Any chance of a ProBoards importer?

[Rob B]

Could you post up a link to your forum when you have it up and running?

[vivebeauty]

ProBoards is free, so the best thing to do is probably to use sub-forum re-directs that link to the old board.

Example:

Forum One
---- Forum One Archive (Link to ProBoards site)
Forum Two
---- Forum Two Archive (Link to ProBoards site)

Just log onto the ProBoards site every so often so it doesn't get deleted for lack of activity over a long period of time.

If you don't have too many members, it may be satisfying to spend an evening manually adding all peoples accounts to the vB forum, with the same join date and post count as on the ProBoards forum, set them a random password and PM them that on the ProBoards site for first time log in. It would be time consuming, but probably satisfy members. Just disable post counts and sign ups on the ProBoards forum whilst you are doing it.

We're going to have an achive section with links that will re-direct to the old proboards forum.

I have the same size forum as you....the best thing to do in order to convince your members to move to vB is to make a thread with a list of all the benefits and extra features that the new forum will have, take some screenshots incase they have no idea what a vB forum looks like, and do a poll.

[vivebeauty]

Remember to never "rebuild counters" or your post counts will be reset.

Yeah....and if that ever happens I guess I could just manually add the proboards post count again onto each member's vB account....would take some time but it's not impossible to do.

[feldon23]

If I had all the time and patience in the world, I'd try to write a ProBoards harvester myself.

My problem is the web host. I don't have confidence in my current host to host the forum reliably, so am looking to change. There are so many hosts out there though, and I really can't afford a dud one if I am to convince my sceptical members that the move is worth it.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ can help you eliminate the duds. Just search for the host name + sucks like "godaddy sucks".

[Rob B]

ProBoards is free, so the best thing to do is probably to use sub-forum re-directs that link to the old board.

Example:

Forum One
---- Forum One Archive (Link to ProBoards site)
Forum Two
---- Forum Two Archive (Link to ProBoards site)

Just log onto the ProBoards site every so often so it doesn't get deleted for lack of activity over a long period of time.

If you don't have too many members, it may be satisfying to spend an evening manually adding all peoples accounts to the vB forum, with the same join date and post count as on the ProBoards forum, set them a random password and PM them that on the ProBoards site for first time log in. It would be time consuming, but probably satisfy members. Just disable post counts and sign ups on the ProBoards forum whilst you are doing it.

My problem is the web host. I don't have confidence in my current host to host the forum reliably, so am looking to change. There are so many hosts out there though, and I really can't afford a dud one if I am to convince my sceptical members that the move is worth it.

What I could do with doing is be able to let my users view the set up on an Admin Demo, but only one IP can access it

Check out the size of my forum for yourself: http://forum.cricket247.net

[feldon23]

Remember to never "rebuild counters" or your post counts will be reset.

[vivebeauty]

Rob,

My forum is currently on proboards and even though we're not able to convert our forum over, we're still going ahead with vBulletin because it offers us so much more features and it's more reliable and secure. We're very sad that we're going to not have our old posts and threads...but the best solution is to just create a link to the old forum...we're also going to alter member's post counts so they reflect their proboards post count. I agree with you though, there is a huge demand for a proboards conversion...hopefully it will happen oneday soon

[feldon23]

These free forums which refuse to allow you to download their data, even with a buyout option, are unfair in my opinion. They make their money by advertising. With their tactics, they hold onto unhappy customers for a few more months and generate negative word-of-mouth. Why screw customers over for a few lousy months?

[feldon23]

I don't know how big your forum is as far as # of users, active users, and posts, but most vBulletin forums can be run on shared hosting which is $10-15 per month, less than half that £22. £22 ($50/mo) is reasonable for semi-dedicated (VPS).

I am on dedicated ($109/month) but that is only because the web hosting bill is paid by someone else. If I had to do it myself, I'd make it work on a VPS.

[Rob B]

Well I pay £69 a year for my host at the moment just for a WordPress Blog and Coppermine Photo Gallery as well as a homepage and the hosting of images and scripts for my ProBoards forum. They say vB would demand I upgrade to semi-dedicated which is about £22 a month.

Problem is, I recently payed another $69 (about £40) for another years subscription, I am only 2 months into that and they won't refund if I changed now.

£312 a year is ridiculous, I know. £48 a year for vBulletin is good value imo. What do you pay per year, feldon, who is your host?

[feldon23]

£312 a year

Someone's getting ripped off.

[Rob B]

It's simply a matter of time and effort and I guess so far Jelsoft feels that the number of hours x $/£/€/§ per hour it would take to develop and test such a tool does not equal how many more ProBoards users would run out and buy vB if a converter was available.

Believe me, the demand is there for one. I am an active member of the ProBoards Support forum, every thread mentioning vBulletin is locked, it is on the censored words list, they are worried about vB, the suggestions forum is packed full of requests for vBulletin features, there are lots of threads asking about transfers.

ProBoards is the leading provider of free forums on the internet, or pretty dam close to being - how can a converter not be worth while for Jelsoft?

[Rob B]

I think ProBoards offer a lot for the fact they are free.

Fact is, I will be going from paying nothing from the forum to £312 a year (including web host upgrade) so I expect vBulletin to completely blow ProBoards out of the water, anything less and I will be annoyed for that money.

[Sovereign]

vBulletin blows EVERYONE out of the water. I used ProBoards as a backup when my main forum got hacked some time ago. It SUCKED.

[Sha]

So they're going to try & be slick. Typical.

I always found them to be really slow. vBulletin really blows them out of the water.