Huddler Transition Coming This Week

[iacas]

Moving to Huddler
Barring any last-minute hang-ups, The Sand Trap will be moving to the Huddler platform this week, most likely on Wednesday. Here's the old thread about this move .

For a week or so myself, the moderators, and the Forum Leaders have been banging away at a sandboxed environment getting rid of a lot of bugs and answering some questions.

The move to Huddler will do several things for the site and for you as a visitor, reader, member:

1. It will allow us to continue to grow. They'll be handling advertising (which will be kept at sane levels - we're not gonna junk up the site with ads).
2. It will provide new features like the Courses and Reviews section of the site.
3. It will swap out vBulletin for a platform which is seeing more growth of features than vBulletin could possibly imagine having given their size.

Features and Benefits of Huddler
Apologies in advance for some of the... "marketing speak" in some of these items. I've added a few notes in italics.

• High level of integration among site-wide content helps new and existing users discover related information. In other words, and for example, products each have their own page on which you can write a review, add them to lists which you can then include in your signatures, or shop for directly from the product page, etc.
• Content from all areas of the community (forums, articles, reviews, etc). are integrated and displayed on each different page type to show other related threads, articles, bikes, etc. This makes sense. The product page for "Titleist 910 D3" will show related threads and users who own or want the product, among other things.
  This helps reduce repeat questions from new users and helps bring more exposure to the great content on site.
• Global search
  Search is unified throughout the forums, Wiki articles, reviews, product pages, user profiles, etc. For any given search or advanced search, results will pull from all areas of the site. A user can tab through to see results narrowed down to a specific area.
• Direct photo hosting
  Users can upload photos directly to the site, create albums, and integrate these images in their posts, etc.
• Wiki system
  Users can collaborate on articles together. Each Wiki has a forum where users can collaborate on the structure on the article, the content, etc
• Structured Review system and "list" system to show off your gear
• Integrated chat functionality (this is enabled by request)
• Integration with Wordpress, including cross-platform search and single logins allowing users to comment on the blog as well as post in the community all under the same username [i]i.e. You can comment on the blog without needing to put in a new username and password.

There are other benefits you'll soon discover, but that list comes from Huddler and is fairly generic.

Change is Hard
Now, I get that change is hard, and we expect a few bumps. For example, Reputation is temporarily going away. It will return - with current reputations restored - in the future, but the feature is not there yet. It will take awhile, I'm sure, for people to get used to "where to find things" and "what does this button do?" and so forth.

I strongly believe that the end is well worth any minor bumps in the short-term, and I'm very excited to be able to bring this technology to The Sand Trap community.

The actual transition will take a few hours, during which time the forum will be closed for posts. When you see the new site, you'll know you're there as it won't look like this one.

The fruition of Several Months
Huddler first contacted me well over a year ago. They contacted me again in the spring. I blew them off both times. :)

Finally, in August of this year, they contacted me again, and their platform had finally risen to the point where it was worth a look. The more I looked, the more impressed I was. Still, their platform was not quite to the level where converting would be a "fair trade" of positive and negative. Which is why we've not converted until this week.

We're finally, now, at a point where the conversion should result in a very positive net change for everyone on the site. The Huddler platform itself has been advanced - and it's not a stretch to say that this site has been instrumental in several of the new features Huddler has either recently brought to the table or will bring to the table soon - and I'm very excited about this conversion.

Please use this thread to ask some questions, but remember, the conversion is near - probably Wednesday. Your usernames and passwords will remain the same, but your experience will be kicked up a notch.

[TN94z]

It will be a good change! I like the new format personally.

[iacas]

No questions? All is well?

[Lefty-Golfer]

No questions? All is well?

either you have lots of smart posters on here or we plan to just figure it out when we see it...i am going with 2nd option!!

[iacas]

either you have lots of smart posters on here or we plan to just figure it out when we see it...i am going with 2nd option!!

I think you're right!

It's the holidays too, so posting is as slow as it'll ever be. We're down in the 1.5M page views these months... :)

[TN94z]

No questions? All is well?

Don't worry....the flood will come after the migration and the holidays

[The Road Dog]

I have a question. the next time we log on will it be transparent or will we need to navigate some set of questions/items?

[iacas]

Don't worry....the flood will come after the migration and the holidays

Yeah, no kiddin'...

I have a question. the next time we log on will it be transparent or will we need to navigate some set of questions/items?

You'll have to log in, since your cookie will be different (vBulletin obviously sets a vBulletin cookie), but no, your account information (birthdate, handicap index, etc.) will be sucked over and your username, email, and password will all be the same. You'll have to "log in" but you will not have to do anything like creating a new account.

[loopy]

Looks good so far!  Cool I've got an avatar I'm guessing it's a default, but I'm cool with it.

[Jell0b0y]

wow its really different but looks pretty cool!

[DaSportsGuy]

Is it just my computer or is this site running REALLY slowly? From the time I type thesandtrap.com/forum into the address bar to the time I make a post it takes a good 7-10 minutes...every other site is running  at it usual pace so idk why this site is so slow...

Anyway, I like the format and the way everything is set up though. Looks really nice but will definitely take some getting used to, but overall, I like it.

[lcfd42]

how can you page the posts like on the other site. I used to use J and K to page up and down. It made scrolling through posts easier for me. Thanks.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by DaSportsGuy

Is it just my computer or is this site running REALLY slowly? From the time I type thesandtrap.com/forum into the address bar to the time I make a post it takes a good 7-10 minutes...every other site is running  at it usual pace so idk why this site is so slow...

Yes, dog slow currently. I'll see what they have to say.

Originally Posted by lcfd42

how can you page the posts like on the other site. I used to use J and K to page up and down. It made scrolling through posts easier for me. Thanks.

One of the things I'm pushing for the most. They're not hard to add, but it may not be until January given that the holidays are coming up soon.

[gilbo]

Originally Posted by DaSportsGuy

Is it just my computer or is this site running REALLY slowly? From the time I type thesandtrap.com/forum into the address bar to the time I make a post it takes a good 7-10 minutes...every other site is running  at it usual pace so idk why this site is so slow...

Anyway, I like the format and the way everything is set up though. Looks really nice but will definitely take some getting used to, but overall, I like it.

+1 on the slowness

+1  on also liking the new look

[tristanhilton85]

Originally Posted by gilbo

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaSportsGuy

Is it just my computer or is this site running REALLY slowly? From the time I type thesandtrap.com/forum into the address bar to the time I make a post it takes a good 7-10 minutes...every other site is running  at it usual pace so idk why this site is so slow...

Anyway, I like the format and the way everything is set up though. Looks really nice but will definitely take some getting used to, but overall, I like it.

+1 on the slowness

+1  on also liking the new look

Same here... site looks really good.... damn slow though.

[darkhunter139]

I really like the new site! Seems cool.  And yeah its running a but slow for me as well.

[mfgorilla]

Love the new look!

[DaSportsGuy]

Sites moving quickly now. All is good.

I'm really liking this new site!