Author

Message

Darth.Severus

Posts: 13

Posted on: 2013-03-21 21:43:52.000

A while ago I found a great blog about programming: codinghorror.com! It's from a guy which was responsible for stackoverflow.com, which is a great thing. He's not updating his blog very often, but his last posting could be interesting for you. It's about how to make forums better and his new forum project: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2013/02/civilized-discourse-construction-kit.html

The last time I tried discourse, I was not totally happy with it. I was f.e. not happy about the fact that every user needs tho have javascript enabled, or he gets only unformattet strings to see. However, they have some interesting ideas, worth thinking and debating about.

Rocket Man

Posts: 383

Posted on: 2013-03-22 11:34:24.000

Great minds think alike! In fact, at this very moment, I'm reading the same discussion started by Jeff Atwood, but over at Ars Technica (which is where I hang out a lot) - http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1169106

It's interesting stuff and I'm fascinated by the discussion. As for Javascript being a requirement, it would be nice to degrade more gracefully if users have it turned off. I never test this however; I always assume users have it on. It's kind of part and parcel of the web these days.

Darth.Severus

Posts: 13

Posted on: 2013-03-22 21:47:22.000

I've read the discussion on coding horror again tonight, here are some more interesting links to discussions and some ideas fom there:

- XenForo, Debiki, and Vanilla Forums were mentioned as best Forum Software today.
- Debiki http://www.debiki.com/for/forums
- more Discourse http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/02/06/0112233/discourse-next-generation-discussionweb-forum-software

I hope I'll be able to work a lot with Rockets soon, then I will try to implement some good ideas from other forums as well as own ideas.

- I hate forums where you can only see headings, and have to open every comment, but ...
- Collapsing of long postings could be interesting.
- Sorting of the postings is something to think about, but not only via AJAX, the server should do it.
- I like the idea of automatical opening new threads if a thead is getting to huge, in the original thread could be a link to the new thread.
- I think tags for the content could be helpfull in some ways.
- In Discourse a user gets a message if his username is mentioned somewhere after a @.
- OpenId support seems to be very important, or for small forums posting without reg but with captcha.
- Everything should look and work fine on old computers and Raspbery PI.
- Users should be able to mark others with own tags, and know as what they are tagged by others.
- Marking threads as interesting, to find them again, even after years.
- Some people hate forums at all, maybe an mailing list option would be great. Getting all new messages per mail, and write own comments per mail. Would also save resources for the owner of the server.

A guy from proboards mentioned this on slashdot as advantages of his forum software:
-Live Search. Most pages have a search box you can type in, and the threads/posts update live on screen.
-AJAX pagination - switch between pages without needing to load a full new page.
-Integrated Notifications. We push content to you, you shouldn't have to seek it out.
-Integrated mobile site
-Clean, simple UI (while keeping all functionality available)
-Enhanced privacy. More control over what you see and who can see you.
-Activity feeds for staying up to date with your friends on the forum
-Single signon for all ProBoards forums with the ability to easily switch between forums
-WYSIWYG editor
-"Conversations" instead of PMs -- you can have multiple people in a discussion
-Better moderator tools that make it easier than ever for mods to get stuff done with fewer clicks.
-We launched a new section on our homepage that shows you all forums you are a member of and information such as how many new messages you have, notifications, if any of your participated topics were updated, and more -- many forums, all on one single page.
-and a whole lot more.


> Javascript
Sometimes people want to use proxys for anonymity, but js can break that anonymity. Also some people are using old computers or Raspberry PI, the problem then is not js in general, but if it causes a high consume of resources. Also I'm using NoScipt, I thought everyone does? Cause Hackers, Ads, ...