Heads Up! Forum is Moving to New Server

This is more of an "informal" announcement than anything else, just to give a heads up for what the plan is currently for the forums. I've decided to find a cheaper solution to hosting since I've been paying around $25 a month for several years now. I finally managed to knock that price down substantially and for a much better deal that will offer more for the money.

Anywhyisit has notified me of how bad things have gotten with the spam-bot situation here and proposed the only real viable solution to get rid of them:

Upgrading vBulletin to a new version, with newer features and improved CAPTCHA security.

For those that do not know, our forum runs on a vBulletin which is not free software. You have to purchase an annual license in order to upkeep the forum. So far this forum license has yet to be renewed since 2004. Andwhyisit has decided to finance the upgrade of this forum completely by himself, so you all should be very thankful for his generosity.

In regards to that and the wonderful job he's done with the site and forum, I felt that it is only right that he be an administrator here. After we get the new forum setup on the new server, I will set it up so that he is both an administrator of the Cave Story tribute site and forum.

I'm in the process of moving everything over bit-by-bit, so I'll keep everyone posted on the current situation. In addition, we'll have to spend some time to look through the old database at obvious spam-bot members and delete them out of the database. We'll most likely have to close the forums for about a day when we are finally ready to move the most recent copy of the forum database over. I'll give a 24 hour notice before that happens.

-SkyeWelse

 

Have you guys tried SMF?

 

Yeah, I've heard of it before as well as PHPbb. But there is no guarantee we can revive this vB database to work on another forum-type, so we've decided to continue with vB for now. The same applies to the custom forum skins that have been created specifically for the vB interface.

The new vB also has some great mods that we can think about implementing that could be fun to mess around with.

-SkyeWelse

 

Oh cool, glad to hear that the forums are getting an upgrade.

Also good to hear that the spambots are going to get blasted when we make the transition. Good riddance. XD

 

Dx
Please be careful.
I dun wants to lose ma favorite place to talk abouts ma favorite game.

 

I hope I have proper rights then to add categories and such D:
And edit user options, would be an help. :eek:

 

I hope I have proper rights then to add categories and such D:
And edit user options, would be an help.

Sure, send me a P.M. of stuff that you don't already have access to and I'll see that you get access to them after we upgrade.

-SkyeWelse

 

Just to let you know, not to be a killjoy or anything.

Whether you upgrade to a 3.7.X or 3.8.X spambots will still be able to get through.

While it will help keep spambots out, there are already programs out there that can get pass "reCAPTCHA" which is the best way to stop spambots at the moment.

But other than that the upgrade will be good, this forum has been needing one for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. lol

 

Yeah, nothing will be perfect, but the upgrade should help a bit. The problem I'm faced with now is getting rid of potential spambot accounts after the move. Worse comes to worse, I'll set the forum to moderate all new registered users before they get a chance to post. It's the less convenient way, but that's a possibility that can be uses as a last resort.

 

Reply Test on New Server