Time for new forum software ?

The team that brought us StackOverfow have built a new type of forum software and released it as open source.
Its called Discourse, check it out here or go to the sandbox to try it out.

I know you probably aren't looking for extra work, but oh my... this stuff is sexy as F***.

 

wat is this just a forum and they call the threads "converstations"?

 

Personally, I like the current vBulletin software more. The other looks a bit too much like it is meant for more instantaneous thoughts rather than the deeper discussions we get into here. It also just isn't as nicely organized. It displays too much information. I'm sure a lot of this can be changed, but my point still stands. It does look nice, but I don't think that it's right for this forum.

 

Dear lord, it's hideous!

 

Phil, as forum software, yes, but as something like StackOverflow, I don't think so.

 

Whoa... wait what?

Man, I missed of missed something *big*!

 

Hey, we do have some deep discussions . They may not all be worthwhile or relevant, but people often delve deep into topics and have long discussions

 

It wouldn't really work as a forum software at all. My description of it as hideous was in the context of it being used for a site like StackOverflow or UnityAnswers. While UnityAnswers has its problems, and I would say StackOverflow has a much nicer layout and usability, I'd take Unity Answers over what I can see of discourse any day of the week.

 

I really like it. Too bad it can't be customized to fit your specific website (with custom styles, like phpBB, not open source coding).

 

There is a saying: if it works, don't change it.

The design of that sandbox is ugly. And I dont like sites like stackoverflow and unity answers because they use too much javascript.

 

Ok, a little background info.
They wrote StackOverflow to discourage conversation and get people to answer questions.
Discourse's main focus is to encourage conversation.
Please read through the feature list and give the sandbox a spin, because a casual glance will not do it justice.
And, please don't judge it on that sandbox's design *rolls eyes*

 

Changing the forum software is going to be a costly operation. Why do you think that cost justifies right now?

Not to mention the integration in the UDN (which for the forum seems to be stable and reliable right now).
Not to mention the irritation induced in the user base who like it as it is.

 

This looks indeed sexy as hell. And flexible. And perfect.
But how would you deal with the current posts retrocompability ? (people don't "reply to" anyone, it's only a stream of target-less posts)

 

Except that your users will typically do just that. People are lazy and easily bored. If they don't "get" something right away, they walk away.

 

I approve of this thread's title.

XenForo I think is awesome, we should have those.

 

Would be great to use that for unity answers, but not at all for this forum.

 

Can't say I like that software very much. I really like the current one though.

 

I don't have a problem with the current forum software. It does what it's supposed to do.

The only thing that bothers me about it is the useless search. I know other (much larger) forums that have perfectly capable search functions, so I'm not sure why it's so hard to find relevant results here at the Unity forums. The information is there... it's just hidden behind an inadequate search.

 

It doesn't look like a forum to me, more of a twitter feed with more than 140 characters. It's definitely interesting though.

 

More than 1 year later...

You guys still think it looks so terrible?

I only know discourse since beta 0.9, or less than a year ago... Maybe I never had the chance to get such a bad gut reaction to it.

I love it and IMHO it should replace all forums everywhere!

The way to go would be creating a (yet another) new space. If people enjoy it enough, things will naturally get migrated over time. Eventually, after one year or so, you set one of them as read/search only, the less popular one.

Also, discourse has a potential to replace even answers and feedback as well, if you think about it.

Vote for it!

 

This forum switched to XenForo; it's highly unlikely it will switch again to anything else anytime soon. (And yeah, Discourse still looks really annoying to me. )

--Eric

 

Those are sad news (to me)! Wonder what else they've considered... I truly hope in less than 4 more years this also will get broken and replaced.
( Got more details on what in Discourse annoys you? )

I've got a designer friend who can't ever think any good of StackOverflow. Maybe it's all in this lack of a designer in their team... But I still think SO design is better than almost all other alternatives. Point is maybe discourse have that Google-syndrome-lack-of-good-design issue too.

Truth to be told, seems like most of the highlights I love in discourse are already in place here. But, you know, there are still so many more details... It's hard to quickly express everything. Maybe we need a little game for it... Or just the intro stage.

 

StackOverflow is not exactly a forum though. It is far more similar to the Unity Answers system than the Unity forums.

 

Discourse does not like a normal or standard forum system to me at all when I checked their try now section. Too much stuff all over the place.

I really like the current XenForo setup a lot with all its features (alert system, dev tracking with follow, etc).

 

Talking about SO because Discourse is made by the same guys, with lots of the same principles and attention to details. Discourse is fated to be bigger than SO. Unity Answers actually grabbed some tool which copied SO and even used SEN for a while, btw.

It is made to replace forum systems, though. It doesn't look like normal ones because it is trying to be so much better. This sounds like many people who don't like it haven't ever even tried it for long enough.

 

Yes, this would be my complaint as well. I like familiarity and not simply change for the sake of change. It is why I refuse to buy Windows 8.x regardless of whether or not it would be a good upgrade. That Microsoft changed back to support a Start Menu shows that most people think similarly.

Or they simply do not like it. Trying something for long periods of time will not automatically change someone's opinion and frankly those who use a similar argument to push a product feel like they are fishing for reasons without coming up with anything truly valid.

Microsoft Windows, as I stated a bit earlier is one example, but GNOME is another. Both are somewhat reversing their changes to some degree because users protested those changes so much.

 

Actually I have used it quite a bit as read only user. I recognized now that its the same system that spark core "forums" are at http://community.spark.io/

I used it a lot for few weeks when I received my core and tried to find info, code snippets etc. and disliked it cause it was too much mix of different things

 

Yeah, spark io is definitely using discourse! Cool. But they forgot to properly edit it with saying what it is about. Sounds like circuit gadgets arduino alikes.

Nothing will automatically change anyone's mind. People love familiarity.

As I said before, there are too many little details that still make the functionality much better. It's basically the difference we used to see between using android phone and iPhone (maybe not so much in the past couple years).

When you drive a better car, you instantly feel the lack of details on a simpler car. But this analogy breaks when you could say " both will get you from A to B ". The better car, in this case, can get you to places the simpler car couldn't.

In any case, sometimes it's just not the right time for new better things. I see no reason in fighting for it, so I'll just leave it now. Sorry for the small push.

 

You're only considering one aspect though. A simpler car equates to fewer potential problems because it has far less to go wrong. I have seen so many sensors, especially those that are completely unnecessary, fail and are practically required to be replaced for the car to function. Tire pressure sensors, airbag passenger sensors, etc.

Why go with the "better" car if the simple car gets the job done?

 

Finally... someone has the guts to tackle our generation's biggest problem: Discussion forums have not been sufficiently dumbed down for the twittering masses.

Thank you, brave and noble gentlemen, for reinventing the wheel.

 

Ah, I recognize this. Turtle Rock Studios use it for their forum:
https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/

 

We're not changing forum software again. jusayin.

 

Changing a bit the subject, I'm just wondering a bit on the reasons why you wouldn't change... I'm willing to bet it's not much to do with easily implementing features (that one due to this kind of thing)...

Only wish to know the reasons, from you @Aurore, if you will. ( or any other person with inside info )

From what I could already grab, most of feedback until now in here people didn't like it because of how it look and feel. Fair enough.

Is there another reason?

( My reason to ask this, if it matters, I think it's just because I'll probably continue to try and push it in other places, eventually. So I guess I could learn something more here, which I couldn't figure out yet. )

 

Changing software takes a huge effort. The database is huge, there's a big web presentation effort required, deciding which new software to use takes a lot of time. We switched 6 months ago, and we're sticking with it for now. Nothing's perfect.

 

If I got this right, just make one like this:

Jus'kidding. ;P