Post by leeknight on Jan 10, 2013 13:04:32 GMT -5
IT'S TIME FOR THE NEW PLATFORM!!!
Dear extremely patient people,
Before the end of January, Harmony Central will move its forums and content to a new platform. Frankly, we’re pushing this ahead of schedule because we just can’t wait any longer to have a functional, stable home for what has got to be the most loyal and patient online community on the planet (maybe even the galaxy). We’ve been testing, running the workflow past regular users, checking off bugs, and we admit it, doing a few burnt offerings to the Gods of Endless Code . . . and so far, all signs say “go.”
However, there are a few of what software manufacturers refer to euphemistically as “known issues” (translation: “we know it’s a problem, but we haven’t been able to fix it yet”). Namely...
* At a certain date (we’ll announce it, but it’s pretty soon), all content and posts will be migrated to the new platform. That’s the good news. The bad news is that anything past that date can’t be part of the migration process, which is fairly lengthy. So, posts after migration begins will be gone forever. If you post the answer to the meaning of life after migration begins, please save it and re-post in the new environment.
* Private messages and attachments in vBulletin can’t be migrated. Anything embedded in a post (YouTube video, image, etc.) will migrate; it’s only files attached to the message that will be lost.
* We may have multiquote at launch, but probably not.
* We will not have Open Jam or the Political Forum at the outset. We need to limit traffic until we know things are working. Yes, that sucks. Yes, I know. I've argued against this and there's nothing I can do about it.
* There will be no reviews of any kind—pro reviews, user reviews, or review articles written by our staff—until February, and possibly March. Separating them out lets us switch over to the forums sooner, and we don’t think anyone will consider that a bad tradeoff.
Are we nervous? You bet. We all remember what happened with the “revision-whose-name-we-dare-not-speak.” But one of the problems before was that we moved from a site that was falling apart, yet still functional, to one that was totally dysfunctional. This time, we’re moving from a dysfunctional platform to one that shows tremendous promise.
Two more things. First, much of the non-forum parts of the site will have to be reconstructed. You may run across articles that haven’t been formatted properly, or are missing audio examples. We’ll be going through the articles one-by-one and prepping them, which will be time-consuming but also gives us a chance to do some tweaks and revisions. It’s all good.
Second, and most importantly, you have no idea how grateful we are for those of you who didn’t give up on HC. If you think this has been frustrating for you, imagine how we felt as we watched the site we’ve poured our lives into fall apart. Yes, we’re nervous . . . but we think our faith will be rewarded. And as a result, we think yours will be, too.
You have our deepest thanks and respect. Now, I have to stop typing so I can go back to crossing my fingers.
--Craig Anderton on behalf of the entire Harmony Central team (including the hamsters who kept the vBulletin servers running, No worries, they’ll be getting a generous severance package.)
Dear extremely patient people,
Before the end of January, Harmony Central will move its forums and content to a new platform. Frankly, we’re pushing this ahead of schedule because we just can’t wait any longer to have a functional, stable home for what has got to be the most loyal and patient online community on the planet (maybe even the galaxy). We’ve been testing, running the workflow past regular users, checking off bugs, and we admit it, doing a few burnt offerings to the Gods of Endless Code . . . and so far, all signs say “go.”
However, there are a few of what software manufacturers refer to euphemistically as “known issues” (translation: “we know it’s a problem, but we haven’t been able to fix it yet”). Namely...
* At a certain date (we’ll announce it, but it’s pretty soon), all content and posts will be migrated to the new platform. That’s the good news. The bad news is that anything past that date can’t be part of the migration process, which is fairly lengthy. So, posts after migration begins will be gone forever. If you post the answer to the meaning of life after migration begins, please save it and re-post in the new environment.
* Private messages and attachments in vBulletin can’t be migrated. Anything embedded in a post (YouTube video, image, etc.) will migrate; it’s only files attached to the message that will be lost.
* We may have multiquote at launch, but probably not.
* We will not have Open Jam or the Political Forum at the outset. We need to limit traffic until we know things are working. Yes, that sucks. Yes, I know. I've argued against this and there's nothing I can do about it.
* There will be no reviews of any kind—pro reviews, user reviews, or review articles written by our staff—until February, and possibly March. Separating them out lets us switch over to the forums sooner, and we don’t think anyone will consider that a bad tradeoff.
Are we nervous? You bet. We all remember what happened with the “revision-whose-name-we-dare-not-speak.” But one of the problems before was that we moved from a site that was falling apart, yet still functional, to one that was totally dysfunctional. This time, we’re moving from a dysfunctional platform to one that shows tremendous promise.
Two more things. First, much of the non-forum parts of the site will have to be reconstructed. You may run across articles that haven’t been formatted properly, or are missing audio examples. We’ll be going through the articles one-by-one and prepping them, which will be time-consuming but also gives us a chance to do some tweaks and revisions. It’s all good.
Second, and most importantly, you have no idea how grateful we are for those of you who didn’t give up on HC. If you think this has been frustrating for you, imagine how we felt as we watched the site we’ve poured our lives into fall apart. Yes, we’re nervous . . . but we think our faith will be rewarded. And as a result, we think yours will be, too.
You have our deepest thanks and respect. Now, I have to stop typing so I can go back to crossing my fingers.
--Craig Anderton on behalf of the entire Harmony Central team (including the hamsters who kept the vBulletin servers running, No worries, they’ll be getting a generous severance package.)
