migrate forums to vanilla or discourse

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tatch
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Posts: 662
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2012 3:18 pm

migrate forums to vanilla or discourse

Post by tatch »

It isn't hugely crucial but it could be nice to update LM to a newer forum software. Vanilla and Discourse are both quite modern in terms of layout, feel and organization.

https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-is-wr ... pbb/3763/5

features I agree with:
* homepage layout shows all posts in time order. When I'm on LM I usually head straight to "view unread posts". It's definitely useful to categorize especially when you're browsing the forum for old topics but I think that is more of an archival, secondary-usage feature (vanilla and discourse make categories just as accessible anyway).
* username referencing. Instead of quoting someone and hoping they read your reply you can @user and they will be notified automatically.
* tags. can be useful for very simple things like tagging [help] posts. Also can improve searching, so querying "carla" would return posts tagged "carla" before posts that just happen to mention carla in passing.
* markdown. Discourse has this builtin and vanilla has a markdown plugin (phpbb has a markdown plugin too). Everyone else is doing it (because it's great) and so should we!
* mobile support. I like to check LM on my phone.

some drawbacks:
* discourse is written in ruby so the hosting provider needs to support that
* not everyone likes vanilla

I think discourse seems a little cooler (shinier?) than vanilla, but either one could be neat. They both have phpbb import tools which would ease the migration process. phpbb just feels a tad bit dated cluttered and clunky to me.
apathity
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Re: migrate forums to vanilla or discourse

Post by apathity »

I'm evaluating forum software myself lately and I found some good commercial mobile friendly phpBB templates: http://demo.rockettheme.com/phpbb-styles/anacron/

No need to switch to a different forum software.
tatch
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Posts: 662
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2012 3:18 pm

Re: migrate forums to vanilla or discourse

Post by tatch »

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/discourse discourse testimonial
http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/01/13/dis ... hemselves/ (revised 1.12.15) more discourse testimonial
Last edited by tatch on Tue Jan 13, 2015 6:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
DepreTux
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Posts: 135
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 9:36 am

Re: migrate forums to vanilla or discourse

Post by DepreTux »

If it ain't broken, please don't fix it.
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