there shouldn't be any level demotions. The numbers set haven't changed for a couple of years and there are currently no actual functional issues with the forum software.
But it's 7 years old and needs to be updated. I'm currently looking at somewhere towards the end of may when it's just me and the dogs here and I'll have a bit more time on my hands to spend a day upgrading.
IE: I can ignore the phone without being nagged about it.
It looks (lol) fairly straightforward. I install the new forum software on the server (found a dummies guide for that) then I copy the existing databases to the new folders and change the url redirects over and viola - new forum software with no loss of data.
I don't actually expect it to work as simply and hassle free as that. But the beauty of the method is that the old forum still exists in it's functioning entirety. So should the new stuff just plain not work I can go back to the old setup untill the problems are ironed out.
I will also make a complete backup of the entire site to several of my computers - you can never have too many backups
And that takes about half a day on my pretty feeble 3mb connection.
I will post a warning before I start and the forum will be totally shut down for at least a couple of days, depending on how well it all goes.
Hopefully 1 day for the backup/upgrade process and another day for myself and the other mods to try and crash the new forum before we let the real vandals back on
The other issues we've had recently were traffic/cpu oriented, as mas said - completely removing the registration page and clearing out junk posts seems to have fixed that for the timebeing. But the server providers are concerned that our yabb is so old.
So reluctant though I am to change anything while it still works - I'm going to have to. Hopefully there will be some cool new stuff in the latest yabb software.
A points system and the ability to attach multiple pics to one post are things I'd like.
We'll all hopefully find out in about a month
Consider this the first 'Announcement'
promotion Levels shown below. Haven't changed the levels for years - so looking at your post numbers - not sure why you were at the 500 plus level at all
And the new grades were implemented AFTER the last post levels change.