(Update) Site Upgrades are Coming

[leif erikson]

The Staff is planning to perform an upgrade to xenForo version 2 between 15 July and 15 August. Along with this upgrade we will also be migrating the site to a new server. This upgrade will be performed by the xenForo Staff as we are moving to xenForo Cloud Services. During this process we will post updates to the site's Front Page as this is maintained on a separate server, as well as on the CFC Facebook page and Twitter feed. As we know more specific information as to date and time, we will post it in this thread.

Once the main site is upgraded and migrated, the civfanatics.net server is being migrated to a new server. We will post further information as we get closer to doing this.

We appreciate your patience.

edit - The plan is for the forum to be shut down on Friday morning (Eastern US time) and we will try to bring it back up sometime Saturday afternoon or evening.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Will we see any changes?

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, for sure, although I haven't had any experience with xenForo v2. You can read xenForo's thread about new features here.

edit for clarity.

 

[Birdjaguar]

 

[s.bernbaum]

I hope that you will make sure that older versions of browsers currently supported will continue to be supported. I have lost access to several other websites that have upgraded with no regard to that.

 

[leif erikson]

I hope that you will make sure that older versions of browsers currently supported will continue to be supported. I have lost access to several other websites that have upgraded with no regard to that.

Thank you, will check on that.

edit - can you tell me which browser(s) you use please? And the version number?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I hope that you will make sure that older versions of browsers currently supported will continue to be supported. I have lost access to several other websites that have upgraded with no regard to that.

Why do you stick with an older version of your browser? Doesn't that have risks?

 

[leif erikson]

Please stay on topic, this thread is about site upgrades.

 

[Iconian]

I use Brave version 1.40.113.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Yes, for sure, although I haven't had any experience with xenForo v2. You can read xenForo's thread about new features here.

edit for clarity.

Awesome! Seems quite a lot of improvements.

 

[Quintillus]

If we're moving all the way to the latest and greatest XenForo 2.2, there are a lot more new improvements to read about, too:

XenForo 2.1: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/?prefix_id=46
XenForo 2.2: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/?prefix_id=49

I haven't found summary-type posts like what leif found for 2.0. But there are some cool features. The new thread/forum type options (suggestions, support, etc.) are ones that jumped out to me as potentially useful. But there's almost too many to catalog...

 

[s.bernbaum]

Thank you, will check on that.

edit - can you tell me which browser(s) you use please? And the version number?

I use Firefox version 48.02 mostly and sometimes Safari version 5.1.10. The reason being that I do not like the newer versions of Windows nor MacOS and these versions of the browsers are the last ones that will run on the OS that I use.

The web nasties are not much of a threat since they are mainly aimed at the newer OSes, I use software that monitors all my web traffic and actively blocks anything from access that I have not authorized, I block all major social media sites and pop ups, I have multiple security softwares constantly monitoring my computer, and I turn off the power to the router except when I am actively using the web, which mainly happens once a day.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I use Firefox version 48.02 mostly and sometimes Safari version 5.1.10. The reason being that I do not like the newer versions of Windows nor MacOS and these versions of the browsers are the last ones that will run on the OS that I use.

Thanks for the explanation, unfortunately you are very much an edge case and we cannot guarantee that the site will continue to work on old unsupported browsers - 6 years is a lifetime on the Internet! Your setup is clearly as safe as you can make it but standards continue to develop and new features are added to browsers as well as resolving security issues.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I use Opera, for the most part (please nobody criticize; I have my reasons for preferring it).

I'll check out the list of features we will gain, but what will we lose? Should we be saving things that won't come along?

(ie. with the move from vBulletin to XenForo we lost the social groups, the most important half of the Visitors' Messages, and the very useful method of organizing PMs into categories)

 

[Birdjaguar]

I use Opera, for the most part (please nobody criticize; I have my reasons for preferring it).

Go to the xenforo site and visit their forums; see Opera works there.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Go to the xenforo site and visit their forums; see Opera works there.

It's reasonable to be concerned. After all, just because multiple forums use the same company, they may not use it the same way.

I did follow the links and found the images to be blurry and hard to decipher.

I'd appreciate if someone could answer the questions I asked, please.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Nobody knows yet. Search for sites using v2 and see how Opera looks there.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Nobody knows yet. Search for sites using v2 and see how Opera looks there.

How can you tell if they're using it? The only other XenForo forum I'm on is TrekBBS. It looks like it normally does, and I've just checked their equivalent of Site Feedback. The admins there are good about keeping us updated on tech issues and there's not a whisper of a hint of any upgrades being planned.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

After all, just because multiple forums use the same company, they may not use it the same way.

We're using Xenforo Cloud and I understand that's what Xenforo themselves use.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We're using Xenforo Cloud and I understand that's what Xenforo themselves use.

Thanks, but that isn't what I meant. I don't hang out on the XenForo support forum, because I have never owned, admin'd, or modded one. What I see there isn't the same as what a member of that forum would see because I'm not a member.

Maybe a more apt example would be Pro Boards. I belong to three of those (but again not the support forum because I don't have anything to do with owning or running any). No two of those three do things exactly the same way - they might have different features enabled or disabled, and not all three are the same version. If Fighting Fantazine were ever to upgrade, I'd be asking the admin of FF about what might be lost in the upgrade, such as maps, walkthroughs, attachments, links, messages, etc. so I'd have time to save whatever I might want to keep, or if I'd need a workaround for some project that might be disrupted.

I'm just asking to be kept informed in a timely way here, given the loss of so much from the last time something major happened. I realize that time is needed for specific answers.