz wrote:
Actually thinking about it more, ideally if there was another fluxBB or punBB advertiser supported or low cost service it would be better to transfer to that. Does anyone know of such a service and/or if it's possible to downgrade to punBB from fluxBB (if absolutely necessary)?
As hcgtv said, I own a similar site, PunBB-Hosting. I would be happy to take your data if it came in a format I could load. However, without a database backup, there's not much I can do.

Thanks!

One of your users posted this about a forum admin usable backup. Wouldn't mypunbb have a similar option that might work?

Also how long would it take to get this database backup? The forum is here. Having worked and interacted with connor on flubBB you probably have a better idea of what he would do then me.

Smartys · 2009-07-28 20:47:10

When you say best of luck, are you saying that nobody on the FluxBB team has been able to contact Connor?

I'm saying that to the best of my knowledge, Connor has become very difficult to contact. I can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't been in contact with him for quite a while.

One of your users posted this about a forum admin usable backup. Wouldn't mypunbb have a similar option that might work?

No. MyPunBB has no such system in place. That's a plugin I rewrote for my specific setup. Connor has not added a similar feature.

Also how long would it take to get this database backup? The forum is here. Having worked and interacted with connor on flubBB you probably have a better idea of what he would do then me.

From my site? Instantly, you can download a backup whenever you like.
I have no idea what Connor is or is not willing to do for MyPunBB and I'm not going to speculate on that.

daz · 2009-07-29 00:51:08

Smartys wrote:

Also how long would it take to get this database backup? The forum is here. Having worked and interacted with connor on flubBB you probably have a better idea of what he would do then me.
From my site? Instantly, you can download a backup whenever you like.
I have no idea what Connor is or is not willing to do for MyPunBB and I'm not going to speculate on that.

No how long would it take to manually grab the "database backups" for the UQMC forum. As in how long and how much effort do you think it would take connor (or any vanilla fluxbb messageboard hoster).

It's also good to hear that you trust your good service will keep forum users there and you won't lock groups into your messageboard.

Smartys wrote:

You can't install plugins or extensions. The only option you have is scraping (or contacting Connor, who likely will tell you that he can't provide exports of data).

And you've already speculated on whether Connor would do it or not

Smartys · 2009-07-29 02:16:16

No how long would it take to manually grab the "database backups" for the UQMC forum. As in how long and how much effort do you think it would take connor (or any vanilla fluxbb messageboard hoster).

Nobody doing a multi-forum hosting site is going to be running a vanilla setup.
I am somewhat familiar with Connor's setup and he would have to write a tool specifically designed for his service to generate per-forum backups. In contrast, I was able to leverage existing tools (eg: mysqldump) to generate my backups for me. It would be a lot of work for very little gain for him (it looks like MyPunBB is pretty much dead).

And you've already speculated on whether Connor would do it or not

I was hoping nobody would notice that
I'm basing my assumption there on instances in the past where people have asked him for backups.

hcgtv · 2009-07-29 11:15:11

Smartys wrote:

I'm saying that to the best of my knowledge, Connor has become very difficult to contact. I can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't been in contact with him for quite a while.

Which begs the question, who's in charge of FluxBB?

Please, don't take it as if I'm trying to stir up controversy, but if Connor is gone, then who determines things like releasing 1.4 or what direction the project takes, etc. ?

Smartys · 2009-07-29 11:18:00

You would have to ask the developers that

elbekko · 2009-07-29 11:22:08

Saying how things are under the hood will probably just stir up controversy, but anyway...

There is nobody in charge really. We have a discussion about most things, between the (active) developers and the team.
I haven't seen Connor around in a while. Some time ago I had some contact with him, promising he'd tell me how to use his release script. A bit later I wrote my own because he didn't send anything. I realise he could be very busy, so I'm not blaming anyone here.

The direction the project takes is still largely governed by FluxBB's goals, but I do admit I've put my foot down about a thing or two that smelled like feature creep in 1.4.

Paul · 2009-07-29 11:39:59

Now is also not the best time of year to ask anybody anything. The university exam season finished at the end of June and that is usually followed by an extended period of high intensity chilling out.

hcgtv · 2009-07-29 12:34:30

elbekko wrote:

There is nobody in charge really.

Then I suggest you guys pick someone.

Paul wrote:

The university exam season finished at the end of June and that is usually followed by an extended period of high intensity chilling out.

I understand this is a volunteer project and everyone has a life but...

Franz · 2009-07-29 12:42:28

hcgtv wrote:

elbekko wrote:
There is nobody in charge really.
Then I suggest you guys pick someone.

In my eyes, that is exactly the origin of the current situation. The team was unable or rather didn't want a leader. That lead to many situations like "This should be done."/"Somebody needs to do this."

You are right. One of the developers needs to step up and at least sort out something like that.

Moloch · 2009-08-03 13:04:40

Another nail in the coffin.

Smartys · 2009-08-03 19:53:50

Moloch wrote:

Another nail in the coffin.

Huh?

hcgtv · 2009-08-04 13:26:46

Smartys wrote:

Moloch wrote:
Another nail in the coffin.
Huh?

From my understanding, you can have many nails in the coffin, since most coffins are large and all sides must be secured. What we have to worry about is when the final one is nailed, cause from my extensive research on Google, it appears to be rather hard to recover from.

kpdesign · 2009-08-06 16:32:03

With everything that's been discussed regarding the dev team in this thread, what exactly is the future path of FluxBB? I love using the software and want to see the project continue.

Not trying to start anything, would just like one/more of the devs to chime in here and let us know what we can expect.

elbekko · 2009-08-06 19:13:49

1.4 isn't far off, beta 2 should appear one of these days. After that we'll provide support and bugfixes for 1.4, and seriously think 2.0 through before we start on anything.

kpdesign · 2009-08-06 19:37:06

Thanks for the response elbekko, I appreciate it. I used PunBB for several years, then switched to FluxBB when the project was forked. I've used it on a few projects, and my clients love it - simple, lightweight, and fast. Perfect forum solution!

Smartys · 2009-08-12 23:12:28

Just an update to the story: I've acquired MyPunBB and merged its forums into PunBB-Hosting, giving all of its users the gift of data portability.

Franz · 2009-08-12 23:18:13

So that means you were able to contact him? There's some good news...

hcgtv · 2009-08-12 23:43:52

Smartys wrote:

I've acquired MyPunBB and merged its forums into PunBB-Hosting...

Powered by FluxBB

I think we've all learned by now that naming a website after an Open Source project is not the way to go. I know I've committed the same mistake many times over, I just let go of 12 domains a few months back.

Hell who would of thought of Google or Yahoo or Bing for search engines, how about Reddit or Digg for social link sites?

Forums

#1 2009-07-27 16:44:00

Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#2 2009-07-27 20:31:43

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#3 2009-07-28 03:44:43

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#4 2009-07-28 04:11:41

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#5 2009-07-28 04:19:21

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#6 2009-07-28 13:21:15

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#7 2009-07-28 14:26:16

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#8 2009-07-28 20:47:10

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#9 2009-07-29 00:51:08

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#10 2009-07-29 02:16:16

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#11 2009-07-29 11:15:11

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#12 2009-07-29 11:18:00

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#13 2009-07-29 11:22:08

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#14 2009-07-29 11:39:59

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#15 2009-07-29 12:34:30

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#16 2009-07-29 12:42:28

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#17 2009-08-03 13:04:40

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#18 2009-08-03 19:53:50

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#19 2009-08-04 13:26:46

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#20 2009-08-06 16:32:03

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#21 2009-08-06 19:13:49

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#22 2009-08-06 19:37:06

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#23 2009-08-12 23:12:28

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#24 2009-08-12 23:18:13

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

#25 2009-08-12 23:43:52

Re: Switching from fluxbb to another message board service

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