UBB is a flat file forum. As some have noticed and talked to me about already... when we get real high traffic volumes, things slow down considerably. That's because UBB is only capable of sending a file one person at a time. I talked to our host -- when things slow down ultimatebb.cgi (forum summary page) uses over 80% of the resources on the box.

The solution to this is a non-flat file forum powered by mysql. I have setup a board like this to test to see if we like it.

We are not yet at the point where immediate action is needed, but it is worth consideration.

The board I have setup is InvisionBoard. Here's a feature list, and note IT CAN DO EVERYTHING THAT THIS BOARD CAN DO.:

- PM Notification (tells you who sent it, time, and title in a popup). This has been requested by many people.

- FULL ignore user. Click a button - you never see a post from that person again until you unignore them. This feature has been in HIGH demand.

- The ability for users to choose their own skin -- though this will be limited on purpose somewhat to make sure that team forums maintain school colors

- Limitless post icons / graemlins

- The ability to customize the header/footer/layout

- Spellchecker (we haven't applied the patch yet, but it does work, and a button will appear next to "Add Reply" that'll let you spellcheck)

- Avatars

- The ability to change the color/size/font of the text in your post

- Real time member stats (top posters by conf overall and daily)

- Customizeable user levels, which we have currently set to:
0-100: Water Engineer
100-250: Bench Warmer
250-500: 2nd String
500-1,000: Special Teams
1,000-2,500: 1st String
2,500-5,000: All-American
5,000-10,000: Heisman
10,000+: Hall of Famer
Note that custom user titles ARE STILL AVAILABLE

- Faster load time! Check this out: "[ Script Execution time: 0.0746 sec ]" Now THAT'S FAST!

- The ability to "pin" a post to the top of a forum

All of the domains would be fixed nearly immediately. Down time should be restricted to a few minutes -- though the linking between forums would take more time to get right (still within a day though).

We also have a conversion script that converts members/threads to this board. That means all the threads remain intact, and your post count etc stays the same.

Though there are some rough edges left on the demo I have setup (ex: the giant invision bar that I can get rid of -- and the icons with white backgrounds which can also be fixed) - all the features are still there.

******There is a poll pinned at the top of the test forum. PLEASE vote for it. This community was built for you, so it's only fair that you decide what we do here.******

<a href="http://www.ncaabbs.com/invision/index.php" target="_blank">http://www.ncaabbs.com/invision/index.php</a>