GRANDPA, EVERYONE HAS HEARD YOUR STORY ABOUT HOW YOU GOT THE GLASS EYE IN THE WAR. DO YOU WANT MORE PIE? barfo
easy to sum up drupal is more of a cms with forum-like features - it's free vbulletin is a forum software - it costs i dont see any real benefit to the enduser to be honest, that and that everyone would hate it.
If Nate McMillan goes, interest resurges. I was too lazy to type resurgent. I am used to this way, but maybe Drupal is better, I don't know. So I won't vote. I don't think you'll find enough dissatisfaction to warrant all the work it would take to change.
I'm with the stick-whittlers and the stick-with-what-works-ers. Can you make it look more like rec.sports.basketball.pro?
Is there REALLY a Patricia Bender, or is she a mythological character fronted by someone else? http://groups.google.com/group/rec....23a7093a29/8dca61e799c3cc21?#8dca61e799c3cc21
I don't know that Drupal is the way to go. Is BlazersEdge powered by Drupal? Is that the sort of environment you envision creating with it? Because if so, I think the BE format sucks. It's less of a conversation and more of a "article-->reply to article" environment. On our site, the thread starter sometimes has the least interesting thing to say. It's the followup conversation that really drives some of the great threads. People like forums. But it sounds like you guys are getting tired of Vbulletin. Have you looked at alternative bulletin board systems? I know Simple Machines Forums just released the finalized 2.0 rev. It's supported by a broad open source community, with lots of available free add-ons. Might be worth looking at.
Shit, 90% of Twitter posts I read don't make sense to me. It's usually some sentence fragments with some odd characters mixed in and no context from which to derive any coherent meaning. I can't wait for twitter, too, to go the way of the Dodo bird. I like this forum and this format. If the proposed new software is largely the same format, with the same functionality, but some extra bells and whistles that I couldn't care less about, then it's fine. Otherwise, not so much. And no, I don't really want to share our game threads with Flakers "fans."
Denny -- I tried clicking on your sample links and I either get 404 error or forbidden access. Is it not compatible with IE or am I just technologically awkward?
I took it down this morning. Since we're not actively working on it, leaving it run is a security issue. I am at work so I can't write too lengthy a post, but... If we wanted to force Drupal on everyone, it would have been done a long time ago. I am well aware of Simple Machines, but I'm not convinced it would be better than vBulletin. vBulletin does cost money, but that's not the issue. Drupal isn't a forum, it's a content management system. It has forums built in, but they are really just plain old content like anything else I'm their system. The benefit of this approach is that there would be a Blazers and OT forum almost the same as in vBulletin, but the threads can be also purposed as articles and blog posts. I totally "get" that we all like message boards, but there is a huge class of potential regulars who would prefer a different presentation. And for those of us who would take advantage of the additional features, there's a lot more fun to be had. The idea of switching to Drupal was inspired by the WebMaster forums, a huge forum, that switched to Drupal and made lots of customizations to the forum feature of Drupal. For mook, the home page can look like BlazersEdge, and there would be a BE looking Blazers page, but the Blazers forum would be there with a gazillion posts, themed red with Blazers logo, etc.
Denny, you know what I mean about the layout? Don't know the right terminology. But if you see O-Live, it's a giant clusterfuck! The threads here are all squared away and easy to use.
yeah, forced changes end up going really well..... i guess, if people wanted that environment, we'd probably all be at BE. at the end of the day, for this community of Blazer fans - they(we) stick to what we like, we're creatures of habit and the 'too hard' box often isnt too far away... i can understand the benefits of drupal in a WM forum but i doubt we get anywhere near that level of diversity of posts/activity to use that as a template. myself, i much prefer vb/phpbb or any other forum install over drupal layout and i really have no interest in changing what i like - but ultimately im here for the community, not the forum sw, but if the bulk of the people reject it for one reason or another then they'll likely search for the familiar again. just seems to be how things go...
Drupal forums don't look at all like O Live. They look like these, mostly, but styled a little different and there would be a left and/or right column with whatever we want to put there - like links to good Blazers blogs, salary info, Blazers page on NBA.com, etc. A forum is still a forum... It's a list of threads just like here. Open a thread and you get a page full of posts and a quick reply box at the bottom of the page. If people want to see a blog view of the forum, it shows a long page of the title and first post in the thread (for a page full of threads) with a # comments link below each thread/first post, and a "read more" link. Like a blog. HCP's member page would look like a blog, too, with just his threads/diets posts, etc.
I can see Denny's hope; all the random conversations we have about other teams will do the job of seeding the other teams' sections and hopefully draw more users to the site who right now see Portland's forum and a bunch of ghost towns. Basically, he wants to use our posts more efficiently to fuel growth in other "forums".
There is a ZERO chance we would switch to Drupal over so many objections. That doesn't mean we can't talk about the possibility. Any other site would just switch...
I did a quick search, and I see what you mean: http://www.webmaster-forums.net/web-design-and-graphics/what-graphics-programs-do-you-use It is cool how you can have nested comments, and it does seem a lot more flexible. I've heard there's a big learning curve on Drupal, but I guess you aren't worried about that. If I were you I'd build out a test Drupal site. Give it its own domain (ripcitytwo2.com) and play with it. Import data in so it's "live" but make it clear that all new posts/articles will be deleted at the end of the test period. Invite us to fiddle with using it. The biggest mistake I've seen in online communities (especially Digg) is to make up an uber-cool new toy and then spring it on everybody on a launch day. The shock pisses everybody off, and the confusion makes it easy for people to run for the hills. So plan for maybe a 3 month transition period of development/user testing, and then publicize a go-live period. At the very worst everybody here still rebels at Drupal, and you've at least learned a lot about the software. And maybe you purpose the new Drupal site as a brand new site that either complements or competes with this one.
It should be possible to do that with a posting bot. Just take our posts, replace players names with those on the hometown team, replace our names and avatars with phony ones, replace the team and city names as appropriate... Oh, there might be some problems, like complaints that "Dwight Howard" has missed most of his first 4 seasons, or that "D'Antoni" has never coached a running team, but one could dismiss those as the posts of cranks, same as here barfo
