bulk posts, copy/merge with other forums
 

would I have access to the big file with all the posts ?
is it well organized, so a programmer can easily access it ?
can I add multiple posts from other forums in one step ?
can I run another forum as a subforum with moderators restricted to there ?
can I merge several forums ?

It's stored in tables in a database. But a programmer should be able to easily access the information. Oh, and no files are encrypted, so that's fine for anyone wanting to know how vBulletin is coded.

By importing them I think you can.

You mean sub host someone else's forum and restrict moderators to moderating only that forum/forums? Likely yes with permission system already built in.

You can merge several forums with imPex or the like I heard.

sounds good.
So all vB-forums could in theory just be subforums of one big vB-forum...

Is there maybe a test-vB forum with the file that holds its posts
and a description how to add/delete posts to it ?

All posts are stored in the database, there is no "file". You can add posts via the datamanager.

I don't have access to the file where the posts are stored ?
That's bad.

They're in the database.....You can access it via your database manager (comes with your host). Usually it's phpMyAdmin.

I want to write my own software to access it,
that's more flexible.

Then I can just merge 2 databases (I hope...)

Is it legal to just download all posts from other boards
and continue at your forum ?
People who are banned can post again, several forums can
be joined

Huh?

As long as the forum posts where yours to begin with then I don't see why that would be a problem? I suggest looking at the documentation over at vBulletin.com in reference to merging forums together

can someone post or upload a small portion of a vB-forum-file
with -say- 10 posts ?

No, we can't. And they're not files, they're located in the database...The database can be freely accessed. The structure of the database will be easy to understand.

and the "database" , it's not a file ?
Or several files ?
In a directory on a computer, accessable and copyable
under DOS,Windows,Linux ?

The type of database supported by vBulletin is MySQL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysql

Just to let you know, I actually have got it working with PostgreSql, (The elephant kind :D).

Although, because vBulletin is used by thousands of users worldwide with MySQL, I would probably go with that. They don't have a problem with it, and neither should you.


FYI, Although I'm not positive exactly how a database phisically stores data, I do know you can use .sql files to pick out data from the database and transfer it universally to other databases.

I recently found this:

http://boardreader.com

which lets you import and read several boards simultaneously.
I'm not yet so happy with their design, but it seems to be a step
into the direction what I had in mind.

is this new ?
are there other such readers already ?
could I even convert this way from -say- v-Bulletin to phpBB and vice versa ?

This forum is for vBulletin Pre-Sales questions, not for pre-slaes questions for software by others.

Closing thread.