Importing from a forum where I'm not an admin?

[AceofAces]

I'm about to purchase a forum here, but I wanted to know if I could import users, forum sections, and threads, etc from an existing XenForo forum. The potential wrinkle is that I'm not an admin of that forum.

We have only one admin for our existing forum and he's abandoned us for several months now. His absence is causing a lot of problems since none of us moderators have access to his admin tools. We only have basic moderator tools. As a result, the other moderators and I wish to form our own forum since we don't think he's coming back. What we want to know is if we'll be able to bring the forum's content with us so that we don't have to completely start over and lose all existing content.

From what I read about importing, I think I can do this, but I don't know if I need access to the existing forum's admin tools to make this happen (which I can't get) or if I actually can do this without those tools. Thanks for the help.

 

[Chris D]

To import from an existing forum you will need access to FTP and the login credentials for the databases. They would usually be required to be on the same server for this reason as the importer would need to access files such as attachments and often database servers are hardened to not allow remote connections.

 

[AceofAces]

To import from an existing forum you will need access to FTP and the login credentials for the databases. They would usually be required to be on the same server for this reason as the importer would need to access files such as attachments and often database servers are hardened to not allow remote connections.

Truth be told, I know very little about this stuff and I'm trying to learn what to do on the fly. Could you explain a little more in depth what you're talking about? But I'm guessing the simple answer is that No, I won't be able to import the content I want, right?

 

[Chris D]

I'm basically saying to do it you're going to need access to the server where the forum is currently installed. I would guess that if you're not already an admin on that forum and you don't "own" that forum that it's very unlikely you'll be able to do anything.

 

[AceofAces]

I'm basically saying to do it you're going to need access to the server where the forum is currently installed. I would guess that if you're not already an admin on that forum and you don't "own" that forum that it's very unlikely you'll be able to do anything.

That's what I figured. Thanks.

 

[Claudio]

Truth be told, I know very little about this stuff and I'm trying to learn what to do on the fly. Could you explain a little more in depth what you're talking about? But I'm guessing the simple answer is that No, I won't be able to import the content I want, right?

Why don't you start your own forum? It would be a good decision if the other mods agree to help you