I don't know either, other than "shitloads". What are we talking here - tens of thousands or even more?
It depends. XenForo does have a migration system for basically every other forum software.
https://xenforo.com/help/importing/
One of the only reasons we're on XenForo is it imported PHPBB. I hated PHPBB and wanted to migrate off it. XenForo was the most highly reviewed of all forum software so I went with that.
Something Awful started permanently diverging from vBulletin 2.2.9. XenForo supports down to 3.6, and the current vBulletin is over 4.0. vB 2.2.9 was released
November 2002.
XenForo's 3 or 4 developers are in the middle of a huge software upgrade. 90% of what they're doing is for that. Lowtax is going to ask them to write equivalents for every feature Something Awful has already. It's not just a custom migration, it's:
( (
time to write custom add-ons *
number of add-ons) +
time to write custom importer + time to run importer and verify installation ) *
cost of manpower
Migrating from PHPBB to XenForo worked just fine, it just took a few hours, but that's because I'm just some fucking guy. Lowtax is staring down the barrel of what is probably $50~$100 an hour and a month's development time, minimum.
One final concern: they'd either be writing this into XF2 and developing it alongside a practical demand, or they'd be doing it fo XF1 and developing XF2 alongside it independently. Regardless, it's going to take even longer than a normal estimate because of its cohabitation with XF2. If they did the latter, however, Lowtax's software will
already be out of date by the time the import is completed.
Historically I'm terrible at time and cost approximations, but I'd say the absolute lowest I'd expect is $8000 but potentially reaching towards $24000. More realistically he's going to spend a few thousand dollars for just the importer and let a lot of features go in the process, slowly adding them over time throughout the next year.
Annnnd one final thought. Unless the new forum functions and looks
exactly the same as it did before, you can bet money for a consumer revolt. Classic shitty web design skin is not included in my estimate. It may seem odd or even childish for people to hate new shiny stuff, but after a decade people get real fuckin' used to that old school look. Trust me. I'm an expert on pissing off people who are really used to something.
