Tritalk 2.0

hammerer · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:22 am Post subject: Tritalk 2.0

With this old forum dragging on, costs increasing due to being charged VAT now (about 40USD per month) and maintenance difficult due to the age of the software we need to come to an agreement of how to progress TriTalk. Funding it is also going to be an issue long term so needs to be considered. Tritalk Paypal account is able to accept any donations in the short term Wink

So comment on anything below, we need to make this stable so it can be promoted and get some traffic back to it but in current form its not going to look attractive to any potential new members
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ed_m · Joined: 15 May 2003 Posts: 8186 Location: coventry

As is we are basically a forum only ... can't imagine anyone uses any of the other features much if at all.

Whilst a nice cms front end would be .. errrr nice.. I don't think we're any better off starting without it... so long as the forum front page looks okay.

Not sure if we can port a few ongoing or popular topics over... ?
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Pedro Peru · Joined: 19 Apr 2010 Posts: 1064 Location: Leeds

I agree. While the news agregrator is handy, I never came here for that. I came here to learn and discuss triathlon. Happy to move over properly whenever.

Poet · Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 10148 Location: Your Mum

Forum with some relevant ads - similar to RetroBike, TimeTrialling and BikeRadar.

This forum is A-OK.

Jorgan · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:33 am Post subject:

Yes, the Forum is basically what TT is; the website/news bit has become completely irrelevant to anyone left here. If you really want news, just go to S/T or Tri247. As stated, TT is about the exchange of info, advice and ideas in an anonymous and polite fashion.

If the current site has become that much of a PITA to manage, and Hammerer has limited ability to strip-out oll the extraneous stuff, then I guess a change is needed. But I think losing all the historical stuff as part of the Forum would be a serious shame, unless we could at least have it attached as a searchable 'library'? Because given the amount of traffic we currently create, it will take years to build-up a useful resource again.

Does anyone else see ST articles pop-up on their FB feed and just think 'serious first world problems' and keep scrolling? Laughing

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FatPom · Joined: 26 Dec 2005 Posts: 5411 Location: My happy place

mattsurf · Joined: 28 Sep 2016 Posts: 852 Location: Zug, Switzerland

As a relative new comer here, with a paltry 700+ posts, maybe I bring a different perspective

TT offers real value that I cannot get elsewhere: there are a number of regular contributors who have many years experience of being normal triathletes. Many people have worked up from being average to being in the top quartile in terms of their performance, and a few have gone much higher. Most of the members are intelligent and articulate, and also have a degree of skepticism.

Historical threads are also great - and some of the members (who must have been really young when they joined TT) have an alarmingly good memory, far better than any search feature

There are other Forums like ST - but in some respects ST is overwhelming, too polarized, overly american and there is simply too much content to sort through when trying to find an old thread

IM Journey and New 2 Tri on FB also have a place, mainly for entertainment, however, I met some great people on Zurich IM through IM Journey, and was able to provide some help to people travelling to Zurich for the first time. However, the issue with FB is that it can never replace a traditional forum as the threads are so short lived and once out of site are pretty much gone forever

The other forum that I use is the Paceline forum - it is a cycling forum, but has many similar attributes that I value from TT

JeffB · Joined: 04 May 2008 Posts: 1406 Location: Middlesbrough

Other than the front page I quite like the forum approach (compared to FB), a new front end to the boards would be good if we could keep this old one, there's still some useful info in the pages.

I find most of the people on here a bit more level headed than some of the idiots on IMJ, especially asking the same question all the time. The forum does offer better search options.

It would be good if some advertising could help fund things, although I'd be willing to chip in towards the costs if required.

It would be good to get some new members though. Sometimes they might look at how old the news is and not go much further.

Jeff

gingerbongo · Joined: 21 Sep 2012 Posts: 1733 Location: Devon

mattsurf · Joined: 28 Sep 2016 Posts: 852 Location: Zug, Switzerland

Paul L · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 4358 Location: London

Hammerer – I know I haven’t raced in years and rarely post at all these days.

But here are my thoughts anyway, for what they are worth…

I think TriTalk 2.0 should be just a Forum to save the extra work required to keep other things up to date.

As there is no point in have sections for News and Events if they are not current.

Similarly, things like the Wiki and TriPlayer are probably not required these days either.

Unfortunately, much as though I loved Blogland, that is currently gathering dust too.

There was a time when if your Blog wasn’t updated weekly, it would quickly drop out of the Top 50.

Now, the Top 50 includes Blogs that were last updated over 4 years ago.

Although it would be a shame if old Blogs, Epic Race Reports, great training threads, etc. were lost forever.

Previously, there was some talk about archiving this forum, but I am not sure how this would work.

Similarly, would links to photos saved directly on this forum still work?

If they were going to be lost, then I would spend some time copying them somewhere else.
( As there are many that other people posted I don’t have myself. )

I have made the hard decision not to join the new forum unless I am going to return to racing.
( I have a shed load of weight to lose and “Eat less, train more” is all the technical help I need at the moment. )

But I thought I would sign off with some of the happy memories I have of a great forum. Cool

I loved supporting TTers and the support I was given (both in person and on line).

The TT Socials were a great way to meet people in the real world, but vodka shots lead to carnage.

[img]http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=1715[/img]

Without TT, I would never have had a conversation with my wife along the lines of...

“A woman I met via the internet (Mountain Girl) is sending me a bra in the post.”

But the various end of season ‘fancy dress’ races always provided the best photos.

[Hovis Advert Music]
We made our own trophies in them days and had real butter for tea.

[img]http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=1635[/img]

[/Hovis Advert Music]

Good luck, Paul. Smile

PS
Just for emergencies, you might want to take this with you to the new place.

Paul L · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 4358 Location: London

OK, not sure why two of the photos don't appear.

I actually previewed the post on a different forum as the preview function here goes on the blink sometimes.

I can see them on a different forum, but not here.

Very odd.

hammerer · Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:26 am Post subject:

Great to hear from you Paul!

Ive been looking at the latest version of PHPBB. I may be able to find a way to convert this site to the latest version of PHPBB so it would retain the same feel, historical posts, users and post counts. No promises as this involves a database conversion rather than just a software update and Im not sure that will even work, especially as this is 15years old and the server may time out on the conversion. If successful this would then become just a forum but in this style. We can add custom php around that much like this site. Im not sure how the blogs are stored yet so a downside might mean the blogs are actually lost rather than archived which would be a shame

other option is Discourse as seen on the sub domain. This site then becomes archived. It means everything starts from scratch but with this available. direct links if stored as url may be flaky, Im yet to see the result, but you just replace the www.tritalk.co.uk with the ip addy (which i would supply) and it would find stuff again.

first option will involve work and crossed fingers, second option is a simple task of cutting over. it may be worth the current users gradually moving over and getting a feel with "duplicate" topics if this is preferred
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