Is the current message board the right one for us? If it isn't, we have to choose another one. Which one? This one? And how to move 1200 posts? Or we'll just keep them here and I'll lock the forum? Ideas, tips and suggestions are welcomed!

If I remember right, both phpbb as well as vBulletin require a one-time paid licence per site to use; SMF, on the other hand, is free, but not as good as vB (the best one IMO). Assuming you're starting up this convo for a reason and not just talking hypothetically - i.e., you already have a new place for us to move and to install the msg board to - won't the paid licence add more to the server's costs already? If cost is not an issue, I'm all for starting fresh with a proper msg board - any of the more known ones should be better than this buggy, half-developed thing we have here. Btw, what site would be hosting it?

Don't worry too much about trying to save our "treasures" here either. Like I said on the server, about 80% of the content here is just chatter and socializing so try to focus on the rest and just copy&paste that over to the new place after it's set up. Besides, the same ppl will be signing up to the new place and the Freelancer msg board here will continue to exist so we'll be able to link back to it for whatever matter we may want to, so it's not like we won't know who's who without the previous meet & greet posts; new members and further chat will fill the new place up anyway. Just let me know when you've installed it so I can suggest a more efficient forums structure and naming method than here so there won't be any thematic overlap or redundancies (our current one has a few forums that should be under "Server" instead of existing on their own: Announcements, maps, bans; same with "Other games" that logically is a subset of "Off Topic"; "General Disc" is misleading if you don't notice the description that says it's for UT2k4 only... mistakes like that).

Have fun msg board shopping :p.

And how much are php or vB cost?

A vBulletin would be nice, true. But if the costs increase too much, then I would prefer to stay with this one.

I don't think that Foibos could bear the costs all the time and let's be honest: At the end of the day the donations can't weigh up what he's paying.
More costs would probably even more shorten the life of our beloved server.


I agree with Peg when it comes to the topic-names, I would have chosen them different too. :p


The biggest "treasures" in this board are imho the map-release-threads and the forum-rules (yeah, I am proud of it :p).
So in case we would move to a new board, I'd like to be there from the first day to reorganize that stuff, so please wait a while for me to come back )



The biggest negative point is, that now have all our registered accounts here that would abandon when we move to a new board and useless accounts are something that I really hate in the Internet.
As well as the whole profile-settings, but that could be overtaken to the new board probably.

A nice site for comparison is here: http://www.forummatrix.org/
They forgot http://support.phpmyforum.de/ ok, sry it's german but it's a powerful forum, too and supporting english as well AFAIK
Greetz, heinz

Thanks for that comparsion, Heinz. phpBB is for free, with many features and nice design. Which modifications could be useful for us? And which style you like?

Style: ClanzDarkness3

already has the UT look =)

Maybe such dark style could tire eyes cause of high contrast and overall darkness? I think light grey versions would be very nice, like your showed Foibos (Pro Silver Spec. Edition).

This is imho good too:

Getaway
http://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/?style_id=41

Winterday (but without all this winter stuff of course
http://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/?style_id=105

Xandgrey
http://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/?style_id=155
Etc
And if we need a dark style than we should look for something like this board color scheme. Its not very dark and has moderate contrast

As I assume you all know, message boards are a text-based communication medium that can often take up enough time reading through, therefore logic (and past experience) would suggest that the more suitable style choice is one that both goes easy on the eyes and makes good use of the available screen real estate as well. There's no practical use in a skin that may contain an appealing sideline image (image assets can be changed or added manually to any skin anyway), but leaves the main msg board table where all the important and everyday use stuff is to only 70% of the screen width, as the case with ClanzDarkness3 and some other styles is. Equally, there's no point picking a skin that imposes bright or eye-searing tones on the bigger areas of each page so our eyes can get strained and tired the more we stare at it; msg boards have the luxury of not needing to follow word processing software colour patterns, so try picking a dark/shady tone, but with bright text and important icons/highlights. My suggestions for a theme would be between AcidTech Tiger, Black Pearl and CA Black (and maybe Hermes too, but not so much) - all can of course be edited from the packed content any way we'd like. I also agree that the colour scheme of the mini msg board here works well too.

CA Black is interresting, but too dark? Polyethylene looks modern, but it's maybe too narrow. Or subsilver2, clear and nice.