Yes, the board was royally b0rked...
 

...and I'm working on it...

Please standby.

attachment test

Okay, I think the board is up and running again. However, attachements are broken. I will work on this later.

One thing that's bothering me, is how complicated it is to upgrade the board when shit hits the fan. The board updates tend to screw up the mods I've got... and I end up having to repair everything by hand. Plus, the theme we use rarely updates properly... :x

I'm thinking we might want to move to vBulletin like everyone else has. Opinions?

vBulletin>phpbb. How will we pay for it though? Another donation BBQ? Normally, I'd suggest hoodies/shirts and stuff, but I think we're all stocked up for a while now after the last two runs. :(

I got an idea.... We can charge $1 per person to come to the meets. Then it would be paid for. :D

And Scott wouldn't have to pay for it out of his pocket. :(

vBulletin cost $85/year to lease a license, or $160 to buy a full license and then it's $30/yr afterwards for tech support and updates.

We may be able to afford it already... but I'll have to check w/ MattR.

If people are willing to donate to the club to pay for the software you can paypal to paypal@seccs.org... but we need to decide if we really want to go to vBulletin first.

For those of you who are moderators on vBulletin boards... what are your impressions? What do you like/dislike about those boards?

Alex doesn't give us access to the write administration stuff, but the moderation stuff is good (though I don't have much to compare against). The moderation stuff seems fairly easy to use. The administration stuff looks fairly straightforward too. We can see quite a bit of that stuff, but the save button is disabled so we can't save changes.

Well, the admin and moderator functions on this board are crap. Hardly any features... plus the attachment mod is a POS too. However, the rest of the board seems to work really well, look good, and is pretty simple for everyone to use. Plus it's free.

Does vBulletin come w/ a frontpage/newspage/etc module? Or is that an extra bit? What about member file storage, and the like? I know the SVX site has a "locker" for each member, where they can store files in their profile.... I wonder if that's part of the basic vBulletin package, or if it's a mod. I'd really like to avoid mods, unless vBulletin's got a good system in place to allow updates w/o breaking the mods.

HELL NO WE CAN"T AFFORD IT>>>DID YOU SEE MY NEW TRUCK!!!!! :lol:

Just kidding....Treasury Report says yes. We can swing it. Let's talk about it tonight. I think going to vB would be fine.

On i-club there is a special forum that only Staff Members can post new threads in (but members can comment on). These threads show up on the main page, along with one attachment if you have it.

I don't know if its a plug-in or standard, but the feeling I get is that plugins are handled better then in phpBB.

Our moderator forum actually works exactly like the member's forum here. You gain access to it differently though- on i-club it comes with the member group change to "staff member" and here I guess Scott does it himself since there are only 3 user groups as far as I can tell- admin, moderator, and member.

Having thought about it a bit, there's really no functions of vB that I ever say "gee, I wish this was different..." Only some of Alex's settings. The moderator tools are all great, but they're not really needed on this board, except that Matt or Austin could be given moderator status instead of Admin access if you so chose. I think from everybody else's standpoint, it would be pretty nice. For one, I think almost every other board that we use significantly is vB, so the continuity is nice, and the familiarity with everything. I think vB would totally kick ass for us because our server is much better than our board actually requires, so you could really crank on the refresh settings and such.

As for the cost, that's lower than I thought. I think we should do another voluntary BBQ for the hell of it (or maybe a collection jar at the upcoming party?) and just put whatever it gets back in the general fund.

Well, I just ordered vBulletin. The cost is coming out of the little money we've got saved up from things like the track day and hoodie orders... so, we can afford it, but it means we're back to having zero cash on hand.

I think a BBQ, or some other vollentary fundraiser would be a cool way to gather up some funds. Now that I'm at a house, we could probably throw something at my place, with the blessing of my roommates of course. I'll post something up once we get a plan together.

I should be able to get the new board running and import the existing content over the weekend. That is assuming our PayPal eCheck goes through quickly (our bank sucks and won't or can't do normal EFT's, so there's a delay w/ PayPal).

This board should remain up and running until the new one's all set.

Thanks to MikeK! He just dropped us a mostly unsolicited donation towards the vBulletin purchase... his only requirement: we can't spend it on hookers and drugs, or he'll punch us in the nuts. :lol:

(pssst, Matt! Make sure Mike's money doesn't go towards the hookers and drug order!)

BTW Mike: nice ride. you bastard.

It's pleasantly free of homotron magnets :P

Last time you checked, anyways.

Where'r the pix?????

I think I'm do to pay some due's :lol:

didn't we have a plan for this? I thought we needed to make SEECS (for the regulars atleast) help pay for its goodies. I remember 1.5 years ago when we bought the first hoodies we pitched in $50 to get a hoodie and 2 stickers. I know we have enought hoodies and the Bar-B-Q sounds great, but it doesnt sound like we need all that much considering how many people are on the boards.

so I guess my thinking is kindda like I-Club?? 0-5 bucks gets your name on the board, $10 gets you an avatar??

So if I pitch in $20, could I have 2 avatars? Either that, or make my rank PINK? :D

I'd rather not have to get too involved in managing a rewards program for people that donate, but if that's what it takes to get people interested in donating, then I can probably work something out.

Also, once vBulletin is up and running, we will have all kinds of new options for avatars, ranks, reputations, etc, etc, etc.

I'm down with just a donation if thats what it comes to. I just thought it would be good to motivate others who what to become regulars to cough up the dough. It doesnt sound like it would take a lot of money (after the first setup) to mantain the board. I was just trying to think of options

As it is the monthly cost of the server is way more than the cost of the software. Since we're buying our license, there's that $160 charge up front, but the $30/yr after that for updates is a drop in the bucket next to the $50/mo for the server itself.

ohh ok I didnt catch the +50 a month for the server fees :cry:

Huh? There's no admission charge at i-club. RS25.com is the only Subaru board I know of that's charging for any member priveleges.

so lets just do what they do then and not worry about it because it just pays for itself :P