Important OTT Update!

Mr. K

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 14, 2009
526
139
43
www.orangetractortalks.com
Hello everyone, wanted to share some exciting news and an important milestone for OrangeTractorTalks!

Our mission at OrangeTractorTalks is to build on online community of Kubota tractor and equipment enthusiasts. We want OTT to be the place visitors turn to whenever they need Kubota repair, operating or buying advice. We are Everything Kubota. Since we started on this mission in 2009 the community has grown even beyond our expectations, attracting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors every month from every corner. It is so encouraging to see the number of visitors that stop by every day to check-in, swap stories and help one another out. Like you, we are here for the long haul, continuing to work on the mission we started 11 years ago, bringing Kubota enthusiasts together in one place purpose-built just for them.

After a lot of consideration we have decided to upgrade the forum software that powers OrangeTractorTalks forums. We are migrating from vBulletin to XenForo. This change will modernize the forums, providing a better visitor experience, improved access for mobile visitors (50% of traffic) and create a pathway to keep the forums updated, secure and scaling well into the future. Our current vBulletin setup is at end of life and no longer receives feature, security or performance updates. Additionally, the current layout does not react well for mobile visitors requiring us to use a third party plugin to display forums properly. To keep up with the times and ensure that the forums are around for many years to come, an upgrade and refresh was necessary.

Since the forum software is changing, there will be a (hopefully small) learning curve for all involved, myself included. We are sure to find the odd bug, misconfiguration or updated setting that is causing pain that we’ll need to fix. It feels though that this temporary pain is worth the upside to provide visitors and members a better experience and a forum that can remain updated well into the future. To help get ahead of issues we have setup bugreports@orangetractortalks.com so members can submit bugs they find for us to investigate on this end.

Our plan is to migrate from vBulletin to XenForo this weekend, starting tomorrow Saturday, June 6. The OTT forums will be closed for about a day as the member data, profile information, threads, posts and attachments are copied over into the new system. No data will be lost and members should be able to pickup right where they left off, with their usernames, passwords, profile pics and posting history intact. The update also comes along with a new logo, navigation and forum design that the attached screenshot gives you a hint into. We think it looks pretty good!

As always, thank you for visiting and participating in the discussion here on OrangeTractorTalks. The site does not exist with you stopping by, saying hello and offering a helping hand to other Kubota equipment owners and enthusiasts. Hang in there as we make this forum update! See you on the other side.

Mr. K and Service Department Vic

FAQs

Q1: Will my existing OTT profile, post count, post history and other data remain after migration?
Yes. We will be importing all vBulletin profiles, posts, threads and attachments into the new system. If everything goes as planned, you should be able to log into the forums just as you always have.

Q2: Why not just keep everything as-is, what’s not broken right?
We thought about this, but in reality the rest of the world continues to march on, so an upgrade of some sort was necessary. For example, when we started OrangeTractorTalks 11 years ago smartphones were still gaining popularity and mobile visitors were a minority. Today, mobile visitors makeup 50% of site visitors and the current forum software does not provide them a great experience at all. New forum software also comes along with better image and photo handling tools which we know is a common request for many members.

Q3: When will the forum migration start?
We are looking to start the morning of Saturday June 6, and if everything goes to plan, reopen by the evening. If something does not go to plan, you might be seeing the current vBulletin forums for a little while longer while we debug issues.

Q4: I use Tapatalk to browse the forums. What will happen to Tapatalk support?
Initially, our Tapatalk integration will break. Given the new site layout better responds to mobile formats, we are not sure if visitors and members will miss Tapatalk too much (let us know – mrk@orangetractortalks.com).

Q5: Is there anything I can do to help?
Hang in there as we make this transition. While XenForo’s experience closely matches vBulletin (threads, posts, user profile), not everything will be exactly the same. It will take a moment or two to re-learn how to start a new thread, post a new reply and so on. We will create a friendly guide that will point out how to create, update, respond to and search for threads and posts. We hope that the effort to learn is not too much that members run for the hills, give it a chance. If you find something that does not look right – give us a heads up at bugreports@orangetractortalks.com.

Q6: Do you still need tractor pictures for the site?
Yep! We want to get a few more tractor pictures up on the site here and there. The pictures we receive that we cannot find a home for will end up in a gallery we create to show off member submissions.
 

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Reactions: 1 user

sdk1968

Active member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B2601HSD & CK4010HST 4WD/FEL
Oct 19, 2016
929
36
28
Ohio
thanks for the notice & will not do anything that im worried about losing until next week.

s
 

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
555
83
USA
VS also uses the same software. You didn't sell out to Vertical Scope I hope. Tell the truth here please. If you did, I'm gone. VS sucks big time.
 

Mr. K

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 14, 2009
526
139
43
www.orangetractortalks.com
VS also uses the same software. You didn't sell out to Vertical Scope I hope. Tell the truth here please. If you did, I'm gone. VS sucks big time.
No worries on this front. We are, and always have been, independently owned and operated. We do occasionally receive offers to sell the site but we're not interested in that.

I think Vertical Scope also uses XenForo because it's pretty good forum software. XenForo was created by the same vBulletin engineers about a decade ago with many vBulletin sites large and small migrating onto it.
 

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
555
83
USA
Thank you. I frequent another non related forum that VS bought. I go there less and less..
 

torch

Well-known member

Equipment
B7100HSD, B2789, B2550, B4672, 48" cultivator, homemade FEL and Cab
Jun 10, 2016
2,619
869
113
Muskoka, Ont.
Good luck! It will be a big job and as you say, there will be the occasional hiccup, but I'm sure it will be well worth it in the end.
 

Bark

Active member

Equipment
L4701/FM2560LA765/BB2560Pittsburgh disk Titan P forks
Feb 18, 2020
202
54
28
North CA
Oh God no! I can't deal with change. I don't adapt well to change.
Starting to hyperventilate.
Taking a pill and putting a plastic bag over my head till this is all over.
Muft beffer now. See you on de oter side.
Love the site. Thanks for all the hard work.
 

Lil Foot

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
May 19, 2011
7,519
2,553
113
Peoria, AZ
Looking forward to seeing the new changes, hopefully I won't find too much to snivel about. :D
 

kkk

Banned

Equipment
rtv900 /u15 ex/WP 955/woodmizer LT15
Apr 10, 2020
47
7
8
OreGun, BLM
I hope it don't go like GTT did.....Lost lots of good people there.

I signed on here because this is/was still normal.

I guess we will see.
 

Bmyers

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
Grand L3560 with LA805 loader, EA 55" Wicked Grapple, SBX72 BB, LP 1272 mower
May 27, 2019
3,293
3,849
113
Southern Illinois
Good luck and thanks for the update!
 

johnjk

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
B3200 w/loader, Woods RC5 brush hog, 4' box blade, tooth bar, B1700 MMM,
Apr 13, 2017
1,462
1,272
113
West Mansfield, OH
I used Tapatalk a lot. That being said, this site presents very well using the browser on my mobile. Nice now not to have to utilize multiple apps to get to the content. Now to create a shortcut to OTT on my phone. Nice job on the platform upgrade/migration.
 

Mr. K

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 14, 2009
526
139
43
www.orangetractortalks.com
I used Tapatalk a lot. That being said, this site presents very well using the browser on my mobile.
Ok that's good to know and was what we were hoping for. Visitors using Tapatalk to visit OTT do not generate any ad revenue at all, zero. It all pretty much goes to Tapatalk which means over time, as mobile devices get more popular, the site is working harder to serve those mobile pageviews but not generating any real revenue to offset. Keep trying the native browser version of the site for a bit and let me know if you find anything that needs updating or tweaking. Thanks!
 

William1

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
BX25D
Jul 28, 2015
1,118
310
83
Richmond, Virginia
@Mr. K
Seems everytime I restart my browser, I have to login, it no longer saves logins. Not clearing cache or anything.
Edit:Change it from http to https, worked it seems.:)