Should I do it?

[Erkki]

I have an idea how to build possibly the best forum software ever *. Unfortunately I have lots of other ideas as well and I'm already working (on and off) on a few other projects. Should I do it or should I make indie games instead, or this awesome Java code insight/productivity tool that I'm also working on? I can't decide so I will pretend that I'm going to let you decide for me, then change my mind later.

The forum idea also has a big downside: it would be written in Scala/Java, but Java hosting is not as available as PHP hosting.

* keywords: Ajax, mash-ups, REST API, fast, reliable.

[Nachimir]

vbulletin is workable but shit. The admin layout is a nightmare, with options split between inconsistent menus, and gotchas throughout the process of banning someone for spamming, etc. A lot of it just doesn't make any sense until you've learned it by rote. As well as that, they attempted to shoehorn a lot of shitty social networking stuff into every version for the past few years, which is messy, awful, and seemingly used by very few people.

If you made something that kicked the shit out of it, that could be quite big...

[toblix]

My vote goes to the forum software, and also to giving me read access to whatever source repository you'll end up using.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I have an idea how to build possibly the best forum software ever *. Unfortunately I have lots of other ideas as well and I'm already working (on and off) on a few other projects. Should I do it or should I make indie games instead, or this awesome Java code insight/productivity tool that I'm also working on? I can't decide so I will pretend that I'm going to let you decide for me, then change my mind later.

The forum idea also has a big downside: it would be written in Scala/Java, but Java hosting is not as available as PHP hosting.

* keywords: Ajax, mash-ups, REST API, fast, reliable.

Have you seen the forum software that the Home Theater Forum runs? It's probably the best evolution of forum software I've seen in about five years? (As an aside, I do love vBulletin from a user's point of view.)

[elmuerte]

I agree with Nachimir on this.

I really dislike the moves to social networking (isn't that implied by forums?), blogs, and more recently CMS. A lot of technology aware licensees asked/demanded/cried for/etc. jelsoft to fix the rotten core of vBulletin. But instead they decided to cater for the crowd who's only interest was to create the next my-space.

[Patters]

Have you seen the forum software that the Home Theater Forum runs? It's probably the best evolution of forum software I've seen in about five years? (As an aside, I do love vBulletin from a user's point of view.)

That seems similar to that of the Bungie.net forum, which is pretty good despite the people.

[Erkki]

yeah, I think vBulletin is pretty good from users viewpoint, especially with a good skin like Idle Forums. But I think a good forum UI could be better with more ajax stuff and maybe a bit more modern skins if it doesn't break the navigation with back/forward etc.

[Roderick]

I don't know a lot about forum technology, but I know what I would always like: the ability to filter out certain people. Say that I don't like to read someone's stuff, I as regular user could have the option to filter out that person, and the forum would automatically remove all their posts from the forum for me, so that it'd be as if they weren't there. Any inconsistencies with the topics I'd take for granted.

Why is this functionality not yet widespread?

[elmuerte]

you can ignore people in vbulletin, just add them to your ignore list

[syntheticgerbil]

But then it lets you know you are ignoring a message, and eventually I get antsy and unignore them because it gets to me.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I don't know a lot about forum technology, but I know what I would always like: the ability to filter out certain people. Say that I don't like to read someone's stuff, I as regular user could have the option to filter out that person, and the forum would automatically remove all their posts from the forum for me, so that it'd be as if they weren't there. Any inconsistencies with the topics I'd take for granted.

Why is this functionality not yet widespread?

Really? That seems pretty extreme to me. Unless there was a troll, but even so, I'd expect the mods to take care of that person, otherwise I'd move on to a different forum. Good or bad, I couldn't ignore posts on a forum*. In fact, in the past, some people I've initially disliked I've later come to love, respect and, in some cases, become great friends with. If I'd ignored them, that would have never happened.

I guess I'm a purist: Life isn't supposed to be filtered... people you dislike are just as important as those you do like, in shaping who you are. (Unless they're just irritating trolls, but like I said, mods should take care of them.)

Am I being too glib?

* Actually, I can think of one exception in my many years online, but he was a colossal tool and there were no mods to be seen, so it just spiralled and spiralled until I left the forum.

[brkl]

So on which of us would you use it on, Rodi?

[syntheticgerbil]

Probably everyone here is on Rodi's list. I bet he's just guessing how to reply within this thread since he can't actually see what any of us are typing.

[Roderick]

Water mark buffel rhubarb.

I'm guessing that's where this topic is at now

I wouldn't block anyone here, but I do frequent some forums where some people have a high tendency to be the kind that I don't want to be confronted with. They're not trolls, they're just people I don't want to see daily. It's nothing sinister.

I LOVE YOU GUYS MAN!!

[Erkki]

I started working on the forum. The internal architecture will be somewhat complex, so it may take several weeks or even a couple of months (depending on how much of my free time I'll spend playing games instead ) to set up before I have a simple working prototype.

[Coldkill]

Good luck with it, I don't think I've heard of a successful Java based forum system before.

Home Theatre appears to use Invision Power Board 3 series, which is itself an extremely powerful system (and far better than vB's current offering). It also appears that in v4, vB didn't actually completely rewrite the core, but amend parts of it and duct tape it together.

[Erkki]

Hmm.. seems that the Invision Power Board already does a lot of the things I had in mind. I'll take a closer look at it.

[n0wak]

I'm not much of a fan of "for everyone" forum software like vbulletin and the like because, unless you have a really competent dev behind it, it's hard to remove that shit and focus it on what your specific community really needs/wants. That's why I always like custom solutions that are basically built around the community rather than the other way around.

http://yayhooray.com/ has always been nice, and iterated on many, many times over. A few other private ones that I can't link to are pretty good too. They also tend to generally remove the cruft in the design and focus on what really matters: what people are saying.

[elmuerte]

It also appears that in v4, vB didn't actually completely rewrite the core, but amend parts of it and duct tape it together.

no no no, that was vBulletin 3.6 to 3.8

vBulletin 4 adds glitters to the duct tape

[Erkki]

I'm not much of a fan of "for everyone" forum software like vbulletin and the like because, unless you have a really competent dev behind it, it's hard to remove that shit and focus it on what your specific community really needs/wants. That's why I always like custom solutions that are basically built around the community rather than the other way around.

How are these built for community forums made? Coded from scratch or based on some existing open source code?

When I ran The Crow's Nest (if anyone remembers or even knew about that site when it existed) I also made a custom forum in PHP. It had some features that seemed ahead of it's time, for the few people who got to try it, but I lost the code in a HDD crash

I'm now having doubts after seeing some boards like Invision PowerBoard already improve so much over vBulletin that my additional improvements might seem minor. Or maybe they wouldn't. My solution would be modular/plug-in based, you could install only a "core" package (and not even get the UI for disabling the features you don't want because they won't exist in any form in the core version) that has a minimal UI that you can easily customize with a HTML editor. Gee, I hope I'm not spewing bullshit, I haven't figured out the complete architecture yet.

Anyway, do you think such a solution could be a good base to build on for someone who want's to build a forum around a community? Or will the kind of forum you mean be so deeply integrated into a community site that the code will be interwoven?

[Coldkill]

Yeah, that's pretty much what IP.B 3 is. The kernel is the only thing that is actually installed. Even the forum is a module, along with everything else.

[ysbreker]

If I were to make a new forum package I'd make use of all the latest cool tricks in regards to the interface & Ajax the bejeezus out of it. (with a nice fall-back in case of no JS).

- I think it would be neat to have a continuously loading page. (scroll to the end and more comments are loaded.

- Maybe figure out a way to do threaded discussions in a nice way.

- Live threads. Discussions refreshing automagically every x minutes.

And more stuff like that.

[toblix]

Also, there should be an absolute fuckton of buttons for sharing a thread on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. Also, everything on the front-end should be done with JavaFX.

[Erkki]

- I think it would be neat to have a continuously loading page. (scroll to the end and more comments are loaded.

- Maybe figure out a way to do threaded discussions in a nice way.

- Live threads. Discussions refreshing automagically every x minutes.

Yes, those are some of the key things I want to do. Live threads refreshing even every few seconds actually. And all replying & editing would keep you on the same page.

I would like to optionally support threaded discussions but I haven't thought much about it yet.

I'm not sure about providing a no-JS fallback though. Does anyone really have JS disabled? It's a core part of the web nowadays.

[n0wak]

Yes, those are some of the key things I want to do. Live threads refreshing even every few seconds actually. And all replying & editing would keep you on the same page.

I would like to optionally support threaded discussions but I haven't thought much about it yet.

I'm not sure about providing a no-JS fallback though. Does anyone really have JS disabled? It's a core part of the web nowadays.

Yes. I employ a white list strategy. If I trust your site, I'll let you run javascript; otherwise, GTFO.

Auto-refresh you don't really want to do because it's too invasive. What you want is a notification that new posts have been added, with a reload only on user request. Something along the lines of what the Twitter and Tumblr dashboards do (or, hey, the above mentioned YayHooray).