upgrading wiscuba.com

[jasondbaker]

This isn't an mnscuba.com support issue, but I thought I would still post it here. I'm currently rebuilding the wiscuba.com forum. After 10+ years of running the forum on YaBB/SMF software, I've decided to port it over to a new software platform called MyBB. This is a big change and I'm trying to navigate the process quickly, but carefully. I'm also moving the hosting of the website from VISI to Amazon AWS. The wiscuba.com forum will be down over the next week as I make these changes. I'll restore the forum as quickly as I possibly can.

Changing the forum platform means members will see several benefits:

-- Tons of new features, better mobile support and social(facebook) integration
-- Faster forum updates
-- Much faster registration approvals (hopefully automated again)
-- I will transfer all existing member accounts, threads, postings, and private messages to the updated forum

Here are the short-term disadvantages of the change:

-- I'm sure we will encounter some issues with the transition. Please be patient while I work through them.
-- Members will need to re-upload their avatars. Sorry, I can't transition the current ones.
-- Currently I cannot transition posting attachments to the new system. I'm trying to work through this issue but I can't make any guarantees.
-- Some of the top links (diveshops, divesites) may disappear for a couple weeks while I figure out how to
incorporate this content into the new system.
-- I will most likely eliminate the gallery feature. We don't have many members using this feature and several free solutions are available on the Internet. People generally use sites like Facebook and Flickr to publish images today.

I will begin transitioning mnscuba.com after successfully transitioning wiscuba.com. As always, your patience and support is appreciated!