Welcome to the New KarateForums.com!

[Patrick]

Hey all,

Was anyone actually reading the updates I was writing? 

I'll have plenty to say about the new software powering our community in the coming weeks, months, and probably years, but for now, I want to be brief, so I am get the community back online and so you can start using it.

We've been planning this for years. I was literally looking at email conversations I had in August of 2021 yesterday, as I tried to figure out a particular issue. In the time where we have been working towards this, I got married, and we had a son who is now 2. You grow, and you add new commitments to your life, and it's hard to juggle things. 

But this migration is so important. Our old software was going to die. Sooner, rather than later. One day, you would login, see an error, and that might be it. I did not want that to happen. I've been managing this community since it launched, for over 23 years now. I don't know if I have another 23 in me or not, but I do know that if there are members who find value in it, I want it to outlast me. That wasn't possible on our old software. 

Change is very hard. Especially change of something that has largely been unchanged for probably 21 years or so. Not just bugs or errors (please share those in this thread), but things that you don't like or something that is in a totally different place than you are accustomed to, which will be annoying. That is completely reasonable, and I'm sorry for the trouble. But I hope that the overall experience is improved for you.

The ability to upload avatars has been broken for years. That is no longer the case. We've never had a mobile-friendly website. Now we do. Try it! You can actually upload images to posts now! You can tag people. You can react to posts. We've tried to be very thoughtful about those last two because I don't want this to become yet another place on the web that tries to addict you. I don't want members who can't stay away, I want members who find this community adds something to their lives.

We'll get better, and we'll improve but crucially, we now have the ability to do so. We did not have that with our old software, not for many years. 

Before I wrap this up, I want to thank some folks:

• My friend, Chrispian Burks. @Chrispian here, who now has the honor (?) of being the first ever mention. Chris is my old, old friend, and I met him in an online forum 23 odd years ago. This simply would not have been possible without him. Chris has countless hours of his time to this project. It would have been dead on the vine if he wasn't in my life. He's not only a great developer, but a big believer in online communities and their power. His commitment to finding the right way to do this, the whole time, and not taking shortcuts, has been vital to this process.
• Matt Mecham, the co-founder and director of development for Invision Community. I would add in his team at Invision, too. Matt was generous with his time early on, giving me thoughtful feedback and tooling that allowed me to this the right way. Matt has been developing software so long, he was developing software when our old software was being developed. His ethos, the respect with which he treats online community content, is incredible and rarely seen in the community software space. His commitment to maintaining migration tools is to be admired. He is the reason your password works. That was really important to me, and it was important to him.
• The staff here at KarateForums.com: @bushido_man96, @Wastelander, @sensei8, @Nidan Melbourne, and @aurik. They've been a part of so many portions of this process, and I suspect at one point may have thought we'd never make it, as I let time slip by. But from reorganizing the forums and keeping them chugging along to testing the software and being a sounding board as I worked through various issues, their efforts made this better.
• The members who volunteered to test the software: @DarthPenguin, @KarateKen, and @Zaine. Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and support.
• Finally, and certainly not least, all currently active members of KarateForums.com for your patience throughout this process and the process to come. I am grateful for your patience.

And I'll leave it there. Chris and I have been working on this pretty solid for now almost 4 days, and I think I might be a little quiet. Or not. We'll see. Thanks for reading!

Patrick

[KarateKen]

Happy to help, looks good so far. 

[Patrick]

4 hours ago, Patrick said:

I want to be brief

Nailed it. 

[Nidan Melbourne]

Looking great Patrick! 

Thanks for the mention  

I'm looking forward to finding all the easter eggs you may have left here haha

[KarateKen]

Looks like there are more emoji options now, which I like, and I like that we can see how many points we are away from the next rank.  These changes are an improvement. I will post others as I come across them. 

[DarthPenguin]

1 hour ago, Nidan Melbourne said:

Looking great Patrick! 

Thanks for the mention  

I'm looking forward to finding all the easter eggs you may have left here haha

Easter Eggs? That sounds intriguing!

 

More seriously, well done Patrick, you have obviously put in a massive amount of time and effort to the update (not even including the work you put in previously making sure the site existed!) so thanks for all the work and it looks good :)

[Zaine]

It's here! I was periodically checking in on your updates, excited for the end result. I'm happy to have helped test this site, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for this community which I love so much.

[Nidan Melbourne]

5 hours ago, DarthPenguin said:

Easter Eggs? That sounds intriguing!

 

More seriously, well done Patrick, you have obviously put in a massive amount of time and effort to the update (not even including the work you put in previously making sure the site existed!) so thanks for all the work and it looks good

Well not "easter eggs" per se. but when i go on a site that i've used for such a long time (like here), and love seeing the changes and functions added. 

Like the pleasant surprise coming back on here before going to bed and a little notification popping up letting me know of ur response. 

[Patrick]

Thanks so much, Liam, Ken, DarthPenguin, and Zaine! It means a lot.

[bushido_man96]

It's great to see the site back up and running, so new and improved!  Thank you to everyone that contributed to the success of this migration.  The new site looks so good!  Kudos to you @Patrick, Chrispian Burks, and Matt Mecham on the work done here!