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zethon
02-20-2009, 10:00 PM
vbNetwork

Summary
This add-on gives you the ability to share forums with other message boards without having to give any database information. The plugin runs through webservices and uses XML.

Release Notes
This product is considered to still be in Beta. Currently the installation is easy but if you want to set up and run your own network it will help if you're familiar with XML. Joining an already existing network is fairly simple.

This plugin is developed using vBulletin 3.6.8 and has been used with 3.5.4 and 3.8.x and runs fine on either. I don't know of any boards that run it on 3.7.X, I suspect it would work fine too.

Though there is still a lot of work to be done, I've been encouraged to release this plugin in hopes that someone will take up writing versions for phpBB and other popular message board software.

If you are interested you can join my existing network, but please note that it is mostly a trolling-based community of boards. Feel free to start your own network with other boards.

Product Specifications

several plugins
one cron job
file uploads
new DB tables
several phrases


Installation
Approx 2-5 mins


1. Upload all files in the UPLOAD directory, preserving the directory structure.

2. Create the following directories with the following permissions

./network/packets/incoming - chmod 777
./network/packets/outgoing - chmod 777

3. Go to your AdminCP and install the product's XML file (product-network.xml)


Upgrading/Updating

upload all files in the upload directory, overwriting any existing files
re-import the XML file, setting "Overwrite" to "Yes"


Configuration/Support
See the included documentation for details.

Change History

0.9.0 (2009-02-20) - initial Beta release


Sample
This is one shared forum on three different boards (the content of this forum may be NSFW.)
http://www.anothermessageboard.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29
http://www.theranter.com/forum/vBulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=51
http://www.trollkingdom.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=117



PLEASE CLICK INSTALL!
zethon
02-21-2009, 07:24 PM
Reserved.
Hornstar
02-21-2009, 07:45 PM
Hey nice work. Just wondering tho what Google thinks of all the duplicate content.
zethon
02-21-2009, 07:47 PM
Hey nice work. Just wondering tho what Google thinks of all the duplicate content.

Not sure what you mean.
pein87
02-21-2009, 07:59 PM
Well give it ago marked as installed.
Damien1990
02-21-2009, 09:41 PM
so can members on any of the boards post in that forum and it'll show on all of the others?
zethon
02-21-2009, 09:50 PM
so can members on any of the boards post in that forum and it'll show on all of the others?

Yes.
Rickeo
02-22-2009, 07:34 AM
But wouldn't this be violating copyright ?
hambil
02-22-2009, 09:43 AM
I was running on 3.7.x until I upgraded to 3.8, so I can validate it works on 3.7.x, too.
zethon
02-22-2009, 01:33 PM
I was running on 3.7.x until I upgraded to 3.8, so I can validate it works on 3.7.x, too.

Fancy seeing you here!

But wouldn't this be violating copyright ?

How do you figure?
RvG2
02-22-2009, 01:58 PM
pls make also for 3.8 :)
zethon
02-22-2009, 02:09 PM
pls make also for 3.8 :)

Already works with 3.8. :)
Toupsx
02-22-2009, 06:20 PM
Love this mod, will be very useful between my and another's forum.
Future suggestion to be done if at all possible?:
If both sites are using a point system like VBCredits, ability to share credits or transfer credits from site to site?
thompson
02-23-2009, 09:31 AM
wow, sounds good.

it really share users ?
what about users who registered in both or all forums ? (same name or different name)
zethon
02-23-2009, 11:47 AM
wow, sounds good.

it really share users ?
what about users who registered in both or all forums ? (same name or different name)

Users are not shared.

Take a look at the links I posted and it should be clear to you what this plugin does.
KW802
02-23-2009, 02:58 PM
Looks interesting. :cool:

Is there any intelligence to detect if a user from another board already exists on the first board? So if Site A is participating with Site B, and user JohnDoe (with an email of JohnDoe@SomeSite.com) already exists on both Site A & Site B, will his/her posts show up his real account on Site B after posting on Site A or will it still appear as a guest account named JohnDoe@SiteA?
zethon
02-23-2009, 03:30 PM
Looks interesting. :cool:

Is there any intelligence to detect if a user from another board already exists on the first board? So if Site A is participating with Site B, and user JohnDoe (with an email of JohnDoe@SomeSite.com) already exists on both Site A & Site B, will his/her posts show up his real account on Site B after posting on Site A or will it still appear as a guest account named JohnDoe@SiteA?

Negative, there is no logic to detect if a user is registered. All posts from remote boards appear as posts from your board's Guest account.
ZeroHour
02-27-2009, 02:22 PM
Not sure what you mean.

Google does not like duplicate content on sites so I would probably add a feature to assign the primary site that is indexed and the rest get tagged with rel="nofollow" on the forum index list at the minimum or block the path using robots.txt
zethon
02-27-2009, 05:11 PM
Google does not like duplicate content on sites so I would probably add a feature to assign the primary site that is indexed and the rest get tagged with rel="nofollow" on the forum index list at the minimum or block the path using robots.txt

I'm not gonna add any features just to make Google happy. If there's duplicate content, then so be it. Google will survive.
space?
03-02-2009, 02:24 PM
Hey, great work - but think on adding the right words to your privacy statement ...

And for all of these who care about SEO this isn't so attractive - a solution would be to exclude the indexing of copied content via robots.txt to avoid duplicate content.
Toupsx
03-22-2009, 08:34 PM
could use some help installing this mod for networking two forums if anyone is willing to
kwblue
04-05-2009, 03:23 PM
Love the mod, just can't get it to work :( Running the task shows the following error:


<response>
<action>accept_package</action>
<result type="error">invalid $networkinfo for nework (mynet)</result>
</response>


Not quite sure why as all information seems correct to me :(
zethon
05-07-2009, 02:34 AM
This mod has been moved to the 3.8.X mods, though it is still being developed on 3.6.X.

You can download updates here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=212795