UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat UBB Version 6 Revealed

Let me give you all a piece of advice or two about member fields.

Let's start with some known facts.

There was no standardization amoung extra fields hacked into your boards. Obviously, eh?

UBB6 comes with many new fields, including the AIM field and 4 optional fields that you can configure.

UBB6 does not take into account any of your hacks or extra fields. As reported if they are not overwritten they sure will appear funny.

Based on the above facts it seems to me the brightest idea would be for UBBdev and it's patrons to all get their heads together and do the following:

Come up with a base map of the new members data.
Come up with a plan for standardization of future hacks. Be ready ahead of time. Have a facility so someone can reserve a field number for the hack they are writing. Everyone uses only the field that is reserved for their hack(if their hack even needs a members field, most don't). Become a clearing hourse of sorts. Assign fields on first come first served. Of course no hacker anywhere will ever be indebted or required to check in, sign up and be assigned a field, but think how smart it would be for anyone doing a hack to do so. Going this route would get any hacker exposure, wouldn't it? And less headaches down the road? In return, UBBDev would gain exposure too. Make an agreement of sorts that anyone signing on and being assigned a field would have to allow you to distribute their hacks(but not exclusively perhaps?). Suggestion also... leave some room for future Infopop growth so you don't have to do this again


Next come up with a script that would be used before upgrading UBB5 to UBB6 that strips and cleans the members data to pristine 5.47d conditions so that the data can be imported cleanly into UBB6 and then any new hacks applied would follow the field guidlines as mentioned above. This script would allow all of these people to have a fresh clean start with no headaches about messed up members data.

Think about it and develope it. This is the best place to discuss it, right here. Your future as a group and as a sucessful website can be broadened significantly if you do this right.

I've been thinking a lot about where this website can go. I'll be making a few suggestions now and then if you don't mind.



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"There is no spoon"