What should I do with MSS?

As many of you know, I took over http://www.mobilesoundscience.com a while back, and participation is pretty dead. Also, CAJ has been running slower than molasses...server-wise, not in content. Until now, both sites have been hosted by two different companies, and rather than pay for two hosting plans I've decided to swap MSS, CAJ, and a few personal/family sites over to a new unified server.

This leaves me with a couple of options: either I can transfer MSS and CAJ and continue run them as individual sites...or I can try to merge the content and user base into one forum. Transferring the two sites is going to be a PITA by itself, but merging the two is even more complicated.

So what do you guys think I should do?

How difficult would merging the two be?

Would it be the same or less difficult to turn MSS into a sub forum on here and just transfer the relevant MSS posts there?

It's one of those things where I don't know until I try it...

Merge. Just forward the domain to the merged site.

Remember that a lot of us watermarked our pics that are posted at DIYMA to promote MSS.

Just doing some more reading, after the transfer it looks like if an older thread has a link to another thread, the link would be broken. New threads would not be affected.
So threads like this would have to be completely re-done http://www.mobilesoundscience.com/sh...ry-Master-List

I say dump MSS. I don't see any reason why you need to keep it alive. No one did anything there anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN32lLUOBzQ

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Originally Posted by erinh

I say dump MSS. I don't see any reason why you need to keep it alive. No one did anything there anyway.

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Do you mean lock and archive it for reference, or just can the whole site?

I guess I really mean just let it be. If you'd rather can it or lock it to keep from having to actually do anything to the site then that's an option. My point was that the place has been a ghost town for a long time. Pretty much a few months after it's inception. I hate to see you waste time and energy on it when no one cares about it, sans a few random stragglers now and again. Look at your mod team. How many of them are active now... Much less active a year or two ago.

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Originally Posted by chad

Merge.

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You've driven in Alabama, you know he can't do that...

If you're gonna scrap the whole thing, maybe the pertinent links could be transferred over before the migration. It would make things simpler.

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Originally Posted by SublimeZ

You've driven in Alabama, you know he can't do that...

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that's no shit.

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Originally Posted by SublimeZ

You've driven in Alabama, you know he can't do that...

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Originally Posted by chad

that's no shit.

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:stfu2:

Merging it sounds like it would be a major pita. Especially when you start looking at it thread by thread. There are 16 pages of General Audio Discussion alone. Would take a LOT of your time. It may also be a waste of your time to try to sustain it.

When I was just there there were 21 users online, 4 users and 17 guests. So people are viewing things. Seems a shame to just totally can it.

Tough one.

Anything that I've done there, like the scans, I would be totally fine with redoing it all here with new threads for each.

If you do decide to try to undertake merging them if there's anything I can do to help let me know.

Thanks guys...there's a new update of vBulletin that just came out and I may upload it to the new server and do a test merge to see how it turns out.

Worst case, I would just delete everything and start over with individual sites.

If everything goes fine, I will look to do the transfer Sunday or Monday night.

So what is going on? Are they going to be kept separate?


Lot's of great info but everyone is over here and not over there. I have questions and over here will get more traffic if I ask but I feel I should check over there to make sure they have not already been answered.

I tried creating a test site so I could do a trial merge, but I couldn't get it to work right. I got frustrated and gave up on it. I could try again when I get an off night.

yeah merging isn't going to be easy. Some of the best stuff on there, or at least worth keeping IMO would be the posts of the builds in the old magazines. One thought in regards to that, if you have the ability to export the db (say via phpAdmin) and you can get a hold of all the uploaded pics, I'd be willing to help you extract the data from those posts and we can 'repost' that data here, in a new subforum like they were there. Or any other similar content for that matter.

Not sure of how savvy you are in that area (no offense), but I can help you through it if you like, assuming you have sufficient access on the other machine.

Absolute worse case I believe vBulletin allows exporting the db from it's admin section (been a while since I've seen it), and you can right-click save the pics manually from your browser :)

Let me know if that is something you want to try out.

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The Cigarette Smoking Mans says "Burn It"