Plans for the present and the future

[matt3o]

So first of all. No DT Awards this year, you probably have noticed by now. It's a pity because this is an important DT anniversary, but it is what it is. Fuck 2020.

What next?

I'll finally be removing phpbb (current forum software) and move to nodebb (unless something better comes out in the coming few days). I already installed it and: 1) it's very easy to update, 2) it has 4 integrated layers of protection against spammers (phpbb only has 1). The above two points are crucial to me.

Of course all the other shit like mentions and tags and flags are all integrated. We won't use the "karma" feature, but it will be possible to like a post.

PMs are managed like a chat between two people and they are finally searchable.

Now the bad news.

The two software aren't really speaking to each other, so importing of old material will be limited. My plan is to import minimal information from the active threads that received an update in the last --say-- month and move the current forum as it is into archive.deskthority.net in read-only mode. That will also preserve google indexing (with a smart redirect).

All users will also have to create a new password, but login via google/twitter/github will be available too.

What about the wiki?

The wiki will be finally moved to wiki.deskthority.net. Hopefully forum/wiki integration will be kept. Mediawiki is becoming more and more a software tailored to wikipedia and not a general purpose wiki... but it is what it is. I'll see if I can keep it updated but with the visual editor they are making it a pain in the arse.

Any technical help (PHP, mysql, mongodb, nodejs, html, css, nginx, ...) is appreciated.

That's it. Happy holidays. Have a good ending and a great beginning.

[matt3o]

quick update. the import tools I had for phpbb>nodebb failed so I would have to build an import script. While it's relatively easy and nodebb provides decent API/hooks, I don't have the time or stamina to do it. A few people gave their availability but I haven't heard from them with actual code yet.

I'm exploring now more options. In the meantime... happy new year!

[tobo]

Happy new year!

[Findecanor]

move the current forum as it is into archive.deskthority.net in read-only mode. That will also preserve google indexing (with a smart redirect).
[...]
The wiki will be finally moved to wiki.deskthority.net.

There are lots of links to forum threads in the Wiki, as well as many links from the forum posts to the Wiki with just "/wiki/..." instead of the full address.

Could you set up a viewtopic.php and wiki/ on the main domain with redirect to the new subdomains with preserved path and GET parameters? As well as "wiki/" on the archive domain?

Edit: I'll dust off my old PHP skills ... I hope this works with a PHP version you can use, otherwise I'll have to edit it:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

<?php // Replacement viewtopic.php to put in new deskthority.net root:
$in_params = array();
parse_str($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], $in_params);
$allowed = ['f','t','p'];
$params = array_filter($in_params,
	function($val,$key) use ($allowed) {
		return in_array($key,$allowed) && is_numeric($val);
	},
        ARRAY_FILTER_USE_BOTH);

$suffix="";
if (!empty($params)) {
	$suffix = '?' . http_build_query($params);
	if (array_key_exists('p',$params))
		$suffix .= '#' . $params['p'];
}

header("Location: https://archive.deskthority.net/viewtopic.php" . $suffix, true, 301);
exit();
?>

[matt3o]

Could you set up a viewtopic.php and wiki/ on the main domain with redirect to the new subdomains with preserved path and GET parameters? As well as "wiki/" on the archive domain?

yes of course all we can redirect, we will.

Edit: I'll dust off my old PHP skills ... I hope this works with a PHP version you can use, otherwise I'll have to edit it:

thanks for the code, anyway that will be likely done on the server side (ie: apache)

[karlmartin95]

I'm a NodeJS developer so if you need some advice pm me!

[Findecanor]

BTW, when you do migrate the wiki, will you please fix the issue with images with filenames containing a space " ".

[lhutton]

I'm a Linux admin by day (maybe not a good one) so I can maybe help. No so familiar with NodeJS but I know nginx/apache app stacks pretty well.

Web forums are tired, when are we moving to a proper BBS or Usenet? I don't think spam is much of an issue there these days, neither are users either though. At least we aren't migrating to a Facebook group like on of the other forums I follow did. Glad you're still going to allow for local accounts as I'm not fond of needing to tie everything to a Gmail/MS/FB/Github account.