Preview for a Change

[James Gryphon]

After two years of a mostly-extended absence, I recently began work on a special project, which the Staff have agreed to announce today. We've come to the conclusion that to keep the forum healthy and moving forward, it may be time to convert to different forum software.

Why the Change
SMF 2.0.x is old. Being old, it contains largely old code, based on software that is no longer used today. When SMF 2.0 was introduced, PHP (which powers it and much of the rest of the web) was at version 5.3. Now PHP 7.4 is out, and the last version that SMF 2.0.x can reliably run on is 7.2. Unfortunately, our server, which we have little control over, uses 7.3. Although you may not have noticed any problems on the surface, that's a big problem 'under the hood'.

Due to SMF 2.0.x relying on deprecated functions, PHP puts out errors practically any time anyone does anything, resulting in a massive error log; it is currently at 7.67 gigs and counting. Furthermore, we have little control over the server, and it is possible that someday it could be upgraded again. A function being 'deprecated' is one step away from it being removed, so there's reason to expect that such an untimely upgrade could break the forum.

Why not SMF 2.1?
There's reason to doubt whether SMF 2.1 will ever be released.

It has been in development since late 2011. During that time, the team has been rotated out several times. Current development is very slow: 2.1 RC2, the last version, was released March 2019. RC3 is reportedly 'complete', but has been sitting on standby for over a week. There are at least two more major releases to complete (RC4 and Final) before 2.1 will be out and finished. The atmosphere in the SMF community has revealed a worrisome toxic streak. Although there have appeared to be signs of life there recently, we cannot afford to wait indefinitely, and have already waited a long time.

Why not patch SMF 2.0.x?
We could try out a mod that's supposed to help with PHP 7.2+. 2.0.18 is also rumored to fix the problems the forum currently has, but there's no telling when or if it will come out. It could be tomorrow, three months from now, or never.

That said, patching it or updating it to another minor version is an interim solution, not something that we should expect to keep doing indefinitely.

Our Plan
We've decided that MyBB is the best candidate to replace the SMF 2.0.x forum in the long run, and accordingly, have been working on customizing it to suit our purposes. That has progressed far enough that the time has come to reveal our work to you, in what we're calling a 'Public Preview'.

Here's where our current plan is for going forward:
1) Now that the Ruddaring forum is open for public preview, we expect the members of the community to look at it, try it out by registering, posting, etc., and giving feedback on what they think of how it looks and how it could be improved. The forum layout, as well as any posts you make on Ruddaring during the preview period, will not be saved or moved over to RACF: you are testing Ruddaring, not moving over to it. This is expected to continue for a suitable length of time, no less than a week and hopefully no more than 1-2 months.

2) After this feedback period, if nothing has come up to change our plans, I will begin work on the MyBB conversion process, which will involve backing up the current RACF's data, installing a MyBB forum on the Redwall site's server, and then converting the old SMF data (boards, posts, users, etc.) to the MyBB forum. During this time, which we will announce in advance, the RACF will be closed to the public. Hopefully it won't take more than a couple of hours to get the work done.

3) After that, the MyBB forum would be the main forum on RACF, having virtually all of the RACF's data, and the look and functionality of the Ruddaring forum. However, it is expected that the MyBB merge tools will not be able to account for some minor details in the SMF board (particularly things that were added by SMF modifications) and that they will not be converted. As such, we will set up a SMF forum archive so that users have the ability to bring anything that the official tools may have missed over from it. This should be available for at least several months, so you should have plenty of time to do so.

If you have any questions at all, or would like clarification on anything above, please ask in the Conversion Discussion thread.

Although we believe this is our current best course of action, this is not set in stone, and we're open to doing something else if more information or better options become available.

Thanks for being a part of the Redwall forum community!

[Dannflower Reguba]

Should you like to participate in the discussion (please do) about any and all aspects of the potential change, please go here: http://redwallabbey.com/forum/index.php?topic=11827