Hello
@Empire, and everyone,
I currently have a prototype of a very small forum built around Vanilla that I could publish as an extension to my site at the very moment. It has four leading questions that could eventually be made into the major categories of a larger site. When you say small, do you mean that small?
Another alternative I have been considering was to start with FluxBB (not quite as small as Vanilla), for which I also built a prototype that could be made publishable in no time. This software is a little more elaborate than Vanilla in its possibilities and in the control it offers. I'm currently still testing some of its outworking.
The idea of publishing my Vanilla prototype immediately is attractive to me. But I have been holding back, because I was hoping to come through with something a little more sophisticated. FluxBB was the one I invested most in so far. But I am now also looking into MyBB (for the first time) and PhpBB (a second time around).
Would it make sense to publish my forum under Vanilla now, so that I get the ball rolling, and to switch to either FluxBB, MyBB or PhpBB, whenever I am ready, which could even be in a few weeks from now? Whereas a paying software such as XF would only be considered if the on-line community turned out really big and busy.
May I trust that it will be relatively easy to export data from Vanilla and import it into a different and more elaborate forum software such as MyBB or PhpBB? May it be assumed that account data would be preserved so that those who registered would not have to register over again? Would the changes in URL structure of the forum content not be as damageable to forum traffic as broken links are to a regular site?
Am I right in holding back a few weeks (or perhaps a couple of months) for considerations such as those :anguished: ? or should I go right ahead and publish whatever I have now, and see from there
. What do you think?
