6 ms·

Yeah, where actually have forums gone? All the software seems to be pretty outdated and you can't throw a stone without hitting someone who is building some new

Yeah, where actually have forums gone? All the software seems to be pretty outdated and you can't throw a stone without hitting someone who is building some new link aggregator or mircoblogging service. But where are decentralized or just modern platforms focused on discussions, not on people?

jtbayly 7y ago
Discourse is amazing modern open source forum software. Check it out. https://discourse.org/ https://discourse.org/ (homepage) https://meta.discourse.org/ https://meta.discourse.org/ (Software in use)
- ashkankiani 7y ago
  I wouldn't call it amazing, but it is fine. It's bloated on the frontend side of things, imo.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Way too bloated, if you ask me. Just give me a sane reimplementation of phpBB (i.e. not actually using PHP!) with the addition of interop with the Fediverse, custom clients etc. It would work a lot more smoothly and be more visually attractive as well.
  - baby 7y ago
    it's bloated on the backend side of things as well.
- Grumbledour 7y ago
  Yeah, I know that one. It's a blank page until you authorize over 2 dozen external js scripts. Admittedly, it looks nice after that, but that's a hard pass from me.
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    I'm running an instance where I've installed one external js. Other than that, I just counted and there are 16 JS files loaded. None of them come from an external domain. Am I misunderstanding what you mean by "over 2 dozen"? Am I misunderstanding what you mean by "external JS scripts"?
    - Grumbledour 7y ago
      I clicked on the above https://meta.discourse.org/ https://meta.discourse.org/ and get a white page. UMatrix tells me it blocked 32 Scripts from one cloudfront domain and 9 from another. Maybe it's me misunderstanding UMatrix, but I assume "scripts" mean files. Could also be script blocks, though.
      - jtbayly 7y ago
        Isn’t cloudfront just a CDN? I’m not surprised that site has more scripts than a bare-bones install like mine, but I guess I’m surprised it’s that many more.
codetrotter 7y ago
> modern platforms focused on discussions, not on people One that I know of is https://discourse.org/ https://discourse.org/
freddie_mercury 7y ago
What is outdated about it?
- Grumbledour 7y ago
  The software often seems old and clunky, or with the few newer options like discourse or nodebb, convoluted and bloated. But I think whats mostly missing these days is amenities social networks have introduced like custom streams and filters. Forums in principle can do things like "Show all posts from user X" or "give me new topics that are tagged Y", but it often didn't even work way back when. A modern forum should allow to create custom streams to find and consume content and wrap that up in a nice package and these days of course, some form of federation should be possible, be it just RSS feeds or better yet cross posting etc.
  - KajMagnus 7y ago
    You can do that to some extent, with Discourse, by "following" custom search queries.
tyingq 7y ago
Facebook groups seems to be the main killer of standalone forums. They first offered a way to create a page that linked to the forum. Then waited until that caught on, then removed the prominent place to link. Voila, the FB group becomes the forum.
- kerrsclyde 7y ago
  A lot of my users migrated to a Facebook group. The quality of discussion on Facebook seems very low however, very few replies to posts, just a bunch of likes / smiley faces.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Yeah, it's not better, but it's "captive" since Facebook made it hard to show that the real forum is somewhere else.
ashkankiani 7y ago
I'm working on one if you can wait a few months :P Maybe less depending on how difficult moving to a new country turns out to be.
- Grumbledour 7y ago
  Do your have some more info or even some code up yet? I thought about starting to build something myself from time to time, but in the end it always seems a bit daunting. That, and that I am never sure if there even are other people who want something like that.
tomcooks 7y ago
> Yeah, where actually have forums gone? "Stop necroposting! You have been warned" "You have to login to search" "You need to wait for an administrator to confirm your account before you can login" "You need to have a hight reputation to post" "You cannot post in this subforum" "You haven't posted in the Newbies forum" "[missing image from TinyPic or other 3rd party hosting]" "[missing image due to 3rd party hosting quota limits]" "PMed you the solution" Yea no thanks. > But where are decentralized or just modern platforms focused on discussions, not on people? Stackexchange is one example.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  bump
- nkrisc 7y ago
  You've spent days, if not weeks searching for any lead on the obscure problem you're facing. You might not even be certain exactly what the problem is, but you're by now intimately familiar with its manifestation. It's clear by now you're probably the first person in ten years menaced by it. Ancient forums with broken CSS, archived mailing lists, dusty blogs; you scrape together enough relevant information to finally craft the search query that will save you, the one that will finally lead you to the result. There. It's done. The results page consists mostly of entries with nonsense text and languages you can't read, but at the top is your answer. You click it. Scanning the original post it's clear you've found your salvation. You scroll through, quicker and quicker, impatient to end it all. Almost there, to the last post. The answer you seek. But, in a flash, it's gone. "PMed you the solution"
  - skocznymroczny 7y ago
    More like "Nvm, I found the problem, it's working now :)"
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      An even greater betrayal.
  - 7y ago
rakoo 7y ago
The D language has its own forum powered by DFeed, a forum engine built with D (https://forum.dlang.org/ https://forum.dlang.org/). You can also access it as an NNTP or mailing list. Have never seen a discussion software this snappy.
KajMagnus 7y ago
Here's one where you can have HN/Reddit type discussions, crossed with traditional forum software ... & some new ideas: https://github.com/debiki/talkyard https://github.com/debiki/talkyard (I'm developing it)

jtbayly 7y ago

Discourse is amazing modern open source forum software. Check it out. https://discourse.org/ https://discourse.org/ (homepage) https://meta.discourse.org/ https://meta.discourse.org/ (Software in use)

ashkankiani 7y ago
I wouldn't call it amazing, but it is fine. It's bloated on the frontend side of things, imo.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Way too bloated, if you ask me. Just give me a sane reimplementation of phpBB (i.e. not actually using PHP!) with the addition of interop with the Fediverse, custom clients etc. It would work a lot more smoothly and be more visually attractive as well.
- baby 7y ago
  it's bloated on the backend side of things as well.
Grumbledour 7y ago
Yeah, I know that one. It's a blank page until you authorize over 2 dozen external js scripts. Admittedly, it looks nice after that, but that's a hard pass from me.
- jtbayly 7y ago
  I'm running an instance where I've installed one external js. Other than that, I just counted and there are 16 JS files loaded. None of them come from an external domain. Am I misunderstanding what you mean by "over 2 dozen"? Am I misunderstanding what you mean by "external JS scripts"?
  - Grumbledour 7y ago
    I clicked on the above https://meta.discourse.org/ https://meta.discourse.org/ and get a white page. UMatrix tells me it blocked 32 Scripts from one cloudfront domain and 9 from another. Maybe it's me misunderstanding UMatrix, but I assume "scripts" mean files. Could also be script blocks, though.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      Isn’t cloudfront just a CDN? I’m not surprised that site has more scripts than a bare-bones install like mine, but I guess I’m surprised it’s that many more.

codetrotter 7y ago

> modern platforms focused on discussions, not on people One that I know of is https://discourse.org/ https://discourse.org/

freddie_mercury 7y ago

What is outdated about it?

Grumbledour 7y ago
The software often seems old and clunky, or with the few newer options like discourse or nodebb, convoluted and bloated. But I think whats mostly missing these days is amenities social networks have introduced like custom streams and filters. Forums in principle can do things like "Show all posts from user X" or "give me new topics that are tagged Y", but it often didn't even work way back when. A modern forum should allow to create custom streams to find and consume content and wrap that up in a nice package and these days of course, some form of federation should be possible, be it just RSS feeds or better yet cross posting etc.
- KajMagnus 7y ago
  You can do that to some extent, with Discourse, by "following" custom search queries.

tyingq 7y ago

Facebook groups seems to be the main killer of standalone forums. They first offered a way to create a page that linked to the forum. Then waited until that caught on, then removed the prominent place to link. Voila, the FB group becomes the forum.

kerrsclyde 7y ago
A lot of my users migrated to a Facebook group. The quality of discussion on Facebook seems very low however, very few replies to posts, just a bunch of likes / smiley faces.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Yeah, it's not better, but it's "captive" since Facebook made it hard to show that the real forum is somewhere else.

ashkankiani 7y ago

I'm working on one if you can wait a few months :P Maybe less depending on how difficult moving to a new country turns out to be.

Grumbledour 7y ago
Do your have some more info or even some code up yet? I thought about starting to build something myself from time to time, but in the end it always seems a bit daunting. That, and that I am never sure if there even are other people who want something like that.

tomcooks 7y ago

> Yeah, where actually have forums gone? "Stop necroposting! You have been warned" "You have to login to search" "You need to wait for an administrator to confirm your account before you can login" "You need to have a hight reputation to post" "You cannot post in this subforum" "You haven't posted in the Newbies forum" "[missing image from TinyPic or other 3rd party hosting]" "[missing image due to 3rd party hosting quota limits]" "PMed you the solution" Yea no thanks. > But where are decentralized or just modern platforms focused on discussions, not on people? Stackexchange is one example.

zozbot234 7y ago
bump
nkrisc 7y ago
You've spent days, if not weeks searching for any lead on the obscure problem you're facing. You might not even be certain exactly what the problem is, but you're by now intimately familiar with its manifestation. It's clear by now you're probably the first person in ten years menaced by it. Ancient forums with broken CSS, archived mailing lists, dusty blogs; you scrape together enough relevant information to finally craft the search query that will save you, the one that will finally lead you to the result. There. It's done. The results page consists mostly of entries with nonsense text and languages you can't read, but at the top is your answer. You click it. Scanning the original post it's clear you've found your salvation. You scroll through, quicker and quicker, impatient to end it all. Almost there, to the last post. The answer you seek. But, in a flash, it's gone. "PMed you the solution"
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  More like "Nvm, I found the problem, it's working now :)"
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    An even greater betrayal.
- 7y ago

rakoo 7y ago

The D language has its own forum powered by DFeed, a forum engine built with D (https://forum.dlang.org/ https://forum.dlang.org/). You can also access it as an NNTP or mailing list. Have never seen a discussion software this snappy.

KajMagnus 7y ago

Here's one where you can have HN/Reddit type discussions, crossed with traditional forum software ... & some new ideas: https://github.com/debiki/talkyard https://github.com/debiki/talkyard (I'm developing it)