Moving a gaming community from vB4.2.2 to XF.

Holmes

Member
Hello

I am working as a community manager within a gaming community running vB 4.2.2. Over the years we have found that vB 4 is slowly but surely decaying, with no further development being done on it. Today I received a newletter from The Admin Zone, showing me how many other vB 4 users are switching to XF, and decided perhaps I should look into this as well.

In order to do this I need to firs make sure that Xenforo has the capabilities and features to ensure that the changes coming to this community aren't too drastic.
The current community numbers are as follows: Threads 512,009 Posts 3,888,002 Members 173,409 Active Members 1,447

  • First thing I want to touch base on, is the migration system.
With 500k threads spread over 200 sub forums, I need to ensure that threads that were previously private do not end up in the public audience. The forum doesn't contain personal data per se, but this content is deemed as private by the users posting it, as they are gamers and they take this somewhat seriously.​
What does the script import, and what does it not import? Is there somewhere where I can see this in a bit more detail?​
  • Next thing would be customisation of usernames and profiles.
Personally, I would be over the moon and back around if this would not be an issue, but alas it is, and I have to deal with it. This community caters to mature members as well as teenage members. They have different tastes in how they handle their profiles, and we give them the option to choose.​
In vBulletin we used the additional.css template to give us a bit more flexibility when it comes to username markup. For example, the pillars of the community would use the following markup on their username:​
CSS:
.guardian {
    color: #66ffcc;
    font-weight: 700;
    text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #005500;
    -webkit-animation: shadowswap 1s infinite alternate;
    -moz-animation: shadowswap 1s infinite alternate;
    animation: shadowswap 1s infinite alternate;
}
@-webkit-keyframes shadowswap{
    from {text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #005500;}
    to {text-shadow : 0px 0px 5px #33ff00;}
}
@-moz-keyframes shadowswap{
    from {text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #005500;}
    to {text-shadow : 0px 0px 5px #33ff00;}
}
@keyframes shadowswap{
    from {text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #005500;}
    to {text-shadow : 0px 0px 5px #33ff00;}
}
Is there something similar available in xenforo?​
Another feature we introduced in our community would be individual postbit backgrounds: https://puu.sh/z2Clb.png
I would personally not be sad to see them go, but the community will whinge, and I'm sure you understand how important it is to keep the users happy.​
  • Final point for this thread would be plugins/mods/hacks/addons. Whatever you want to call them.
There are several plugins that are basically a requirement for this community.​
  1. Chatbox
  2. Top 10 members
  3. A form plugin, where administrators can create a questionnaire and members fill it up. It has various uses, from events to private help requests.
  4. Force users to read a thread.
  5. Usergroup mention system (which I am not sure if it comes standard within XF)

I've tried the XF demo, but as I am not completely familiar with the styles and templates, I figured I'd ask the question before breaking my own demo forum. ;)
Thank you in advance for any help.

-H
 
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