Collected Animals

hi everyone!

for anyone who missed it i took over as CA owner + admin back in november. i did a little poking around at first and then absolutely nothing for the next ten weeks, but i'm finally back into things and hoping to make some changes over the next few days.

i'm switching to new hosting mostly for a fresh start and with hopes that we can find the right combination of performance and pricing. i'm also upgrading our phpBB software (current version is well over a decade old at this point). i'm still doing some testing, but from what i can tell everyone's users, posts, threads, etc. will all show up just fine.

unfortunately, the current "board styles" won't work with the new versions of phpBB. i'm customizing a modern stylesheet to roughly match "OpeningDay", which is the default style for the board; if anyone uses one of the alternate styles we can work on migrating them later. stylesheets are obviously cosmetic, but if the board changes look and feel in a dramatic way i suspect it's going to freak everyone out.

when it's time to migrate servers, i'll disable this phpbb application, make a final database dump, and import it into the new machine. once i'm satisfied things look okay i'll switch the DNS over so that collectedanimals.org points to the new server. users should be able to log in with their same credentials using the same URL and everything should "just work".

i don't have a final date yet because adjusting the stylesheet is p excruciating work. i'll update this thread with more details when i'm ready, but i'll also post updates to the new CA bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/collectedanimals.org. this will be especially important if anything goes wrong - the forum lives at a different domain temporarily, for example[/b]

also, i set up a patreon for folks to donate money so that we can cover our hosting + domain name registration costs: https://www.patreon.com/c/collected_animals. after i cover the past few months of costs and set aside some buffer funds, my hope for the patreon is that we can donate anything that's left over to a charity every month. i don't think i've set this up yet but the intention is for patreon members to vote on the cause. thanks in advance to everyone who signs up!!

please let me know in this thread or in a private message if you have any suggestions or anything!

thanks,
jonathan

one step i took towards migration in november was to move the lyrics wiki over: https://lyrics.collectedanimals.org

there are still some issues there but all of the custom extensions and templates should be correctly installed.

also, i'd like to mention the small group of mods i've added: coral lord, dug, and meys. the boards usually don't need a bunch of attention but you may see mod activity on threads + posts from time to time.

big up 2 u

joined the donations

thank you so much!!!

hey, you're awesome for planning and pulling the trigger on all of this. I'd be glad to offer some advice if you ever find yourself needing another set of eyes on something. thanks

Thanks for keeping this place going. I'm following. Good and necessary cause for health care.

Also Queens of the Stone Age fuckin sucks.

so happy to help keep this site moving <3 CA forever

so happy to help keep this site moving <3 CA forever

thanks jonathon, tap, and all of yous

long live!!

Huge news, thank you for doing all this it feels incredibly meaningful that places like this are still seen to and cared about so much <3

Thank you, Jonathan!!

Thank uuuuuuuu


(I'll probably survive without my BEG theme lol)

Thanks so much for doing this!

Going to miss my RetroFuture theme a bit... never changed it for over 10 years haha

haha i think all the active themes are pretty much variants on the same template, so switching out the banner and some colors shouldn't be too bad.

but i'm not using those as an excuse to delay the migration !!

wait why is this 5.1? let's call it 6

the database is transferring over this time so everyone's posts + usernames and everything will still be there. i'm pretty sure the other "major versions" have been a totally new board each time?

also the new server will be available in surround sound

The second part is key, and also what makes this all worth it

your efforts are much appreciated jfw!

hell yeah jfw, so psyched

Can we get rid of wordfilters or introduce some new ones?

christ
anthony Joe Biden
freebird

it definitely wouldn't bother me to lose most of the filters.

maybe i'll set up some polls in the new place about dropping word filters, adding smilies, etc.

please bring back the lair. my music intake has never recovered.

I could also definitely do with y'all's fine music taste in my life, but I'll understand if you can't do it

Totally makes sense if the place we don’t speak of can’t make a return, but we can dream right? I spent countless hours uploading discographies nobody even asked for half the time lol

yeah unfortunately i don't think it really aligns with some of the other goals of the board, at least the way it was set up before. i'm willing to consider some creative alternatives if anyone's got em but it won't be part of the forums

please bring back crunchatize

yeah unfortunately i don't think it really aligns with some of the other goals of the board, at least the way it was set up before. i'm willing to consider some creative alternatives if anyone's got em but it won't be part of the forums

Wait what are the other goals of the board

jfw7 wrote:

yeah unfortunately i don't think it really aligns with some of the other goals of the board, at least the way it was set up before. i'm willing to consider some creative alternatives if anyone's got em but it won't be part of the forums

Wait what are the other goals of the board

general discussion of dental equipment and procedures. we are pivoting to dentistry

lol

I long for the underground bear but totally understand

denjy you are still the goat and I love you

new mobile layout say whaaat

yeah, the new mobile layout came along for free with the new base theme i was working from!

i use my laptop probably 80% of the time i'm on CA so it got most of my development attention. if you notice anything super broken or have suggested improvements post in the tech thread (can you tell i'm excited for emojis)

Mobile layout isn't perfect but definitely nice to not have to scroll around! Heck yeah!

Looking good, thanks for keeping this thing going everybody! Really wanna roll up the sleeves and get a couple of my archives threads whipped into shape.

I like the mobile layout iss different for sure but takin it all in while super bored at work. Cathedrals everywhere etc. etc.
Happy 5.1 everyone! And thanks again to jfw7 for getting this all sorted

For the mobile theme I think you just need to get the "Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 12:30 am" up below the name, like I dunno what the stylesheet looks like but there's probably like a div tag and then the name + user rank, and I think you could just get that post time up in that? Like I think that could maybe look a little sharper. And then I think if you had the "profile" / "pm" / "quote" / "report" stuff all in one row, you'd be set.

Great job on the transfer!

seconding what tap said ^
also mobile is missing the banner! not super important maybe but I'd like it to be there

Amazing to see! Thanks for keeping this place up to date and preserved guys!!

Mobile layout is great but definitely some unclear boundaries between posts that caused me some confusion at first. I think things should settle in over time. Emoji test:

Great job!

Thanks for all the effort you've put into this!