Cyburbia upgrade progress: October 2011

[Dan]

This timeline is subject to change, depending on progress made and any issues that may arise.

Friday 21 October


EVENING

✓ Tweak vBulletin 4 "Cyburbia blue" theme.
✓ Backup databases and site.

Saturday 22 October

✓ Manually back up all front end content (articles, blocks, etc).
✓ Uninstall vBDrupal (content management system).
✓ Remove vBDrupal scripts.
✓ Remove vBDrupal tables from the database.
✓ Redirect front page (http://www.cyburbia.org) to Forums page (http://www.cyburbia.org/forums).
✓ Take screencaps of old themes
✓ Uninstall all themes except basic "Cyburbia Blue" themes.
✓ Housecleaning in old directories on the server.
✓ Tweak vBulletin 4 "Cyburbia Blue" theme.
✓ Backup databases and site.

Sunday 23 October

✓ Upgrade Photopost (photo gallery scripts) from version 6.0.1 to 7.1.
✓ Tweak vBulletin 4 "Cyburbia Blue" theme.
✓ Backup databases and site.

Monday 24 October (home from work)

EARLY MORNING

✓ Upgrade vBulletin from version 3.8.7 to 4.1.7. This upgrade includes the new content management system.

The upgrade will take place at approximately 1:00 AM EDT. Cyburbia will be inaccessible for about two hours.

After the upgrade, there will be no link to the Gallery from other pages on Cyburbia until later on Monday. It will still be online at http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/

AFTERNOON AND EVENING

* Content management system (CMS) configuration.
* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Reconfigure/upgrade vBulletin plugins and resolve conflicts.
* Tweak vBulletin 4 "Cyburbia Blue" theme.
* Configure front page links to the Gallery.
* Backup databases and site.

Tuesday 25 October (home from work)

MORNING AND AFTERNOON

* Configure Google Adsense banner displays.
* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Tweak vBulletin 4 "Cyburbia Blue" theme.
* Tweak language/phrase defaults.
* Backup databases and site.

Wednesday 26 October

EVENING

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create new themes for selected subforums.
* Tweak language/phrase defaults.
* Backup databases and site.

Thursday 27 October

EVENING

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create new themes for selected subforums.
* Tweak language/phrase defaults.
* Create thread prefixes for Make No Small Plans, Design Space and Place.

Friday 28 October

EVENING

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create new themes for selected subforums.
* Create thread prefixes for Economic and Community Development, Transportation Planning.
* Backup databases and site.
* Close sandbox site to public.

Saturday 29 October

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create new themes for selected subforums.
* Create thread prefixes for Information Technology, Environmental Planning.

Sunday 30 October

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create thread prefixes for Rural and Small Town Planning, Student Lounge


Monday 31 October

* Create/restore basic CMS content.
* Create thread prefixes for Career Development and Advice, Job Board, Announcements.

[Dan]

We're finally back online, thanks to the help of the tech support team at vBulletin. The upgrade process really wasn't cut-and-dry; there were a lot of issues related to the database and conflicts with scripts related to the iPhone/Android app.

Because of complications with the update, we're far behind in the schedule of updating the site.

A LOT of stuff is still broken.

* Tapatalk and iPhone/Android app don't work.
* Gallery: still online (http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/), but no link at the top of the page.
* A lot of missing content that needs to be restored.
* Need to restore advertising banners.
* Much, much more.

Please report any errors you might encounter in this thread. Please understand the upgrade was absolutely necessary, as part of a larger effort to reestablish Cyburbia's reputation as one on the most respected urban planning-related Web sites online. Thanks for your ongoing support!

[Richmond Jake]

I just added an image to my album. It worked, but a couple of glichy things appear. Text is pushed to the side...can't click on image to enlarge.

[Otis]

I'm not authorized to view the home page. Forums are fine.

[Hink]

I mentioned it in another thread, but for organization's sake - the search is wonky. If click on a username and search for their posts, there are none found. If you search for posts, it shows a very small sample of old posts, and nothing new.

[Dan]

I'm not authorized to view the home page. Forums are fine.

You should be fine now.

[Raf]

Is something wrong with the search feature? I typed in "2008 presidential election" hoping to get the thread, but it didn't return a thing. Went to google and it instantly popped up. Did v bulletin turn the search feature to crap for older threads?

[Dan]

I have to rebuild the search engine. Probably do that tomorrow night, after I back up.

[Veloise]

Thanks for fixing the column widths in the FAC. Now the last page number doesn't overlap anything else. (I cannot possibly explain how much this improves my life.)

About 150 people on line when I just looked. They are returning...and those of us on FB continue to throw links out there.

[Dan]

Looks like traffic is starting to trickle back, but I can't get any solid numbers until I reinstall a Google Analytics and Quantcast tag.

New member stats are still on the low side.

October 27, 2011 6
October 26, 2011 7

October 20, 2011 9
October 19, 2011 12

October 13, 2011 10
October 12, 2011 12

Posting activity dropped a bit.

October 27, 2011 126
October 26, 2011 137

October 20, 2011 139
October 19, 2011 153

October 13, 2011 176
October 12, 2011 207

[Richmond Jake]

.....
* Gallery: still online (http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/), but no link at the top of the page.......

I was able to add another image to the gallery this afternoon. It will be nice to get the tab link back.

[Dan]

It's silly that it took a plugin/hack to add tab buttons, but that's what needed to be done.

Please let me know if there's any problems with it.

[JNA]

tab button working.

[Dan]

Great! A concern about the plugin was getting the tab to stay "lit" on the Gallery, since it used the Forums stylesheet. There was a workaround in the vbulletin.org forums.

[Richmond Jake]

Here's a strange one from the Gallery:

Richmond Jake and 82 unregistered users

Can that be right? 82?

[Dan]

Bots are usually about 25% of the total, but Baidu (a Chinese search engine) has been especially aggressive lately. I'm considering blocking it, since it can't be throttled.

[Dan]

Okay, we're a bit behind here, but the site is more-or-less stable.

Twitter feeds are back up as of yesterday night.

Major to-do:

* Tapatalk app scripts.
* iPhone and Android app scripts and APIs.
* Buzz.

Minor to-do:

* Fix ugly gallery graphics.
* Add contact and privacy pages.
* Amazon and CafePress buttons/shops.
* Removing extra text editor buttons.
* Make "forum with new posts" icon easier to distinguish.
* Thread prefixes.
* Tweak Facebook Connect (e.g. graphics, assuring others we're not getting their personal information).
* Restore old content. (ongoing)

[Dan]

Still having problems with the mobile apps. I'm in contact with vBulletin support.

I blocked the very aggressive Baidu spider from the site. Baidu is a popular Chinese search engine. As a result, the count of users online will be much lower than in the past. New members cannot register from IP addresses in China because of spam issues, so blocking Baidu should not have much of an effect on rebuilding the site.

EDIT: The Baidu Japan spider is now crawling the site. It's much less aggressive than the Baidu China spider, so we'll leave it alone for the time being.

[Dan]

Tapatalk is working again with Cyburbia. The Cyburbia-branded iPhone and Android apps are still down.

The ugly default graphcs in the Gallery have been replaced.

Facebook Connect was removed. The privacy warning it issued worried me. I don't want others to think their privacy would be compromised by using Facebook Connect to register on the site, or link their Cyburbia and Facebook profiles.

Working on a new version of Buzz and the Amazon co-branded shop.

Installed a new vBulletin 4.*-compatible plugin to screen new users from spam-prone countries (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, China, Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania). New users from those countries will be placed in a queue for research and approval by Cyburbia staff.

[hilldweller]

Dan- I noticed that Cyburbia is now appearing with the header "Urban Scrawl" in my search results. Used to come up as "Urban Planning Community", but then again I've been using google chrome lately and maybe that's the issue. In any event, thought I'd make you aware of it.

[Dan]

It's a weird quirk of vBulletin and search engine optimization that I'm trying to find a way around.

Page titles include "urban planning community" to overcome Cyburbia's drop from Google search results for "urban planning". With the vBulletin CMS, the front page MUST have a title above the featured artlcles on the front page; there's no way around it. If "Urban Planning Community" appeared on top of the featured articles, then Google search engine results would be "Cyburbia | Urban Planning Community - Urban Planning Community", and "Urban Planning Community" would appear twice on the front page, which would look odd. If we dropped the "| Urban Planning Community" from the page title, it could do even more damage to our SEO.

A quick fix: I replaced "Urban Scrawl" with "Front Page", Let's see what happens.

Anyhow, why did Cyburbia take a dive in SEO? Google's new algorithm gives an unnatural boost to .edu sites.