A few questions, considering migrating from vBulletin.

I've used vBulletin on the internets on various forums for probably 20 years now. It's always been my preferred forum to use as not just a user but as an admin/owner. Recently my little website vBulletin 4.2 had a malware infestation and after paying for GoDaddy's monitoring and removal tool to get rid of it, it's damaged the tables and scripts (quick reply went from missing only on phones in desktop mode to being completely gone on both desktop and mobile, toolbar in text box is missing now, etc). I was suggested by someone to look into Xenforo. My previous experience with Xenforo was using it only on tenniswarehouse's official forum. They switched to Xenforo after being vBulletin since they first had a forum and I never liked how bland it looked.

But now that I've used the demo mode it's allowed me to dig in a bit and toy with the aesthetics and I like it a lot more than I did previously.

Anyhow I have a few questions about aesthetics/features more than anything. The website I have is a small baseball forum but the community's been together for 20 years (6 on this current vbulletin site we're at).
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On my vbulletin site, I added a 3rd party thanks extension/add-on and my users have been accumulating thanks for the past 6 years. I noticed from playing around a bit on here that you can have a bunch of "reactions" which is cool. Now obviously the reaction system on Xenforo is different, but is there any way I as an admin can manually input their reactions total in once everyone migrates over? Would hate for all of my community to have to start over completely. I don't mind putting them in individually because I know it won't transfer over.

2) Is there anyway to add profile/post statistics in the sidebar near the username/avatar like on VB? Maybe I didn't see an option to turn it on in the admin cp, but is there perhaps an add-on for this?

Currently the stats shown on my site are:
Join Date:
Location:
Post Count:
Thanks Given:
Thanks Received:
POTW Nominations:

3) I tried adding a 3rd party Post of the Week Nomination. Is there an add-on for this that I can take a look at?

4) Is there anyway to create a separate block so that the stickied posts are clearly divided away from the non-stickied? My current VB site has the stickied posts in its own box then there's a gap between it and the regular unstickied threads. This is one of the things that I would like to alter with xenforo is other than the thumbtack there is no way to differentiate the stickied and unstickied. If there was a way to make the border around the stickied threads thicker to visually separate it from the rest I would be fine with that too.

5) I noticed when viewing this forum in desktop mode on my phone, the forum descriptions when viewing the main index actually appear (since you can't hover over it with a mouse on your phone). Is there a way to keep the forum descriptions there instead of hover over it? Not a deal breaker just have had the ones on the VB there forever.

6) Can forums get a custom icon/image/avatar in place of the chat bubble (when viewing the entire forum directory in the index)? Also, I can remove what emoticons I don't want to be used and add my own? On my forum we like to make new emoticons from memes and baseball player reactions.

7) Assuming youtube links are automatically converted when posted to video player? How about tweets? Or do I need an add-on for that.

8) I think that about covers it. I may also be willing pay someone if anyone here can do the migration for me from vbulletin once I buy the xenforo license. I installed vbulletin myself 6 years ago, and trying to upgrade has been a nightmare since something went wrong atm and I'm waiting on VB's support to fix it. I have godaddy hosting so hopefully xenforo is compatible with it.
 
On my vbulletin site, I added a 3rd party thanks extension/add-on and my users have been accumulating thanks for the past 6 years. I noticed from playing around a bit on here that you can have a bunch of "reactions" which is cool. Now obviously the reaction system on Xenforo is different, but is there any way I as an admin can manually input their reactions total in once everyone migrates over? Would hate for all of my community to have to start over completely. I don't mind putting them in individually because I know it won't transfer over.

Yes.

AdminCP >> Search for users >> {user name} >> Profile info >> Reaction score

2) Is there anyway to add profile/post statistics in the sidebar near the username/avatar like on VB? Maybe I didn't see an option to turn it on in the admin cp, but is there perhaps an add-on for this?

Currently the stats shown on my site are:
Join Date:
Location:
Post Count:
Thanks Given:
Thanks Received:
POTW Nominations:

Yes. AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select your style} >> Messages >> User >> Message user info elements

3) I tried adding a 3rd party Post of the Week Nomination. Is there an add-on for this that I can take a look at?
I'm not aware of one but it may well exist. If not. you can request it.

4) Is there anyway to create a separate block so that the stickied posts are clearly divided away from the non-stickied?

Yes. This may be style-dependent though: AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select your custom style} >> Discussion List >> Sticky divider

If your custom style doesn't have this property, there are several addons that will do it or you can add a few lines of CSS in the extra.less template.

5) I noticed when viewing this forum in desktop mode on my phone, the forum descriptions when viewing the main index actually appear (since you can't hover over it with a mouse on your phone). Is there a way to keep the forum descriptions there instead of hover over it? Not a deal breaker just have had the ones on the VB there forever.

AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select style} >> Node/forum list >> Description display style

6) Can forums get a custom icon/image/avatar in place of the chat bubble (when viewing the entire forum directory in the index)? Also, I can remove what emoticons I don't want to be used and add my own? On my forum we like to make new emoticons from memes and baseball player reactions.

Yes with an addon

7) Assuming youtube links are automatically converted when posted to video player? How about tweets? Or do I need an add-on for that.

Handled automatically by Insert media in the editor.

8) I think that about covers it. I may also be willing pay someone if anyone here can do the migration for me from vbulletin once I buy the xenforo license. I installed vbulletin myself 6 years ago, and trying to upgrade has been a nightmare since something went wrong atm and I'm waiting on VB's support to fix it. I have godaddy hosting so hopefully xenforo is compatible with it.

I have done that several times. PM me.
 
Yes.

AdminCP >> Search for users >> {user name} >> Profile info >> Reaction score



Yes. AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select your style} >> Messages >> User >> Message user info elements


I'm not aware of one but it may well exist. If not. you can request it.



Yes. This may be style-dependent though: AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select your custom style} >> Discussion List >> Sticky divider

If your custom style doesn't have this property, there are several addons that will do it or you can add a few lines of CSS in the extra.less template.



AdminCP >> Appearance >> Style Properties >> {select style} >> Node/forum list >> Description display style



Yes with an addon



Handled automatically by Insert media in the editor.



I have done that several times. PM me.

It's not letting me PM you. I went to your profile and there's no option to do it. I know xenforo is usually "conversations" and I don't see that either.
 
I am bumping my own thread from 5 years ago.

My vbulletin board (still same from my OP), is breaking down. Lots of database error problems.

I still have more or less the same questions as I did in the OP. If I switch to xenforo I would like to keep everything as close as possible aesthetically to what it looks like now.

I also am still willing to pay someone experienced to do the actual migration for me if I purchase the license. I am sorry to know Baxter passed away.
 

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I am bumping my own thread from 5 years ago.

My vbulletin board (still same from my OP), is breaking down. Lots of database error problems.

I still have more or less the same questions as I did in the OP. If I switch to xenforo I would like to keep everything as close as possible aesthetically to what it looks like now.

I also am still willing to pay someone experienced to do the actual migration for me if I purchase the license. I am sorry to know Baxter passed away.

@MySiteGuy is the best here with Databases & migrations.

For the theme, I recommend purchasing a license now, and setting up a test board on a subdomain. This would allow you to learn how to customize the theme to your liking.

You can also shop available themes on the Resources you can download free or buy: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/categories/styles-2-x.45/

And if it really comes down to it, you could just commission someone to make you a unique one.
 
Recently my little website vBulletin 4.2 had a malware infestation
Sorry to hear that. Criminal damage is always nasty whether online or in real life and has lingering consequences for the victim.

While the XF software is quite secure, it's still very possible for your site to be compromised by hacking the server, so if you want to guarantee security, just got with XenForo Cloud. You do miss out on the flexibility of managing your own server, but get peace of mind in exchange for it and the service is very reliable, too.
 
Most of your questions are aesthetic in nature; fundamentally, you'll be migrating to a forum software with an active and stable development which is more important in the long run.

I second the recommendation of @MySiteGuy although there are lots of others who can assist with a custom migration. (Eg. Keeping your thanks and migrating them to reactions should not be a big deal).
 
I think it's absurd that a forum with these statistics that still uses vb 4.2. 5 despite the known security problems,
your site has been hacked and you care about aesthetics when you change programs?
At the very least you should have updated your vb version years ago!
 

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I think it's absurd that a forum with these statistics that still uses vb 4.2. 5 despite the known security problems,
your site has been hacked and you care about aesthetics when you change programs?
At the very least you should have updated your vb version years ago!

I've been using vBulletin as a user for 20 something years. I only made the website because our little baseball community didn't have a home (we all started together early 2000's and 2012 the site we did post on got bought by a big corporation and they did away with forums). I've used many different forums and I've just always preferred vBulletin's aesthetic. I bought a license for vBulletin 5, but 4 was always better IMO. blu-ray.com has a huge userbase and they're still running a version of 4. I've been on that site for about 12+ years.

The only other site I've used xenforo on is tennis-warehouse forums. They used vBulletin 4 for a long time as well before switching to Xenforo I think about 6-7 years ago.

Web forums of this style are a dying thing in the long run. Social media and such are the preferred method for the younger demographic now, a few do sign up for reddit, which is entirely different from a traditional forum style like this. I don't think it's outrageous or unreasonable that I want to keep things as close to the same for my small community (there's only about 100+ of us active remaining) as possible. I'm willing to pay a little extra if someone can help me do it.
 
your site has security issues and most likely your user data has already been stolen and if you are responsible for user data then you could also receive complaints! You should have installed vb 5 at least and now vb 6!
Forums all work the same way, you have more than 1 million messages and more than 100 active users so your forum is active! If you are not able to manage forums buy a cloud license. if the graphics of your forum change slightly nothing happens!

you opened this thread five years ago and in the meantime you haven't updated... absurd!

The only thing you can't take with you are the likes on your posts which is practically a piece of cake compared to having your forum hacked!
 
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