Attention: Regions who use Zetaboards forums!

[King HEM]

This is a major gameplay issue for tons of regions, past and present.

Apparently, all Zetaboards forums will be involuntarily converted to Tapatalk in a matter of weeks or months.

I haven't seen much discussion of it in NS circles yet (I know like 2/3rds of you are only on Discord!!!!) but wanted to flag it so that regions it pertains to has time to discuss with their regions/communities what they want to do.

example of tapatalk forum

[Terra Voltera]

What does this exactly mean HEM? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the differences between Zeta and Tapatalk, and I like Zeta. No information will be lost right??

[King HEM]

What does this exactly mean HEM? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the differences between Zeta and Tapatalk, and I like Zeta. No information will be lost right??

They are saying no post information will be lost, but aside from that, we don't exactly know. There are rumbling that elements of the theme might be carried over, but I would count on it. If you want an example of what a Tapatalk forum looks like, check out the link above! It's not inherently pretty.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

It's dumb, and even ZB admins hate it, but the owner is basically saying they have no choice. Tapatalk has been cancer, eating everything up - lefora, others. Some quotes -

If I’m reading this right, everyone is now going to be transitioned to Tapatalk including ZB owners? But Tapatalk will have ZB features implemented to it?

If so my biggest concern is theme breaking updates. There’s no way a ZB theme will work on Tapatalk without major reworking.

Essentially, Brandon is working on what could almost be considered a third software that is a hybrid of tapatalk and zetaboards. Basically using the tapatalk base and adding ZB features.

The big item all staff loudly brought up is themes and codes. It has been expressed to Brandon how absolutely crippling to ZB communities it would be to lose that identity that many of these boards have had for a decade or longer.

(next post admin makes clear that that's just what the staff has "very loudly and clearly" told "brandon," and there's no guarantee or promise he will listen)

Brandon has stated that the new platform will have CSS and JS that can be edited. To what extent he didn't say.

ZB communities will get a preview function sometime soon. A lot of the ZB admins seem to be upset. Last year, they killed off Invisionfree and told people they had a choice - go ZB, or go Tapatalk, and that ZB would be around to stay. Now, less than a year later, ZB is being killed off too. They feel like they lied. They did, really. Some are quitting/retiring over it.

Given so many of us use lots of complex, custom themes, as well as major CSS hacks customized to NS or even our specific regions, it's really a pain in the ass.

We'll see what this supposed "middle ground" that allows customization ends up previewing like, but in the mean time, if anyone has any suggestions for free or cheap forums that are least pain-in-the-ass to transfer too....plz share.

(also you have you link inside-out, HEM)

Edit: even members of the ZB support team are saying they don't trust Brandon's middle ground hack shit, and talking about other hosts to move their forums to. So yeah maybe looking at other hosts is a good idea.

Edit2: some boards have received beta invites already, to the email address in board settings. I have to find who knows the login for ours before I see if we have one...

edit3: the best response from top-level I've found so far follows. ZB owners have been mum since the announcement, both to their own staff and the public. This is a Tapatalk top level person answering some questions: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/tapatal ... 40#p207290

Notable: "With codes, if you mean CSS / themes, your CSS will be grandfathered, yes." May not last but the claim that CSS should carry at least at first holds on both sides here.

[Solorni]

The GB&I link is particularly interesting because it used to be an IF forum. It's not very pretty. Honestly, I'm not liking any of the options currently. I kind of want to look at only having a forum for citizenship/security purposes and doing everything else on discord... It honestly feels like Balder's entire forum going down the drain.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

The GB&I link is particularly interesting because it used to be an IF forum. It's not very pretty. Honestly, I'm not liking any of the options currently. I kind of want to look at only having a forum for citizenship/security purposes and doing everything else on discord... It honestly feels like Balder's entire forum going down the drain.

Worth noting, again, that IF -> TT boards are not a perfect comparison. What's been promised by both ZB and TT top-level admins has been a unique hybrid of ZB&TT, retaining many ZB features, including grandfathering in customization CSS. That was not something that was an option for IF to TT conversion. There's some hope left, and TBH is certainly waiting to see what our preview looks like, because if it's even passable, having everything carried over automatically is a *hell* of a lot easier.

[Latman]

We switched to phpbb hosts long time ago. I certainly hope that Tapatalk won't get here soon as well

[Solorni]

The GB&I link is particularly interesting because it used to be an IF forum. It's not very pretty. Honestly, I'm not liking any of the options currently. I kind of want to look at only having a forum for citizenship/security purposes and doing everything else on discord... It honestly feels like Balder's entire forum going down the drain.

Worth noting, again, that IF -> TT boards are not a perfect comparison. What's been promised by both ZB and TT top-level admins has been a unique hybrid of ZB&TT, retaining many ZB features, including grandfathering in customization CSS. That was not something that was an option for IF to TT conversion. There's some hope left, and TBH is certainly waiting to see what our preview looks like, because if it's even passable, having everything carried over automatically is a *hell* of a lot easier.

These are a couple examples of current TT forums with skins:

http://urbanglasgow.co.uk
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/

Idk, I'm not overly optimistic personally.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Worth noting, again, that IF -> TT boards are not a perfect comparison. What's been promised by both ZB and TT top-level admins has been a unique hybrid of ZB&TT, retaining many ZB features, including grandfathering in customization CSS. That was not something that was an option for IF to TT conversion. There's some hope left, and TBH is certainly waiting to see what our preview looks like, because if it's even passable, having everything carried over automatically is a *hell* of a lot easier.

These are a couple examples of current TT forums with skins:

http://urbanglasgow.co.uk
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/

Idk, I'm not overly optimistic personally.

Those do demonstrate about the extend of what can be done with the vanilla TT, and it is disappointing - but it doesn't really show what this new hybrid will be.

[Solorni]

These are a couple examples of current TT forums with skins:

http://urbanglasgow.co.uk
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/

Idk, I'm not overly optimistic personally.

Those do demonstrate about the extend of what can be done with the vanilla TT, and it is disappointing - but it doesn't really show what this new hybrid will be.

I'm not holding out much hope. I mean ZB's last update according to the Admin CP was in 2014 and prior to that 2011. If they can't do regular updates, then how are they going to do this which people have said is last minute? Idk Souls, I'm not optimistic.

[The Bruce]

I'm not saying that Tapatalk in any way evokes the same feelings as the Clippy the Microsoft animated gif, but I did feel a bit stabby when I saw that thing one too many times. Change is hardest on forum admins, but changing to Tapatalk feels pretty repellent.

When I actually get some spare time I'd like to look at other options. It's starting to feel like the Invisionfree Server 1 crash of 2006 and NationStates2 happening at the same time...

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I'm not saying that Tapatalk in any way evokes the same feelings as the Clippy the Microsoft animated gif, but I did feel a bit stabby when I saw that thing one too many times. Change is hardest on forum admins, but changing to Tapatalk feels pretty repellent.

When I actually get some spare time I'd like to look at other options. It's starting to feel like the Invisionfree Server 1 crash of 2006 and NationStates2 happening at the same time...

Good luck. Most of the ones I know of that aren't a half decade out of date, non-free only, or shitty looking have....already been bought out by Tapatalk. You can find Ye Olde Plaine MyBB and phpBB3 sites around, if you want to go from scratch, or try something inferior like proboards.

One thing some communities may consider, depending on their needs, is using only something like a weebly web page as a landing site, some shared google docs for info storage, and then their discord for the community. That may work for a lot more communities these days, since Discord is so much more than Skype and IRC were...but that solution simple is not quite enough for those with a heavy need for thread-based offsite systems and/or comparatively heavy archiving/record keeping.

I'm hoping this bastard ZB/TT hybrid is usable and looks half decent, because it would save a lot of effort. The TBH forum is obviously large and complicated, but to top it off, we also of course manage the raidercon forum and the three years of records there as well, which of course has to be set up and ready by mid-june when RaiderVision starts. Two forums to migrate is even less fun than one.

[Reploid Productions]

Some ramblings/discussion from the Mentor Discord about alternatives, documented for easy reference if anybody's interested:

[11:17 PM] Tchemerzine: @Reploid Productions phpBB a good host for offsite forums? It would make sense for post-2009 forums to be made in phpBB—due to the familiarity post-migration from Jolt—but ZetaBoards, for some strange reason, had quite the appeal for so long.
[11:19 PM] Tchemerzine: Though, I don't know how hard it is to build a phpBB forum compared to ZetaBoards, the latter of which seems to be everywhere. And nobody could have foretold TapaTalk taking over ZB/IF back then.
[11:22 PM] Reploid Productions: phpBB does require some minor tech savvy if you want to really heavily customize it, but there are a lot of pre-built variations with various customizations already set up. Most NS offsite forums probably won't require outrageously expensive hosting plans. Otherwise for free forum options, Forumotion and Proboards are probably among the bigger ZB competitors
[11:30 PM] Reploid Productions: SMF is another open-source php forum, though I can't say I've ever especially liked forums I've visited that use that software
[11:32 PM] Reploid Productions: To my admittedly limited understanding, SMF is easier to install and set up than phpBB, but by the same token has more limited functionality as a result
[11:34 PM] Reploid Productions: Over in the land of paid forum software, the Jolt forums ran on vBulletin, which wasn't bad, but it's not free either
[11:36 PM] Reploid Productions: Huh. Neat though- they have a cloud service where they handle all the hosting and stuff for you. Downside, the lowest tier package still clocks $15/mo
[11:39 PM] Reploid Productions: Overall, I'd say that a phpBB forum is probably the overall best option if you've got the hosting and tech skills to use it. Unless your offsite has some crazy customizations (such as how Nationstates' forum is hacked to ribbons to interface with the game), most regional offsites would probably do fine with a stock or minimally-modded phpBB forum.
[11:41 PM] Reploid Productions: I suspect a big part of ZB's appeal was the simple fact it was a modified phpBB forum that didn't cost any money to set up and run :stuck_out_tongue:
[11:45 PM] Tchemerzine: @Reploid Productions vBulletin, I've seen it around, and in my opinion it sucks. And phpBB is free, right?
[11:46 PM] Lamoni: https://www.phpbb.com/ yes
phpBB • Free and Open Source Forum Software
phpBB is free and open source forum software that is easy to use, powerful, and highly customisable. Our community offers extensive support to end users.
[11:47 PM] Tchemerzine: Yuss!
[11:48 PM] Reploid Productions: Yup. Only downside to phpBB is you need to provide the web hosting and do the installation
[11:49 PM] Reploid Productions: So while the forum software itself is free, most hosting providers that will give you database usage (and have reputable uptime and service) will cost money
[11:51 PM] Reploid Productions: And finding a webhost is a whole other can of worms requiring research and comparison shopping
[11:52 PM] Reploid Productions: Stuff to keep in mind on that: Will your forum allow users to upload images/videos? That's a consideration when it comes to how much storage space you'll need for your site. How big do you anticipate the forum community to be? The bigger/more active the forum the more bandwidth you'll need, and so on

[Cormactopia Prime]

Well, this should certainly have a negative effect on user-created regions. Most already have to spend money on stamps in order to actually have people, now they'll also have to spend money on web hosting if they want a decent forum (given that Forumotion and Proboards have god awful ugly themes, not even to mention that there's a good chance Tapatalk will end up buying up Forumotion and Proboards eventually too).

Of course, that depends on how much of Zetaboards' conversion to Tapatalk carries over existing Zetaboards themes and features. Maybe regions won't need to change forums. But like several others, I'm not optimistic. Tapatalk is very basic and frankly ugly, and given how little the owners of Zetaboards have cared in the past about how their users feel about changes, I doubt much effort will be put into making this work well for users.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

We switched to phpbb hosts long time ago. I certainly hope that Tapatalk won't get here soon as well

I can pretty safely say that the chances of me selling my server to tapatalk are about as low as the chances of tapatalk wanting to buy my server. Given how often I have to restart the thing otherwise it starts literally creaking...we're not getting tapatalk any time soon.

That being said, if any regions want unlimited free hosting space on a server for their forums, give me a shout. I'm willing to provide.

[Frattastan II]

I wonder if images uploaded to the forum will be lost. >_>

[Greater vakolicci haven]

The other important question is what about people who have payed for premium in advance?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I wonder if images uploaded to the forum will be lost. >_>

The most recent link I’ve posted, to a TT thread, includes a major TT admin discussing that a few times. It’s only three pages so far, and worth a read. It contains the most through and official answers to user questions to date. ZB users have found TT’s “Chris” to be far more reachable atm than ZB’s “Brandon.”

EDIT

1. What will happen to files uploaded on ZetaBoards forums?
Many forum owners host files relevant to the forum such as theme assets, avatars, etc. on their forums as it was built into the admin panel and as long as the forum loaded the image loaded which alleviated headaches.
Will Tapatalk retain our uploaded files and will we retain the ability to continue to upload to our forums directly?

I might need a bit more information on this. Where are the files uploaded? Are they attached to posts? Either way, I should have an answer for you by tomorrow. One thing I do know is that any files uploaded into posts will be migrated.

They are directly in the admin panel under File Manager. There were a few other spots to upload into the admin panel such as under Emoticons and under Titles to upload directly to those folders, but otherwise you'd go there to do so and could see how much your forum used via file count and file size in various categories as well as going into each category to rename an uploaded file or delete it if you no longer needed it.

They were not post-attachments though you could still see statistics for those as well as who uploaded and where was it used.

Thanks. It has been confirmed that the files will be migrated.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I wonder if images uploaded to the forum will be lost. >_>

The most recent link I’ve posted, to a TT thread, includes a major TT admin discussing that a few times. It’s only three pages so far, and worth a read. It contains the most through and official answers to user questions to date. ZB users have found TT’s “Chris” to be far more reachable atm than ZB’s “Brandon.”

Given the 'advantages' that 'Brandon' lists for this change, 'Brandon' seems to only have money in mind.

[Frattastan II]

Cheers. Well, that saves me from hours of manual backup, at least.

[Malphe]

This is going to be a headache.

[Christian Democrats]

This is going to be a headache.

Indeed.

[The Glorious Hypetrain]

Thanks for the alert. This seems like the perfect opportunity to move to some self-hosted hardware and such.

[King HEM]

Thanks for the alert. This seems like the perfect opportunity to move to some self-hosted hardware and such.

Please be aware that Tapatalk has provisions for inactivity and deleting inactive boards. Admins over there have promised that forums will have be obscenely inactive for them to delete, but they’ve been inconsistent on this. No matter what you do, if you want to preserve history definitely have a plan for your ZB/tapatalk forum.

[The Stalker]

Ugh this is gonna be annoying to deal with. >_>