Good morning everyone,
We know all has been very quiet on the community and platform side of things for some time now - during this quiet period we've been quite busy behind the scenes, and have some big news to share about the next chapter for Overclock.net.
In early 2017, the Huddler platform we currently run the community on was officially declared end-of-life. This kicked off a search for us: we needed to find a new software platform to run the site, and all options were on the table. After exhaustive discussions with potential partners, we decided that the best approach for the community was for us to not only find a new software platform, but a new ownership group as well.
I'm pleased to announce that Overclock.net will be joining the VerticalScope, Inc family of communities effective immediately. If you're not familiar with VerticalScope, discussion forums are what they do - and their team supports some of the largest names on the web. We'll be joining their growing portfolio of technology forums backed by VerticalScope's platform and community support, and gain access to their development, content, and advertising teams.
In addition, this news means we will be migrating to VerticalScope's VBulletin-based software platform. It is modern, one of the industry standards, and will be fully supported by teams of developers and infrastructure / operations folks from the VerticalScope side. Many of our longtime members and staff will remember VB as having been our original software platform, though we'll soon be running a better-supported and more modern version of the tools we were acclimated to in the somewhat distant past.
What will be changing?
On the community side, initially very little - VerticalScope's philosophy is to work with communities which generally already work, so all of our existing team will be staying onboard in their existing roles. ENTERPRISE, The Manual, myself, and all of our other volunteer moderators, editors, and event staff will still be here as we work through this transition and beyond. In time, we'll be joined by additional faces from the VerticalScope (VS) community and technical teams, and these folks will be introduced appropriately when that time comes. As VS puts it, they are "primarily here to make sure the lights stay on". We are very much continuing to steer our own ship as a community, with expanded support from one of the biggest names in the industry.
On the platform side, quite a lot of change is coming - and very soon:
At approximately 7am Pacific time on Tuesday, January 16th, the website and forums will be placed into maintenance mode while the transition from the Huddler platform to VBulletin takes place.
This migration process is anticipated to take at least 18 hours, but we will be communicating status as the day goes on via social media. If you don't yet follow @overclocknet on Twitter or Overclock.net on Facebook, you may wish to take a moment to do so now so you can continue to see the latest updates. When we come back online, it'll be full-speed-ahead on VBulletin. When we come back up, we'll have discussion areas waiting for you to experiment with new features, ask questions and get help, or report any bugs or technical issues you encounter. The team has performed several other migrations of Huddler-platform sites into the VS technology stack, so they have plenty of experience with this kind of transition.
We can't wait to welcome you into 2018 by welcoming you into a new chapter for Overclock.net, and welcome your questions as we conduct the final prep for the big migration day. This will be a big year for the community, and we're thrilled to have you all along for the ride with us. Stay tuned for Chapter Three.
UPDATE 2017-01-16 9AM PST: Hi all, please be advised we are experiencing a slight delay in migration. Stay tuned for further updates. All systems are operating normally at this point. We will provide an update when we have a new target for downtime beginning.
UPDATE 2017-01-21 11pm EST: New migration target start time: 7AM Pacific, Monday Jan 22nd
We know all has been very quiet on the community and platform side of things for some time now - during this quiet period we've been quite busy behind the scenes, and have some big news to share about the next chapter for Overclock.net.
In early 2017, the Huddler platform we currently run the community on was officially declared end-of-life. This kicked off a search for us: we needed to find a new software platform to run the site, and all options were on the table. After exhaustive discussions with potential partners, we decided that the best approach for the community was for us to not only find a new software platform, but a new ownership group as well.
I'm pleased to announce that Overclock.net will be joining the VerticalScope, Inc family of communities effective immediately. If you're not familiar with VerticalScope, discussion forums are what they do - and their team supports some of the largest names on the web. We'll be joining their growing portfolio of technology forums backed by VerticalScope's platform and community support, and gain access to their development, content, and advertising teams.
In addition, this news means we will be migrating to VerticalScope's VBulletin-based software platform. It is modern, one of the industry standards, and will be fully supported by teams of developers and infrastructure / operations folks from the VerticalScope side. Many of our longtime members and staff will remember VB as having been our original software platform, though we'll soon be running a better-supported and more modern version of the tools we were acclimated to in the somewhat distant past.
What will be changing?
On the community side, initially very little - VerticalScope's philosophy is to work with communities which generally already work, so all of our existing team will be staying onboard in their existing roles. ENTERPRISE, The Manual, myself, and all of our other volunteer moderators, editors, and event staff will still be here as we work through this transition and beyond. In time, we'll be joined by additional faces from the VerticalScope (VS) community and technical teams, and these folks will be introduced appropriately when that time comes. As VS puts it, they are "primarily here to make sure the lights stay on". We are very much continuing to steer our own ship as a community, with expanded support from one of the biggest names in the industry.
On the platform side, quite a lot of change is coming - and very soon:
At approximately 7am Pacific time on Tuesday, January 16th, the website and forums will be placed into maintenance mode while the transition from the Huddler platform to VBulletin takes place.
This migration process is anticipated to take at least 18 hours, but we will be communicating status as the day goes on via social media. If you don't yet follow @overclocknet on Twitter or Overclock.net on Facebook, you may wish to take a moment to do so now so you can continue to see the latest updates. When we come back online, it'll be full-speed-ahead on VBulletin. When we come back up, we'll have discussion areas waiting for you to experiment with new features, ask questions and get help, or report any bugs or technical issues you encounter. The team has performed several other migrations of Huddler-platform sites into the VS technology stack, so they have plenty of experience with this kind of transition.
We can't wait to welcome you into 2018 by welcoming you into a new chapter for Overclock.net, and welcome your questions as we conduct the final prep for the big migration day. This will be a big year for the community, and we're thrilled to have you all along for the ride with us. Stay tuned for Chapter Three.
UPDATE 2017-01-16 9AM PST: Hi all, please be advised we are experiencing a slight delay in migration. Stay tuned for further updates. All systems are operating normally at this point. We will provide an update when we have a new target for downtime beginning.
UPDATE 2017-01-21 11pm EST: New migration target start time: 7AM Pacific, Monday Jan 22nd