Basenotes.com - 21 year old website now on Xenforo

[Basenotes]

Ok, so after years of meaning to do this, I have finally converted my main website to Xenforo!

Details​

Site Name: basenotes.com

Launched: 2000

Previous Community Platforms:

• Matt's WWWBoard
• Yahoo! Groups
• YaBB 1
• YaBB 2
• vBulletin 3.5
• vBulletin 4
• Huddler (don't ask)
• vBulletin 4 again
• Xenforo 2!!!!!!

Members: 190K

Posts: 4.5 Million

About the site​

The site is a community for perfume lovers. It has a database of fragrances where you can learn more about each one. Members can rate fragrances and add their favourites to a list, and keep track of what they are wearing. It's basically like the IMDB, but for perfume.

All of the custom parts of the site, like the perfume directory etc, is essentially just a great big Xenforo plug-in, so it can use log-in details and all the niceties that Xenforo provides.

Pics​

Add-ons and themes​

• The theme is based on Bolt, by Pixel Exit @Russ
• I was thinking of using Xenforo's article system for the editorial content, but I'm super glad I asked @Bob to talk me into purchasing his AMS.
• Ads are managed by the awesome Ads Manager @Siropu
• We've ditched Trophies and gone with Badges by @Ozzy47 . I used Custom Fields Permissions by @Xon and User Criteria Extended by @ThemeHouse to essentially hack the badges system to work with the non-forum parts of the site (so people can get badges for wearing X different perfumes or writing X reviews)
• Other Add-ons used: Conversation Essentials, Conversation Improvements, Tag Essentials, XenCentral Feedback system, Threadloom

Reaction​

We've only been back online one day, but so far everyone seems to like Xenforo and the new site. To ensure a smooth crossover, we announced the move well over a year ago to our members and updated them along the way. Regular users were invited to beta test, and once the vB->xF conversion was done, our upgraded members were invited back onto the site early, while I imported all the custom perfume stuff.

If anyone is out there still on vBulletin and are considering changing to XF, then just do it. If it's a standard forum, then the Xenforo importers are pretty darn good.

Thanks Xenforo!

 

[BassMan]

Huddler (don't ask)

Nice website, congrats on the migration. Wish you all the best with XenForo.

 

[Basenotes]

I said not to ask about Huddler, but laughing is fine, and expected!

Nice website, congrats on the migration. Wish you all the best with XenForo.

Cheers BassMan

 

[beerForo]

Congrats!

 

[RobinHood]

Looks great. Your community meetups must smell incredible

 

[Basenotes]

Looks great.

That’s mainly down to @Russ - that theme gave me a good basis to work from!

Your community meetups must smell incredible

 

[RobinHood]

I love the pixel art in the footer. The directory is excellent too. The ability to mark fragrances as tried, to test and wearing. Very cool.

 

[Basenotes]

I love the pixel art in the footer. The directory is excellent too. The ability to mark fragrances as tried, to test and wearing. Very cool.

You had a good nose around haven’t you!

(Nose pun intended)

 

[Wildcat Media]

My first forums (circa 1997) were run on a spinoff of WWWboard called WebBBS. In fact, I still have some old content I need to convert over, but am missing a few of the pieces to make it work. I still had a locked version of the old forum available somewhere, and it's incredible to see how far forums have come since those days.

Looking good!

 

[Basenotes]

My first forums (circa 1997) were run on a spinoff of WWWboard called WebBBS. In fact, I still have some old content I need to convert over, but am missing a few of the pieces to make it work. I still had a locked version of the old forum available somewhere, and it's incredible to see how far forums have come since those days.

Looking good!

Yeah it’s pretty amazing.

I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve managed to have all the posts from WWWboard, YABB, vBulletin and Huddler available today as Xenforo posts.

Some members were initially sceptical about some of the Xenforo feature (likes, badges etc) but forums change - if you look at WWWBoard compared to XF it is astonishing.



That’s basically where I started!

 

[Wildcat Media]

That brings back some memories for sure! WebBBS looked almost identical, basically a fork from WWWboard. I had a script that supposedly imported WebBBS posts into phpBB2, but for some reason it never worked on the oldest forum. But it worked on the others I tried. It's something I'll figure out one day when I have spare time.

 

[Basenotes]

It's something I'll figure out one day when I have spare time.

Well this took me about ten years to get round to, so I know exactly what you mean

 

[Wildcat Media]

One issue I have is that there is a WordPress site attached to the main domain, as well as a handful of other related sites that tie into the forum--I've never found a suitable bridge for Wordpress-to-XenForo (I've tried them all--none do what I want). And on top of it, staff just never wants to post anything there--everything happens in the forum. Thankfully, I am thinking of creating a landing page in XF to act as the site's home page, so I could dispense with WordPress entirely there. So even if WP/XF worked together, I'd still need staff participation, and that isn't happening. Doing it all in XF solves a lot of issues for me there.

 

[Basenotes]

One issue I have is that there is a WordPress site attached to the main domain, as well as a handful of other related sites that tie into the forum--I've never found a suitable bridge for Wordpress-to-XenForo (I've tried them all--none do what I want). And on top of it, staff just never wants to post anything there--everything happens in the forum. Thankfully, I am thinking of creating a landing page in XF to act as the site's home page, so I could dispense with WordPress entirely there. So even if WP/XF worked together, I'd still need staff participation, and that isn't happening. Doing it all in XF solves a lot of issues for me there.

Yeah I tried a lot of XF>WP Bridges, including ThemeHouses. You might want to look at @Bob's Article system - integrates very nicely into XF

 

[alternadiv]

The whole thing is . I love that you integrated the articles and directories into XF instead of using a second CMS.

Can I ask how you kept your interest with the site over all those years? That’s an impressively long time in the forum admin world!

 

[beerForo]

This would look nice in the XF Showcase, I hope you submitted it.

 

[Basenotes]

The whole thing is . I love that you integrated the articles and directories into XF instead of using a second CMS.

Thank you!

Can I ask how you kept your interest with the site over all those years? That’s an impressively long time in the forum admin world!

Truth is I haven’t, it peaks and troughs. Though it’s been a full-time job for 12 of this years so kinda have to try!

 

[Basenotes]

This would look nice in the XF Showcase, I hope you submitted it.

Oh I submitted it, but I don’t think they’re approving stuff at the mo

 

[Basenotes]

I love that you integrated the articles and directories into XF instead of using a second CMS.

I should add on to this, that Xenforo is a really good basis to start any kind of site that needs a member system. You could relegate forums to a very small part of the site if you wanted to.

I did look into using Wordpress and a bridge (looked at Themehouses when they announced it a few years back) but I think the less you’re relying on other parties for, the better. Plus you get a more unified experience when you’re not cobbling together multiple CMSs.

 

[alternadiv]

I should add on to this, that Xenforo is a really good basis to start any kind of site that needs a member system. You could relegate forums to a very small part of the site if you wanted to.

For the last few months, as a side hobby, I’ve been experimenting with using XF as a CMS on custom frontends (modifying XF templates) to create sites that aren’t forums at all.

It’s a lot of fun and there’s tons of possibilities.