Original DPR has migrated to XenForo

I think the reason is that Xenforo is a totally managed solution. The Xenforo staff does all the "technical" stuff and DPR staff doesn't need to touch the backend. Hardly the frontend either. They probably don't have access to more than a web interface where they can make minor changes.

I assume the old forum software was patched so many times it it was unwieldy. I don't know what language it's written in, but making old, ancient even, scripts work nicely with updated interpreters on the server is no easy task. I imagine they would have needed to hire one or two programmers up to the job.Easier and likely cheaper to pay Xenforo. Rumor has it the guy that previously handled the forum quit recently. Hence the situation needed an urgent solution.

I think it's as simple as that. They didn't want to deal with the forum so they "outsourced" it.

I don't remember if I already said this here or if it was at dpr. Sorry if I repeat myself. But I think the worst thing is that they destroyed old threads. Longer threads are no longer readable, not even if you really try. Often there is no reference to the post people answered to and the individual subject lines are gone. It was common to change the subject line when a thread forked. I wish they had just archived the old forum. Then it would still be readable and useful. Because there are decades of information there that can still be useful and valuable. But it's all turned into much now.

Yes, exactly! I created a thread there about this, specifically for the Adapted Lens Sub, where the main information (the lens used) was quite commonly only mentioned in the post-headlines... it's all gone. Information about hundreds of different old lenses and you can't even look up what the sample images were taken with. It's quite crazy. The community manager responded and said he'd ask around, if they kept the post titles somewhere and if it would be possible to restore them. He seems like a nice and helpful guy. But if I don't misremember anything he's completely new to the whole thing and so he probably doesn't know how and why the old way the forum worked was essential to its unique position.

So yes, I agree... in its current form the forum is almost completely useless as an archive and that's a real tragedy. There's a reason why many forums just keep an old version as an archive at some point. It's not an elegant solution, but it seems to work for the most part. The community can reference stuff from the old forum and bring part of it over and update it where possible and/or necessary. But I've never seen anyone just throw away decades of unique information like that. The more I think about it, the crazier it seems...

I and at least one other person also created threads asking for that in the subforum about the move over there. But that forum was only them playing to the galleries. Everything was already decided. Easiest way out, that what I think it's all about.

Maybe archive.org could have been interested too. They were when we thought the site was closing down.

It's a shame. A big shame.

I'm afraid to even read anything or reply on the current DPR forums, because it is marking posts as "read" which have not been exposed at all, because you exposed something past them. That's better than DPR's old forum flat view, which marked the rest of the page as read even if you only exposed the first post, but that is still not as good as DPRevived flat view where posts seem to be marked "read" only if you expose them. These forums can err, but usually in a non-destructive manner, when "the next unread" is sometimes something you've already read, which is superior to never reading a post at all because it was falsely marked "read".

When I open a thread there, I can't see where or how posts are marked as "read". Anyone?

If it is not marked as new, it is read. Same as here.

Hi,

Well, it will set you at the first New (Unread) post. Then, just read them all until you get to the end. Next time you show up, it will set you at the first New (Unread).post.

There really is no good way to skip over posts. Just a linear slog thru them all.

Stan

Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer

Cozy office.

me too

6th icon where? got a screenshot?

Is this some sort joke?

Unfortunately not...