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.
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.
