YaBB SE site closing down

[Jeff Lewis]

As was mentioned back in August (see this thread: http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php?thread=25385), the development for YaBB SE had stopped and all focus had been shifted to a new forum called SMF and located at http://www.simplemachines.org

We have left the boards up here for current YaBB SE users to find solutions to problems they were having but have encouraged both old and new users to check out SMF.

SMF is now nearing a public beta version and as a result we have removed several boards from here and will be closing down this site March 31st.  This doesn't mean your install will stop working by any means, just that this site will no longer be up.

For those of you that wish to continue using YSE we will have a board at the Simple Machines forum where you can ask your support questions but all development will be focused on SMF which means that there will be no further releases.

Users who are worried about their forums and what will become of them need not worry. There is a complete converter made to convert from YaBB SE to SMF which will see a seamless conversion, and SMF will be released publicly, and above all SMF will be completely free.

You are strongly encouraged to read this thread: http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php?thread=25385 which is also located over at the Simple Machines Forum: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=688.0 where you can about more changes and features added to the new forum which has been coded from the ground up.

[irbrian]

It seems to me that there ought to at least be an archive of these forums someplace. A lot of useful information has been discussed here over the past couple years, some of it related to the software, but a great deal of it relating to mods, forum-based projects, hosting, and dozens of other useful topics. What a waste it would be for all of that to just vanish.

Besides, is it not conceivable that some people may not be ready to move to SMF in the near future -- or for whatever reason, may not want to upgrade? While it would be downright silly to expect active support, at the very least, such users ought to be able to search an archived version of this forum.

[Jeff Lewis]

We cannot continue to maintain two sites. We are looking at ways to still offer some help for those that wish to remain using YSE. We will have a board over at SMF for YSE users and we'll try to compile a FAQ for those users (even though FAQs are almost never read).

However, the site WILL close March 31st.

[bostasp]

Maybe an archive of these forums could be placed at simplemachines.org, instead of maintaining the two sites?

[irbrian]

I'm not talking about maintaining two sites. I'm not even necessarily talking about maintaining the old forum as a forum. I'm just talking about finding some way to archive it. Surely someone could take a few minutes to write a simple script to go through the database automatically and export each thread to a readable file -- even having simple txt files available for browsing someplace would be better than completely deleting two years of forum activity.

[Symetrical]

What about all the mods that are here? They should at laest be saved! Especially for people porting mods or wanting to learn from old mods, or even just to get ideas!

[ReD]

I do not see why anyone would not want to upgrade to this new forum.

It is better than the other alternatives that have come along and stole the forum yabb and made in new sites.

[Tywick]

<snip>

Simple Machines Forum: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=688.0

<snip>

Will decimals play an important role in the future of SMF. This is one example where using a decimal has a downside since it stops parsing after "." . I know the link works perfectly fine now but what about the future?

It seems to me that there ought to at least be an archive of these forums someplace. A lot of useful information has been discussed here over the past couple years, some of it related to the software, but a great deal of it relating to mods, forum-based projects, hosting, and dozens of other useful topics. What a waste it would be for all of that to just vanish.

I think that's a good idea as well.

[Jeff Lewis]

That link would work fine in SMF yes.

[Jeff Lewis]

I do not see why anyone would not want to upgrade to this new forum.

It is better than the other alternatives that have come along and stole the forum yabb and made in new sites.

I have to agree but we do understand that some people might not want to for whatever reason.

However, we needed to make a decision on moving forward. It's a team decision, things are always decided on by the team, and something we feel we needed to do.

As for other "alternatives", I only know of one or two that are left and none are really viable. It's one thing to make MODs for an existing package but it's another thing to keep building on to something and keeping everything running smoothly.

SMF has been coded with performance and security in mind and at the same time has several very powerful features. Is it bloatware? No, but you can find bloatware YSE alternatives out there if that's your thing and your host will  allow the performance hit on their servers.  

[Tywick]

I do not see why anyone would not want to upgrade to this new forum.

<snip>

Many people are comfortable with running YSE that is in perfect working condition and do not feel the need to upgrade. You know the old motto "If it's not broke why fix it?". Especially if someone's board contains a lot of custom mods.

[Chris Cromer]

Some people can't upgrade to SMF either. I am an admin at a 1.4.1 YaBBSE board. The owner can't upgrade past 1.4.1 because his host has PHP 4.0.6 and they won't upgrade PHP.  And since SMF requires PHP 4.1.0 he won't be able to move to it.

[Xelloss42]

I do not see why anyone would not want to upgrade to this new forum.

Even more than "not broke, don't fix it", even if there is a converter for YaBB SE to SMF, the converter won't move mods over to the new forum, it'll just move the content.  So if you have interesting modifications that you've made to YaBB SE over the years, if a similar mod isn't available on the other forum, you're out of luck.  Furthermore, even when there are comparable mods for the new forum, there's no guarantee that the new mods will have all the functionality or features of the old one.  This is by far my main reason for not wanting to upgrade.  As long as there's a large community working on YaBB SE, it'll be a viable program.  

I'm also really concerned about the Mods section on this forum.  Since there will be plenty of people still using YaBB SE, it would seem quite unfortunate if all the work the people in the community have made over the past couple years was just lost.  

If possible, could you at least host a very limited forum for YaBB SE on simplemachines?  That way those who still use the forums can ask for help if they need it, or look through mods that they may want for their programs.  I definitely understand hosting two sites is too expensive, but considering the size of the community, can't at least something be saved?

[bostasp]

Some mods have already been ported over to SMF, and most cosmetic mods can be simply added with the new template system.

I know some popular YaBB SE mods have been built into SMF, one being the Extra Smilies mod.

[Jeff Lewis]

If possible, could you at least host a very limited forum for YaBB SE on simplemachines?  That way those who still use the forums can ask for help if they need it, or look through mods that they may want for their programs.  I definitely understand hosting two sites is too expensive, but considering the size of the community, can't at least something be saved?

As stated in the first post, we're going to try to have soemthing for those that wish to remain with YSE for the time being. Naturally though it WILL be phased out eventually.