The future of Tech-Forums

I think the only chances that we have of losing account data would be in situations like yours, it would be a bad idea to merge account names that are the same, because lets face it, there's a good chance two different people signed up at at each forum, using the same account name. I think what would happen is if two of the same account name are found, they would be renamed and have TF and CF put at the end to distinguish the account difference, after the mergers are completed I suspect that we would be able to contact an administrator to get our account names situated if we encountered that situation. It's kind of why I put TF at the end of my account name over there at CF, just incase such an issue arises.
 
A few answers to earlier questions..

All accounts will be moved to the single new site. Where are are duplicate registrations with the same e-mail address, they will be merged. We may need to build a tool to allow a member choice about which ID to retain. Where there is some question about merges, we reach out to those members are ask how they would like to proceed. we still have some details to work out in this regard.

Threads will not be merged as there's no need to mash up similar topics - we have lots of storage space.

Regarding site skins (how it looks) the design is still in the works but it's likely there will only be one option but possibly two color palettes. There are good reasons for this - primarily at software updates, keeping multiple templates updated is complicated.

Almost all issues associated with a merger are pretty easily manageable; getting members used to the idea and open to change is perhaps the biggest hurdle :)
 
Can't really merge based upon just email addresses, because some people use different emails over the course of years ;) Lot's of stuff to work out, thank the lord I don't have to deal with it.
 
^ That's why I've suggested that a test site be created in the background, and we take snapshots of both databases and merge on the test database so we can test and make sure that things work correctly.
 
Here is a very brief update.

We found some issues in Webmaster Tools that we are addressing right now. Basically before merging the sites we want to make sure things are as clean as possible. So we'll need a few more weeks to make sure the changes are working properly.

We plan to update the skin to take the look and feel from both sites and merge them so everyone feels at home. We'll look at a full site refresh (look & feel) when we switch to a new platform later.

I know it seems slow but this is a lot of changes and we need to make sure we get everything right. New domain, merging two sites, then a new platform. Lots of change.
 
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