I've been pondering about migrating this site to a commercial webhost provider for faster speeds and less maintenance for me, which is also an opportunity to evolve the site with a different approach/layout.

In thinking about what is this site's main value add. I think it is the Forums, with the Gallery and Stick FAQ coming in second; but predominantly the Forums.

BTW, after the database crash a year ago, I moved away from the site being entirely structured through a Content Management System (Post Nuke) with a single database back end.

So I'm thinking of moving the Forums into the forefront of the site and surrounding it with a portal on the home page, example here: http://www.phpbb3portal.com/....of course, minus all the ads, or this, http://www.board3.de/.

I can implement a Gallery within the PHPBB forum app, which will differ from the standalone Gallery app used now. Stick FAQ can still be available via a menu link, but not part of the forum app, it'll just be in its own subdirectory for access.

I'm thinking of losing the Stick Map and a few other features.

So, what are your thoughts about restructuring this site, layout suggestions, features to enhance, add or delete?
All f/b, criticisms, suggestions are highly welcomed!

Hi, Manny.

I think moving to a commercial webhost is great idea. I have stopped bothering with all servers in my house, it's just not worth the hassle. Commercial hosts are so cheap now it might even be cheaper in addition to saving you time. Moving the forum to the forefront makes a lot of sense, too.

Thanks for running everything!

-Eric

Sounds like a great idea, although it would be great to find a way to keep the Stick map too. I've been contacted a number of times by potential Stickists or musicians after a Stick player, via the map. I guess you *could* browse the forums and read posts/profiles to find local Stickists in your area, but that's a touch more difficult.

Cheers,

EG

Hi Manny,


Visually I prefer the latter example.


I don't think the existing gallery is working right. I tried to post pics of my 10-String and it wouldn't let me. It said I had to be registered. I tried to register but never received a confirmation e-mail.


Personally, the forums and the gallery are the only things I ever use. You could lose everything else and I probably wouldn't even notice the change.

I appreciate all the time and effort you put into this site. It's a valuable resource. So whatever decisions you make would be fine with me. If making this change will free up more needed time for you, then I'm all for it.

Jim

I can't believe this site is running on a free host?

Here's a great deal, sale ends today the 4th (was suppose to end yesterday the 3rd):

Dreamhost 95% Off New Year Hosting Sale

I've been using and integrating several open source, CMS's, forums and others over the past while...

Gallery2 has announced Gallery3 being released in the near future, maybe February 2009. It's a complete rewrite, they want to make it more light weight and part of the goal is easier interrogation with other apps (or at least Drupal). All that said it'll have to go through Beat pains, none of the G2 pluggins will migrate to G3, we'll have to wait for the interrogation plug ins BUT interrogation should be easier.

I think overall any community site should NOT go down a path which is not "future proof". Meaning a site does not have to use apps (ad ons) but should be built so that in the future such things can be used. For example: detailed profile pages, blogs, groups, etc...

I like the idea of "Forums into the forefront of the site" and moving the most used portions of the site to the for front. Personally I don't even look at the front page of this site.

If the sites main page included a summary of latest site activity from all installed apps that would be cool.

Drupal is a great CMS, not sure if it's appropriate for this site. A great example I'm trying to mimic with a networking site I've built of Drupal/phpBB interrogation, a ton of networking features and a front page covering all latest site activity is this one:

http://www.betternetworker.com/

One suggestion for this site "as is" is to enable some more BBCode... especially for embedding YouTube and other videos into our posts. I can't remember where to do this but have successfully enabled the feature on (another) forum I run.


Marc

Actually, this site is running on one of my private servers, I have 2 live ones running Linux, Apache, etc., out of my house. The second live one is a backup repository for the main one, and also has Mailman listserver app running on it since it's a resource hog.

I've come across lots of different webhost providers, many of them are only front end affiliate programs for a real provider with all the hardware, lines, server farms, etc. I'm still shopping it, asking various friends in the industry questions like who are the best commercial/cost effective webhosts (on Linux/Unix, not Windows server), shared vs. dedicated server accounts, even colocation of my servers. I've got more homework to do.

Drupal was mentioned and I've been looking into that, along with Joomla. I like what these CMS have to offer better than Post Nuke, which I used in the past.

But, in thinking about the site and it's main functions/features, it seems like it's about the social networking amongst Stickists, forums, private messaging, photo and music files. So I'm thinking to evolve this site to more of a social networking approach.

Do folks have any tips/leads on services or accounts of this nature?
A critical must have for me is the ability to export the existing forum database into the architecture.

Great idea. I just added this feature via new BBcoding. A YouTube button is now available when posting.

Manny,

You've got a way more complicated server situation then I can comment on.

My limited advice on Joomla and Drupal...

Joomla has the nicer admin interface but you have to go out of it to see your edits. Since Joomla lacks admin definable user access I had to use Drupal, which is very lightweight.

Choosing between Drupal 5 and 6 was really hard. D6 is right on the edge of being usable for social networking but is waiting on development of modules (which may take a while cause D5 runs fine)

Both the D5 and D6 forum modules really lack features compare to phpBB and imo would not be a good move for this forum since users are used to this.

The Drupal/phpBB interrogation module is far from perfect. It calls for using the same data base for both apps. There is another method I found somewhere to edit various php files out but would take hours if not days to make work, I'm pretty sure the betternetwork.com guys did something like that.

Drupal + VBulletin has good reviews and can port from phpBB but VBulletin is not open source and requires a license.

I've been watching development of social network software (Drupal ain't quite there yet, Joomla is waiting on a buddy set of modules, Elgg is new and gaining ground quickly but still needs work, BuddyPress a set of plugs for WordPress is on the horizon) but none of these open source CMS/Social Networking application seem ready for big time glitch free use for developers creating Social Networks.

I'd say go with the phpBB portal for now and/or/maybe wait 6 months down the road and revisit the bigger possible social network apps.

Who knows what plug ins will come out for phpBB3 or what phpBB4 will look like. If they follow the trend coders are going to have to incorporate social networking aspects.

The site I just developed would have not got off the ground with a forum alone. I love forums but imo most people prefer 'groups' and social network type stuff that is more user friendly and easy to click.

Marc

This is really informative. Thanks and keep the tips/info/advice coming.

I looked into some social networking webservices/apps, and it seems too much. I don't know if Stickists want to do "friends" and compartmentalize from the community, but maybe so.

If I go way of Joomla, I think I can have PHPBB3 standalone and create a bridge between the 2 databases re: registration/user/login. Have you done a bridge like this before?

Hi Manny,

I think the way the forum functions right now is great, and thanks for adding the YouTube embedding, very nice feature. It would be nice for the forum to have more of a presence on the front page of the site (some kind of listing of recent posts like the old site had).

Thanks again for all your work on this site.