1. The shadow topic seems to do that:
http://wiki.phpbb.com/Shadow_topic. It provides a redirect to the new topic, which Google will hopefully follow while crawling.
2. Yep, that sounds good.
The
Hardware category receives the most attention, so I'd imagine you want to do that the quickest. Maybe assign people certain post types to migrate? All the other categories aren't very active, so they shouldn't be a problem.
I think this sort of structure might work:
- Hardware
- Tutorials/How-To's
- Completed Builds
- Cameras
- Lighting
- New Tech
- (maybe a category for incomplete build threads)
- Software
- Tutorials: User-generated tutorials and how-to's.
- LiveCD: Nobody seems to need it, but it'll give it a but more publicity
- Scripts and Software: Software packages and releases, software people find online, threads created by programmers/script writers.
- Help: Requests for help with software.
I'm not sure what to do about the other categories, though. Maybe somebody should setup a Google Docs document?