Welcome to the new home of Ultimate Collectors’ Forums!
Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 12:44 pm
Welcome to the new home of Ultimate Collectors’ Forums!
Over the weekend, we migrated from our old, vBulletin-based forum that was several versions out of date to our new phpBB site. We did this for several reasons. First, phpBB is free software. Even though we had a license for vBulletin, we were so out of date that we were afraid we might lose everything if we tried to update. We will also be looking into what new features we can add in terms of software bells and whistles, so if you know of something you think we should have, let us know. Second, we are now on a commercially owned and operated server, which hopefully means less downtime.
During the migration, the structure and data of the old UC Forums were imported without incident. You will see all your familiar favorite areas, and in them all our rich history of posts. We did lose a few things, at least temporarily, like the Gallery, the “Collections” field in your user profile, custom user titles, and custom user name colors. We’ll be restoring what we can. In the meantime, post away—your new home is open for business!
That said, the site is going to look a little plain initially. But that is where you, our loyal—and talented—members come in. We are going to solicit, perhaps in the form of a contest, imagery from you to use on the forums. You will retain ownership of your original work, with the understanding that you allow UC Formus to use it, free of charge. You may send us photos of your original swords and other artifacts that you’ve created; sketches, drawings and paintings of your artifacts yet to be created; your artwork inspired by fantasy and science fiction; and so forth. We specify that we are asking for your original artwork because if you simply emailed us a photo of a commercial product manufactured under a license you don’t hold, we could get into trouble for copyright infringement. We will have more details on this in the near future as we work them out, but in the meantime we wanted to let you know. We are excited about this because we hope that seeing your own work here as part of the site will help make it feel even more like home. We recall a thread some time back where members were expressing their fondness and enthusiasm for UC Forums, and we were really touched by it. So this is a way of saying thanks for your support!
We also somewhat streamlined our rules. The old vendor-sponsorship model never really worked for our site, so rules pertaining to that are gone. There was a bit more such housekeeping, too. The revised rules are posted in Rules and Warnings forum, so everyone please have a look.
Lastly, in a very real sense, UC Forums is now sailing into open waters. While your four current administrators bought the site from Justin about a year and a half ago, we continued to be hosted on his server. As we now move into a new chapter, we want to take a moment to look back and acknowledge some very important people in the history of the site: Swordsman, who founded the site many years ago; Thorin and Justin, the second generation of owner/administrators; and many retired moderators, including Skyanide, Boromir of Gondor, Master Dwarf, and others whom we hope do not feel slighted by our failing to remember them at this moment. They kept this site running, and we hope to preserve and build upon their legacy. So, a heartfelt thanks to all of them!
So there you have it. We are back, and we thank everyone for their patience during the migration and through the bumps we may hit as we learn the new software. We'll post a bug fix thread in the Suggestions and Complaints forum, so you can let us know of any problems you encounter. And again,
Welcome home!
Over the weekend, we migrated from our old, vBulletin-based forum that was several versions out of date to our new phpBB site. We did this for several reasons. First, phpBB is free software. Even though we had a license for vBulletin, we were so out of date that we were afraid we might lose everything if we tried to update. We will also be looking into what new features we can add in terms of software bells and whistles, so if you know of something you think we should have, let us know. Second, we are now on a commercially owned and operated server, which hopefully means less downtime.
During the migration, the structure and data of the old UC Forums were imported without incident. You will see all your familiar favorite areas, and in them all our rich history of posts. We did lose a few things, at least temporarily, like the Gallery, the “Collections” field in your user profile, custom user titles, and custom user name colors. We’ll be restoring what we can. In the meantime, post away—your new home is open for business!
That said, the site is going to look a little plain initially. But that is where you, our loyal—and talented—members come in. We are going to solicit, perhaps in the form of a contest, imagery from you to use on the forums. You will retain ownership of your original work, with the understanding that you allow UC Formus to use it, free of charge. You may send us photos of your original swords and other artifacts that you’ve created; sketches, drawings and paintings of your artifacts yet to be created; your artwork inspired by fantasy and science fiction; and so forth. We specify that we are asking for your original artwork because if you simply emailed us a photo of a commercial product manufactured under a license you don’t hold, we could get into trouble for copyright infringement. We will have more details on this in the near future as we work them out, but in the meantime we wanted to let you know. We are excited about this because we hope that seeing your own work here as part of the site will help make it feel even more like home. We recall a thread some time back where members were expressing their fondness and enthusiasm for UC Forums, and we were really touched by it. So this is a way of saying thanks for your support!
We also somewhat streamlined our rules. The old vendor-sponsorship model never really worked for our site, so rules pertaining to that are gone. There was a bit more such housekeeping, too. The revised rules are posted in Rules and Warnings forum, so everyone please have a look.
Lastly, in a very real sense, UC Forums is now sailing into open waters. While your four current administrators bought the site from Justin about a year and a half ago, we continued to be hosted on his server. As we now move into a new chapter, we want to take a moment to look back and acknowledge some very important people in the history of the site: Swordsman, who founded the site many years ago; Thorin and Justin, the second generation of owner/administrators; and many retired moderators, including Skyanide, Boromir of Gondor, Master Dwarf, and others whom we hope do not feel slighted by our failing to remember them at this moment. They kept this site running, and we hope to preserve and build upon their legacy. So, a heartfelt thanks to all of them!
So there you have it. We are back, and we thank everyone for their patience during the migration and through the bumps we may hit as we learn the new software. We'll post a bug fix thread in the Suggestions and Complaints forum, so you can let us know of any problems you encounter. And again,
Welcome home!
if things didnt migrate over as nicely.
