had a little chat with @trevor about this feature, initially as a plugin, but after digging around the topics source a little bit, it sounds like NodeBB core maybe a better place for it.
with your blessing, i'd like to implement this feature (PR), but I would first love to hear any specific sub-features, design opinions or whatever else you have in mind on this.
My major concern is where to store the images urls, on the topic objects in the DB? or on separate meta object?

if the decision remains a plugin for this, we're going to need few hooks for the topics create and getTopicData, which I will PR as well, but IMHO this feature sounds like core.

as of some time..

./nodebb reset -p nodebb-plugin-pluginName

@sanatisharif sent you the instructions email, i am going to paste it here as well for others

For all the newusers I am going to make the assumptions of their JoinDate based on their first thread or comment;

@sanatisharif since your importing to an existing nodebb database
BEFORE you test it make sure make a copy of your original NodeBB database, setup a TEST NodeBB instance, and test with that before you do on your production database

After you have that done, here are the import instructions, I am going to assume that you are using a Linux based system, or mac

# go to the NodeBB directory you have
cd /path/to/your/NodeBB

# delete any previous import plugin you have, then a install the latest one, it was ONLY tested against NodeBB 1.0.0, but if you are running 0.9.x it should also work for you.
rm -rf node_modules/nodebb-plugin-import
cd node_modules 
git pull https://github.com/akhoury/nodebb-plugin-import.git
cd nodebb-plugin-import
npm install

# then go back up a directory and install the disqus plugin, since it's not published to npm yet, you need to do it manually
cd ..
git pull https://github.com/akhoury/nodebb-plugin-import-disqus.git
cd nodebb-plugin-import-disqus
npm install

# here you need to paste your disqus XML exported dump file somewhere, let's paste it here, you dont have to do that, part
cp /path/to/my-file.xml .


# now go back up to run nodebb
cd ../..
# run NodeBB
node app

• Now you visit your nodebb, say it's http://localhost:4567

• Go to Admin Control Panel > Plugins > and activate Import plugin

• then restart your nodebb

• then back to http://localhost:4567/admin/plugins/import

• Click on "Toggle pre-import settings"

• Then in the "Exporter specific configs (if applicable)" write a valid JSON that has the full path of the XML file, for example: {"filepath":"/Users/akhoury/code/NodeBB/node_modules/nodebb-plugin-import-disqus/my-file.xml"}
  See this picture: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1398375/14342545/5e5ccef2-fc68-11e5-84d0-a42e1acb0cbd.png

• Then, scroll down to the "Select an Exporter" section
  and enter the box "nodebb-plugin-import-disqus" and make sure you check the "Skip the module install" checkbox
  see this picture: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1398375/14342546/5e630de4-fc68-11e5-8e1a-ba736f528759.png

• Then Scroll down, and, for your case since you already have topics in the NodeBB database, you need to click on the green button "Don't Flush NodeBB DB, just import"
  see this picture: https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1398375/14404948/0ee7a10e-fe51-11e5-80d1-2d7a58931769.png

• Then when it's done, click on "Toggle post-import tools"

• In the "Content conversion" section, select "HTML to Markdown" then click Convert

• then restart your NodeBB again and check the results by reading the topics to see if everything looks good.

@psychobunny

UBB-migrator is temporary broken today due to a Major Nodebb update unless u use my NodeBB fork

But have no fear, ubb or any BB/Forums admins, a new refactored nodebb-plugin-import plugin is born, which will meet all of the Migrators half-way to import data into NodeBB's Database. Project is 2 hours old, stay tuned.

All you have to do is extract your data from your BB into few structured files, which the importer can understand, I will provide an example "exporter", which will be the new ubb-exporter, stay tuned for the example here nodebb-plugin-import-ubb,

ETA 24 hours.

@kinderjaje
I am personally a little too busy for custom work at the moment, however I would suggest the following:

Publicly share your ideas. maybe open features/plugins requests in separate gitbub.issues/forum.topics, if the core team and the community like the idea and show support, the usual flow is to argue if the feature goes core or as a plugin, then, someone usually gets excited about it, picks it up and builds it for the internets karma.

It's definitely a slower process than working closely with someone you hire, but if none of us is available for private work at the moment, or if the cost is too expensive, you still shouldn't let your ideas go to waste. Unless it's really some custom work for your specific use case only.

@Nic-Gutierrez

I just tested and successfully imported a sample Discourse DB against the latest stable NodeBB v0.8.2

using
[email protected]

and this exporter module by BenLubar
https://github.com/BenLubar/nodebb-plugin-import-discourse

if you want to start playing around with it over the next few days till I confirm everything looks good but don't import and shutdown your live discourse instance yet

Since the discourse exporter module is not published yet, you will need to point the importer to the github repo, using the git: protocol, when you're setting up the configs - see the screenshot below.

or

You can install the discourse exporter yourself.

cd /path/to/NodeBB/node_modules
git clone https://github.com/BenLubar/nodebb-plugin-import-discourse.git
cd nodebb-plugin-import-discourse
npm install

then, in the Importer Configs, make sure you still write module name in there like this screenshot, and check the "Skip the module install" box, as this screenshot.

Also

I would create a cloned dump of your discourse forum and test against it. I am not a postgres expert, but i had to prefix all tables with restore. (with the dot) after I imported this test-database-dump this way psql discourse_db < dump.sql -- see screenshot

a ONE TIME use plugin, to migrate your rusty UBB forum away from dinosaurs.

nodebb-plugin-ubbmigrator

@NiLord
here's how it works:

• Categories (aka forums) have topics in them (aka threads)

• each topic is owned by a user (_uid), belong to a Category (_cid) and have main _content property. if a topic's user or category was not imported the whole topic (along with of its posts) gets ignored

• each post belongs to a topic (_tid), if the topic get ignored, the post is ignored obviously.

• in your case, something is obviously wrong, but for me to find out what it is, I need your storage folder ([email protected]), zipped along with these other info:

  • which version of NodeBB are u using? (even a commit hash would be fine) (that error that you're seeing happens if you don't uncomment 1 line of code, but you should'nt have to do that with the latest master NodeBB)

  • which version of the importer are u using? (I am assuming the latest?)

ps: you would have to be patient with me for the next 2 weeks, i'm 7+ hours off my usual timezone and on a 1mb/s internet speed.

With the NodeBB 0.5.0's release, and after I am back to normal life, i am planning is much easier import process, no more terminal crap and no more storage files and shit, if you're not in a rush, ETA 4-6 weeks for my release

Basically NodeBB migration meeting you half way.

1-) export your forum into a file structure which the importer can read, if you're using UBB, i already wrote one that does that nodebb-plugin-import-ubb, if not, use it as an example to export your forum.

2-) import your files using nodebb-plugin-import

• it will generate URL redirect paths for you, you can either use the Nginx HttpMapModule or if you have 30k+ urls to redirect like i had, use a quick and dirty Node solution, called it RedirectBB.
• if you don't supply the passwords, new ones will be generated for you, then shared in the logs, either json or csv format, so you can email-blast them to your users

don't be shy opening an issue if something goes wrong

• always use --flush, unless for some reason, the import process got interrupted (crashed and you do not want to restart it) (i am going to get rid of this feature soon, it's too confusing, probably useless, and very error prone)

• also, yes, the importer lets NodeBB create the first 12 categories, then attempts to delete them, before it starts importing source categories, hence the id 13 as the first one.

I do not know why the data looked weird, but it's most likely because you haven't flushed before importing.

we could enable CAPTCHA after N number of failed logins, kind of what most sites do.

IE8 is supported but currently broken and pending few fixes. stay tuned.

early version
https://github.com/akhoury/nodebb-plugin-mailchimp

@psychobunny what about showing a captcha after 2 or 3 failed logins?

@Dielan just send it (or a download link) to my email [email protected]
but i have to tell you that there is a line now:

~0. Make the -import plugin 4.0 compatible

1. exporter for PhpBB
2. exporter for Questions2Answers
3. exporter for XenForo

I should just open up issues on the importer's repo so you can track those down, will do that soon

@3rd-Party-Developers

Thanks to github/singofanger (couldnt find his community handle) who pointed out http://oembed.com/ to me in a email conversation.

I don't have time to breath atm, if no one implements it in next couple of months, I might.
later

ur welcome boyz. Captcha support is added, but not published yet pending PR merge,

@StuartH yes, here's a snapshot on the admin panel

and the results on the forum

@a_5mith

Not really, at least Akismet API does not have anything to do with a title, http://akismet.com/development/api/#comment-check

however, I just combined title + '\n' + content to get sent to Akismet

An embarrassing thing i just noticed, is that the spam-be-gone plugin is only listening to filter:topic.reply so all the topics creation are not getting checked because they fire filter:topic.post

@julian, @a_5mith opened my eyes that Akismet was not checking new Topics creation, only topic replies, so I added it

I just published [email protected] that fixes this issue.

Im here for the rescue .

Till the email blast feature is done, export your Users into CSV format from the NodeBB Admin Panel, create a free Mandrill account and use this tool to blast your emails. It supports templating using Handlebars. Check out, pretty easy.

Mandrill blast

(akhoury.github.io)