Differences between Discourse and Xenforo / vBulletin / WBB / other forum software

[Digital Doctor]

So I've been interested in the content on a particular discourse install and it is essentially the first time I've experienced Discourse in depth and not "just looking and clicking around in it". I should have logged my thoughts as they happened, but I'll try to recall the positives and negatives.

Overall, I say I've had quite a positive experience.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Emoji


To enter an emoji, you have the choice of typing a colon ) or clicking the emoji icon.
It brings up this menu.



clicking on an emoji

displays the text for your potential memorization in the future - :alien: and inserts the text in your post (which also displays in the preview window - more later)

As you can see the emojis available on this site seem very similar / identical to my iphone emojis. Many younger emoji obsessed users will like "knowing" the emojis they are used to using. I myself only use 10 emojis on my phone (and they are easily accessed in my favourites area). There is a recently used Group as well - see the star section.
.


I see I can insert varied skin tone emojis via this selector..
If you click it ... it updates all the faces of people. How politically correct ! I will note, a few of my black friends (is that the right term ?) are much darker than the darkest brown. I'm not sure if it would be fair game for me to be outraged by that. Anyone know a People of Colo(u)r Right's group that I could register my feelings ? #TheEndIsNear. I also felt the grey alien should update to brown when I click brown, aliens aren't one dimensional creatures, "they are people-like entities" too, IMO. /endRant

other features ..

there is an autocomplete type function with smilies. Make so much sense, that it is painful. Never seen it on a forum.

 

[Blueh]

emoji picker is also available on phpbb3 and flarum

 

[eva2000]

Discourse isn't my cup of tea but some of the forums I frequent are Discourse based so no choice heh

• https://community.cloudflare.com/
• https://caddy.community/
• https://community.letsencrypt.org/
• https://community.keycdn.com/

 

[Blueh]

yup, almost all official software forums I visit use discourse, examples:

- https://discourse.getgrav.org/
- https://discourse.mozilla.org/
- https://ubuntu-mate.community/
- https://twittercommunity.com/
- https://discuss.atom.io/ (off topic: I recommend this editor)

another important difference between discourse and the other forums you mention, is that discourse isn't php written

p.s. discourse is free

 

[Pete]

It also has significantly higher requirements than any of the PHP forums. A VPS is mandatory, and likely you'll need a 2GB RAM VPS or better.

Also, as a general thing, if you have a feature suggestion or a bug, don't expect it to even be looked at, unless you're a paying customer.

Also please note that the people at TheDailyWTF were banned for reporting too many bugs and Jeff "I'm So Awesome and Always Right" Atwood even offered TDWTF money to leave Discourse. This is after he came in and was happily acting as moderator just after TDWTF went to Discourse. Other sites might vary in mileage just after migrating.

 

[radu81]

Also please note that the people at TheDailyWTF were banned for reporting too many bugs

One of the worst behavior an admin or a developer could have. In other forums the developers are thankful if you report bugs.

 

[Pete]

One of the worst behavior an admin or a developer could have. In other forums the developers are thankful if you report bugs.

Yup. Especially as the bug in question was "it behaves differently between mobile and desktop" which initially got a response that went down in TDWTF infamy: "you're on mobile, that's different". And was then summarily dismissed as not a bug by the lead dev before being confirmed by one of the other developers.

 

[The Sandman]

https://caddy.community/

I'm guessing this does not mean you drive an Eldorado or an Escalade?

 

[eva2000]

I'm guessing this does not mean you drive an Eldorado or an Escalade?

hehe that Caddy forum is for Caddy Web server https://caddyserver.com/ like Nginx and Apache, Caddy is a web server though performance is behind Nginx https://community.centminmod.com/threads/caddy-http-2-server-benchmarks-part-2.12873/

 

[tomk]

hehe that Caddy forum is for Caddy Web server https://caddyserver.com/ like Nginx and Apache, Caddy is a web server though performance is behind Nginx https://community.centminmod.com/threads/caddy-http-2-server-benchmarks-part-2.12873/

Wish you would have finished adding Openlitespeed instead of spending time adding Caddy!

What are your thoughts on Caddy so far?

 

[radu81]

Pete I've read some topics on tdwtf forums and got an idea on what's happened .. sad and shameless story
Free software or not, but that behavior should makes users think twice before starting to use or migrate to discourse

 

[zappaDPJ]

Pete I've read some topics on tdwtf forums and got an idea on what's happened .. sad and shameless story
Free software or not, but that behavior should makes users think twice before starting to use or migrate to discourse

I've done the same and it didn't take long (less than a minute in fact) to find the kind of behaviour already described. I like the direction that Discourse has taken, I think it provides a platform more in keeping with the expectations of today's social media users but I've now taken one step back from deploying it on a live forum.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Discourse does a lot of things right.

 

[eva2000]

Wish you would have finished adding Openlitespeed instead of spending time adding Caddy!

What are your thoughts on Caddy so far?

Still working on Openlitespeed/Litespeed integration as well as Apache 2.4 integration into Centmin Mod. End goal is for Centmin Mod to have Nginx, Openlitespeed/Litespeed, Apache 2.4 and Caddy integration support. Caddy tech is good for automatic HTTPS SSL cert issuance, TLS 1.3 and QUIC etc and simplicity of the caddy file set is what is attracting folks to it. Though still a long way to go to catch up to Nginx in aspects that matter. Caddy HTTP/2 has Server Push support which Nginx doesn't but it's on Nginx's 1.13 branch roadmap so yay https://trac.nginx.org/nginx/roadmap !

but back on topic

 

[Digital Doctor]

The inline / end of thread Sign up requests seem to feel right / would encourage signups.



Unfortunately, I am unable to edit Reserved Posts.
So adding new content isn't possible.
I was hoping to create a resource where people could see "How Discourse does things".

 

[MarkFL]

...Unfortunately, I am unable to edit Reserved Posts.
So adding new content isn't possible.
I was hoping to create a resource where people could see "How Discourse does things".

Send the content you wish to be added to your restored reserved post to me via PC, and I will be happy to edit that post to add the content you send.

Or, I can add it to your OP if you want.

 

[Pete]

Or tell people to go to try.discourse.org but preferably not on a mobile device because the constant AJAX polling isn't great on a data plan, nor is it particularly nice on a phone unless you want to use it as a hand warmer.

Also, they're now declaring iPhone 5 the minimum spec for iOS users based on screen size so users that use iPhone 4 even if on current iOS are considered inferior. Which, if you think about it, on a platform that considers itself to treat the browser as a window on an infinitely tall canvas... is insane.

I find it hilarious that the TDWTF people are still banned, some of them until the year 2290. Some until 2043. Not sure why the disparity.