This Weekend's AnandTech Forums Upgrade
by Ryan Smith on August 4, 2016 10:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Site Updates
Update 08/06 16:30 ET: And we're done, the new forums are live.
Taking a break from our usual technology news, we have a bit of site news to discuss this evening.
For the past couple of months we have been preparing a much-needed forums upgrade behind the scenes, one that will upgrade our circa 2009 vBulletin based forums with a newer platform based on XenForo. Among other improvements, this allows us to offer full HTTPS encryption for all connections (and better backend security), better spam control, and like the main AnandTech site itself, a single responsive design that adjusts to both desktops and mobile devices (but fear not, we’re also continuing Taptalk support).
With the bulk of the behind the scenes work having wrapped up, we’re finally ready to complete the upgrade and transfer everything over to the new forums. To do this we’ll be taking the AnandTech forums offline this Friday at 6pm ET (22:00 UTC). This will allow us to minimize the disruption and allow the bulk of the transfer to take place overnight, with the new forums set to come online on Saturday.
The full announcement from Purch’s community team is posted below. Further information can be found in the respective threads linked below, and, of course, our comment system will not be impacted by this change.
Greetings AnandTech members!
In the interest of substantially improving the user experience and security for all members in our community, we’re migrating the forum software from vBulletin to XenForo. We’re undertaking this important move for a number of reasons:
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Security is improved greatly in the new platform, and we’re also rolling out SSL as an additional security measure
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Development in XenForo is more active and is based on a modern framework
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The learning curve for our users is tiny, as XenForo was built by the previous developers of vBulletin
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Extra built-in features like spam prevention that are stricter and more effective
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Easier and more intuitive platform for both new and veteran users
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The add-on ecosystem for new features and functionality is larger
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Significant increase in site speed and load times
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Responsive design that scales with resolution and mobile-friendly interface
We’ll be taking the forum offline for a number of hours over this coming weekend to complete the migration. Upon return from the downtime, all of your content and profile information will be present, and you’ll be able to login as normal.
Our goal with this transition is to provide a stable base platform, so we’ve endeavored to keep any major, customized changes apart from the platform to a minimum. The theme itself is simpler and cleaner to allow members to acclimate. We’re holding off on any massive thematic or extraneous feature changes (keeping them to a small number), and going as vanilla as possible to make the move a smooth one, as switching to a new platform is a major undertaking and we’re resolved to keep your content safe above all else.
We know that jumping platforms can be disruptive to your routine; familiarity and comfort of habits are as important in online communities as they are in real life. We are making this change to safeguard the continued growth of AnandTech, with both eyes towards a very bright future for the community. During the transition, please bear with us patiently as we work diligently to bring the forum over to the new platform.
To read over some of the big changes and how they might affect you, check out our handy guide to transitioning from vBulletin to XenForo here:
Guide to the New AnandTech Community
If you encounter a bug with the new platform, please let us know in this thread:
AnandTech XenForo Feedback
Thank you for your attention, and we’ll see you on the forums!
Warm Regards,
Joe Pishgar
Director of Community, AnandTech
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42 Comments
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0razor1 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I've already campaigned for this - from India we have ZERO visibility/ access to your forums and I refuse to go the VPN route.C'mon already! Anandtech is a site I check 5 times a day. Has been the case for 10 years. I cannot for love of life understand why but for a handful of spammers, cannot access your forums.
Can something be done? I mean you push me to OCN which is great, but AT is AT, and I expect to be able to access your forums and be part of constructive discussions and not just frivolous comments on articles you choose to publish.
Ryan Smith - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
The new forum software gives us finer grained spam controls, so while I can't promise anything, it may help with the problem.At the same time as one of the larger tech forums on the Internet we get more than our fair share of spammers either operating or botnetting out of India, so we've had to lock down a large number of IP addresses to keep those spammers at bay.
0razor1 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Ryan, I have faith in your ability to figure this out. There's a ton of sites that are open to Indian IPs and they do just fine - but none of them interest me in the slightest.BTW, hope the note 7 gets that review treatment ASAP :) I've got money to spend and my note 5 feels a little long in the tooth.
+ an edit button for the comments ?
Murloc - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
I guess that at this point it's in the hands of the Purch community team.Murloc - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
nvidia vs amd flame wars are just as present on the forums, in addition to alternator-sized bulk beef.jjj - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I hate making accounts so never made one there,odd to need 2 diff ones for the same site.imaheadcase - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Responsive design that scales with resolution and mobile-friendly interface...now if that would only work with the MAIN site. Love having a huge desktop, just to have to zoom in to read anandtech.com.Ryan Smith - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Humm, the main site is responsive. Depending on the window size, there are 4 different site configurations.imaheadcase - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
nope, im on phone now. So far i have had full screen ads shown, "promoted " articles about dumb stuff, etc. scroll forever on nexus 6p. At home, with adblock its not as bad, but you dont have three versions.. because it never scales correct.Crono - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Is there anyone I can pay to implement a dark theme? We've been promised theme(s) since before the move to vB, and it still keeps getting put off. It would be greatly appreciated.