Site Switch-Over Occurring October 1

[iacas]

Ladies, gentlemen…

As most of you know, we're switching this site off the Huddler platform as of October 1, 2015. We're moving to IPS 4.0.11. It's a relatively new release, and so it's not the most awesome package out there, but it will grow to be quickly and over time, and will save us from moving to 3.4.8 and then switching relatively soon again to 4.x.

In order to make the switch-over easier, we're not immediately importing all of the data that right away. Some things will be lost (some likely permanently, some likely only until we can implement a similar feature on the new site), so it's important that you begin to prepare for them now.

Before September 30, please save to your computer or phone (via screenshot, saving to a text file, whatever works for you):

• Any PMs that are important to you.
• Any draft posts you have (they're all listed on your profile page near the bottom).

We may lose some things in the conversion process. What we do not intend to lose:

• Usernames, avatars, email, password, reputation, and member groups (Forum Leaders, etc.).
• Threads and posts, including threads in groups which are really just special threads anyway.

That's the meat of the entire forum right there, and so it's the primary focus for us in moving forward. This will also help us to minimize downtime (ideally just two or three days) when the actual transition occurs.

We may lose (i.e. not have a place for right away) products (which includes courses and equipment and the reviews on each of them) and we may lose some other little things too, but again the meat of the site - the threads and posts and member accounts - should all be fine.

P.S. I'm going to try to create a list of all Supporters of the site with the end dates (if you have one) before the switch over as well, and the current award settings too. I'm not 100% certain how those will be re-created on the new site (I've already set up the user groups, but they can't be set to expire as we can on the current site). So those might be some of the kinds of things we manage manually for a short period of time before we implement them on IPS 4.

Added (2015-09-29): Everyone , please re-set your passwords HERE on THIS CURRENT SITE as that will update the password hashes so that you should be able to log in seamlessly on the new site.

[boogielicious]

Thanks @iacas . Let me know if there is anything the mods can do to help.

[iacas]

We should be playing around with an earlier data dump (from June) by about the end of the month.

[mvmac]

Thanks for posting Erik.

[GolfLug]

Best of luck for an event free transition... Please advise if any assistance that I can provide.

[mvmac]

In case some of you haven't seen this.

[Shindig]

Thanks for the update. Glad I could do my small part to help.

[saevel25]

Good luck guys. Looking forward to seeing how the site turns out after the transition.

[Gunther]

Can I put in a request to have some of those dumb drunk posts I've made deleted? ;-)

[Abu3baid]

Can I put in a request to have some of those dumb drunk posts I've made deleted? ;-)

[iacas]

Just a little bump as this is happening soon…

[Pretzel]

Will the general look of the site remain similar, or are you also going with a design change at the same time?

[iacas]

Will the general look of the site remain similar, or are you also going with a design change at the same time?

It will look different as it's using different software, but the colors and stuff will remain somewhat similar.

[Zeph]

I've been an active member of an IPS board for 12 years, partly as moderator and administrator, so this switch will work out fine. That one doesn't have all the features TST uses (equipment, reviews etc), so I'm interested in seeing how that'll work out.

[RussUK]

@iacas is there anything else, other than saving important PM's and drafts, we need to do or, if all goes to plan, will we just log in as usual to a shiny new site?

[iacas]

I've been an active member of an IPS board for 12 years, partly as moderator and administrator, so this switch will work out fine. That one doesn't have all the features TST uses (equipment, reviews etc), so I'm interested in seeing how that'll work out.

We aren't keeping the "Equipment" or "Courses" sections. We may look at adding them back later but for now they're kind of going away.

@iacas  is there anything else, other than saving important PM's and drafts, we need to do or, if all goes to plan, will we just log in as usual to a shiny new site?

For now? No. We'll let you know if anything comes up that we can think of. Some users might want to keep their avatar history (i.e. download all the avatars they've ever used).

Lots of the features we're going to add in the week or two or three post-re-launch.

[dkolo]

We aren't keeping the "Equipment" or "Courses" sections. We may look at adding them back later but for now they're kind of going away.

For now? No. We'll let you know if anything comes up that we can think of. Some users might want to keep their avatar history (i.e. download all the avatars they've ever used).

Lots of the features we're going to add in the week or two or three post-re-launch.

Should we refrain from posting reviews in the equipment section, then?

[iacas]

Should we refrain from posting reviews in the equipment section, then?

Yes. We're putting them in threads for now.

We'll still HAVE all of the data, and look to add the products back in down the line, but we have more important things to square away first.