Recent and forthcoming changes
Just an update on what's been done recently.
Hardware
Two new physical servers were provisioned, one with SSDs which are stupidly faster, this server has the database and the main Tenths site on it. The other uses conventional disks and is running the database backup and my other web sites that need more storage. The plan was to use these two and ditch the existing physical server, however, turns out this is under contract until March 2026. I'd love to ditch this and have considerable cost savings, so I'll be discussing this with OVH.
Cloudflare
Over the last few days Tenths has been moved "behind" the free version of Cloudflare. This should give us better 'bot detection and tools to fight spam. Part of this is that anyone attempting registration from our list of "dodgy" countries will have an additional captcha type "challenge" before registration. Certain countries now also have to pass one of these challenges before accessing any part of the site. It'll be bit of a pain in the ass for legitimate viewers from those countries, but they should only have to verify once a visit or once an hour. If this is successful I may move to the entry level paid plan for Cloudflare, that'll be ~$200 / year
vBulletin (forum software)
A few attempts have been made to see what's involved with upgrading to the newest version of vBulletin as the current version (3.8.11) is so end of life it needs a seance!! Given the age of the Tenths database and the number of upgrades, changes, etc. that it's been through, the migration path doesn't fully work and there's a few permissions issues that need looked at.
I've engaged with vBulletin to try and resolve these issues and if they can be overcome we'll move to vBulletin 6.1.1 at some point.
The various attempts at upgrades in the past (like provision of vBulletin 5, with blogs and mobile app) have cost close on $600 at this point, and the VB5 migration didn't happen. So I really want to get to vB 6 for current support.
Yes, this does mean there will be changes to how the forum looks, feels, and how to use it, but they will be for the better. There is also better "native" support for mobile devices, as well as things like uploading pics directly from a phone camera, it may be a case that the "mobile experience" will be good without having to use TapATalk integration. We'll see.
If vBulletin can't work out a way to get us to VB 6 then we'll keep plodding along with what we've got.
Hardware
Two new physical servers were provisioned, one with SSDs which are stupidly faster, this server has the database and the main Tenths site on it. The other uses conventional disks and is running the database backup and my other web sites that need more storage. The plan was to use these two and ditch the existing physical server, however, turns out this is under contract until March 2026. I'd love to ditch this and have considerable cost savings, so I'll be discussing this with OVH.
Cloudflare
Over the last few days Tenths has been moved "behind" the free version of Cloudflare. This should give us better 'bot detection and tools to fight spam. Part of this is that anyone attempting registration from our list of "dodgy" countries will have an additional captcha type "challenge" before registration. Certain countries now also have to pass one of these challenges before accessing any part of the site. It'll be bit of a pain in the ass for legitimate viewers from those countries, but they should only have to verify once a visit or once an hour. If this is successful I may move to the entry level paid plan for Cloudflare, that'll be ~$200 / year
vBulletin (forum software)
A few attempts have been made to see what's involved with upgrading to the newest version of vBulletin as the current version (3.8.11) is so end of life it needs a seance!! Given the age of the Tenths database and the number of upgrades, changes, etc. that it's been through, the migration path doesn't fully work and there's a few permissions issues that need looked at.
I've engaged with vBulletin to try and resolve these issues and if they can be overcome we'll move to vBulletin 6.1.1 at some point.
The various attempts at upgrades in the past (like provision of vBulletin 5, with blogs and mobile app) have cost close on $600 at this point, and the VB5 migration didn't happen. So I really want to get to vB 6 for current support.
Yes, this does mean there will be changes to how the forum looks, feels, and how to use it, but they will be for the better. There is also better "native" support for mobile devices, as well as things like uploading pics directly from a phone camera, it may be a case that the "mobile experience" will be good without having to use TapATalk integration. We'll see.
If vBulletin can't work out a way to get us to VB 6 then we'll keep plodding along with what we've got.