Migration plans to IP Board and new community features

[Andytizer 269]

After much discussion with our moderation team, it has become clear that the current forum system of PHPBB3 leaves a lot to be desired. Whilst the forums have served us very nicely over the last 7 months, I do think that a more feature-complete piece of software will be more suited for our ever-growing community.

 

I have pulled the trigger on purchasing a copy of IP Board, a pricey piece of kit (all in all, $250 license for the first year), but we hope that it will have a marked improvement on our community. In addition to the IP Board forum software, which looks and performs and looks great, I am very excited about two specific modules:

 

- IP Downloads - the same system used by the ST/Exchange by Simtropolis. The module will allow us to rate and categorise individual files. It will particularly help with areas such as Gunpoint Wiki's forum which hosts a whole load of custom levels with no filtering or rating. In addition to custom levels, my hope is that the new software will allow PCGamingWiki to preserve exes, zips, profiles and fixes for their games for a whole new future of PC gamers.

 

- IP Content - after the huge success of our blog The Port Report, I would like for us to expand our intake and draw more widely from the community for commissioning features like Port Reports, modding guides, interviews and features. Using IP Content, and taking another cue from the home page of Simtropolis (which uses IP Content), any PCGamingWiki member will be able to contribute to our new community website. A team of editors will be in place to promote/edit/proof-read forum posts and external articles of interest that are submitted, and all community members will be able to comment using PCGamingWiki forum and wiki accounts. My hope is that we will create a formidable daily PC game news website that focuses on the issues we care about - DRM, FOV, optimisations, control customisations and good PC ports.

 

Eventually we will archive the The Port Report in its current Wordpress/Disqus format and integrate this into the new IP Content. I intend for the new site to sit on the subdomain community.pcgamingwiki.com - please let me know if you have any specific feedback on how this is implemented.

 

Here are some additional features I hope to implement, if you have any more please comment:

 

- PCGamingWiki and new Community site to share cookie sessions.

- Forum and Wiki profiles to be linked in some way (e.g. Forum profile linking to contributions and user page).

 

JRWR is currently working on implementing the new software, which may take a few weeks. Complications includes bridging the accounts between MediaWiki, the subwikis and the IP Board. Many thanks for his hard work, we will keep you updated as progress is being made.

[Newmansan 30]

Sweetness to all accounts.

 

Most excited for the shared cookies, but everything else sounds awesome too.

[Andytizer 269]

Thanks for the support Newmansan. I intended to consult you as well but you weren't online right before I wrote the announcement :).

 

Also I intend to create a screenshot comparison system (using the sliders) which will work on both the new IP Board Forum and the Wiki. The technical details are a bit hazy but it should be quite simple to implement.