I wonder if the forum section itself will be changing. On one hand, this forum platform can certainly use improvement. OTOH, I fear that, once again, searching for information contained in older posts may become more problematic.

I am guessing the search and other features will be improved.

I hope you're right, Jason, but also hope the process doesn't yet again break all the old links.

Links have a high probability of not transferring given the past attention to this detail. We'll see. I take it it's going to be a bigger update than we've seen previously as I think it's likely that the underlying service is going to change this go around in an attempt to fix some unfixable problems with the current system.

No.

OP has wrong dates??
According to link: Thu Nov 16 - Thu Nov 30.
2 Weeks WTF!!

Dates are lifted from the linked official announcement.

Not that the message base is going to Discourse (the forum platform) but when Steinberg transitioned to Discourse it took them several weeks past the initial target dates to get the data migrated.

It takes time even when things go well.

Timing is bad. Would have been better to start the Montage M announcement with a new message base. That's not how the chips fell. Not the worst story, though. At least this time the message board goes down a) it's planned/scheduled with announcement b) it's for a better reason

[quotePost id=124348]Links have a high probability of not transferring given the past attention to this detail.
[/quotePost]
IIRC, to get to an "old" page, you just had to change something in the URL. I wonder why they couldn't at least implement redirects.

I wonder why they couldn't at least implement redirects.

Hopefully the update will make it easier for them to do that.

I'd like to see them make the forum threads available to download and search/read off-line

The content has to be "frozen" before migrated, or else the solution can't exist before the changeover. So there has to be a time when new posts/replies can't be made. Two weeks sounds like a lot, but maybe they're just being conservative...?

The content has to be "frozen" before migrated

Sure - but not necessarily all of it at the same time.

Do you really care if the Montage forum has a different link than the Modx forum? Oh wait - it already does.

So freeze the Montage forum while you move it but leave the Modx forum up and active until you get ready to move it. Easy peasy as BM might say.

, or else the solution can't exist before the changeover.

I don't agree. You can create a NEW set of forum categories using the new software. And then use a 'freeze and move' approach to migrate categories one at a time.

So there has to be a time when new posts/replies can't be made.

But there are ways to do it online by having both the old and new available at the same time. Same way you can copy your entire disk contents without shutting down everything at once:

1. create a new folder for the copy of an old folder
2. make the old folder read only
3. copy the old folder contents to the new folder
4. repeate the above for another folder

At times both the old and new folders and content will exist at the same time but users can only ever change one of them.

In this day and age it shouldn't be necessary at all to take an entire set of forums offline in order to do a migration. Certainly not for the number of forum users that are active at any given time. I mean it doesn't even compare to something like an airline reservation system system where chaos could result if a problem arises.

In the past other, I would argue more capable, software organizations within the Yamaha umbrella froze the message board before migration. I don't think they took the content offline but made it read-only.

Still, it took them a while to get everything straight and I would guess it would take the maintainers of this forum longer to do the same kind of task.

Rather than focusing on how long it's going to be down -- we've been here before with no good reason attached -- I'm going to be hopeful that the result will be as favorable to us as the article suggests. I really do think there will be a better effort this time and not just window dressing.

[quotePost id=124372]In the past other, I would argue more capable, software organizations within the Yamaha umbrella froze the message board before migration. I don't think they took the content offline but made it read-only. [/quotePost]
Yes, making it read-only also works, but presumably takes some more effort than just putting up a "closed for renovation" splash. But yes, I'll be optimistic, and just want that successful outcome. 🙂

[quotePost id=124363]OP has wrong dates??
According to link: Thu Nov 16 - Thu Nov 30.
2 Weeks WTF!![/quotePost]
No, I didn't.
The dates were correct at the time I posted them and were changed in the original article afterwards.