PHPBB?


  • area_can

    I think PHPBB would, at the very least, not have as many UI/behaviour surprises in it...except for the forum not loading one day because Russian hackers added it to their botnet, but that's not a big deal right?



  • @bb36e said:

    I think PHPBB would, at the very least, not have as many UI/behaviour surprises in it...

    Where is the fun in that?

    except for the forum not loading one day because Russian hackers added it to their botnet, but that's not a big deal right?

    That is by definition bad. At least with nodebb it is in active development, and we are able to help influence where it goes.



  • This post is deleted!

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    You realise there'd be a long list of complaints if we went to phpBB, Xenforo or, well, anything?


  • FoxDev

    @loopback0 said:

    You realise there'd be a long list of complaints if we went to phpBB, Xenforo or, well, anything?

    there will be a long list of complaints no matter what happens.

    i do find it odd that the ones who complain the loudest seem to so rarely do anything to fix the subjects of their complaints... or is that just observer bias?


  • FoxDev

    A bit maybe, but there's also a lot of truth to the observation



  • @accalia said:

    @loopback0 said:

    You realise there'd be a long list of complaints if we went to phpBB, Xenforo or, well, anything?

    there will be a long list of complaints no matter what happens.

    i do find it odd that the ones who complain the loudest seem to so rarely do anything to fix the subjects of their complaints... or is that just observer bias?

    It doesn't help that there was a long period when we were asking for input, and many of the loudest complainers offered no input at all.


  • FoxDev

    @abarker And then complained that they weren't listened to


  • FoxDev

    @abarker said:

    It doesn't help that there was a long period when we were asking for input, and many of the loudest complainers offered no input at all.

    interesting how that wqorks isn't it?


  • :belt_onion:

    @accalia said:

    wqorks

    Proudly following your normal pattern, I see... :)


  • FoxDev

    @sloosecannon i haev a nromal pattren?


  • BINNED

    @accalia yse, yuo do 🚎



  • We should have a mailing list instead. Everyone would use whatever email client they wish.

    At least we would forget about whines how the UI sucks.



  • @wft said:

    We should have a mailing list instead. Everyone would use whatever email client they wish.

    At least we would forget about whines how the UI sucks.

    I heard that there's a forum software that got money from Mozilla for a better E-Mail integration ...


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @wft said:

    We should have a mailing list instead. Everyone would use whatever email client they wish.

    At least we would forget about whines how the UI sucks.

    You joke, but that's pretty much how I read CS. It sent out sane, well formatted emails on every notification, so Gmail could just group them together.

    Discourse broke that (even though I requested a certain email format so it wouldn't). NodeBB seems to be carrying on Discourses "let's break this" patterns, so I still don't read anything by email anymore.



  • @Nocha said:

    except for the forum not loading one day because Russian hackers added it to their botnet, but that's not a big deal right?

    That is by definition bad.

    Yes, that would be bad. However, it took under 8 hours to get a first XSS attack on this site, so how secure do you think we really are with nodeBB?

    Here's a hint - the nodeBB repository doesn't contain many tests for a piece of software this complex; I predict there will never be anything approaching full test coverage, which means we will see the same sort of security nightmare and regressions we saw with Discourse.

    At least with nodebb it is in active development, and we are able to help influence where it goes.

    phpBB is in active development as well. Well, active-ish. It's pretty much stable, after all. No, we don't get to "influence where it goes", because it's already there, what with being stable, and not trying to reinvent the way interpersonal interactions happen, and all that jazz.

    But if "busy work" is your measure of goodness, there are other, more active, "classic" forums softwares out there. Personally, I value usability over flashiness.



  • @Lorne-Kates said:

    You joke, but that's pretty much how I read CS. It sent out sane, well formatted emails on every notification, so Gmail could just group them together.

    I was only half-joking.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @wft said:

    @Lorne-Kates said:

    You joke, but that's pretty much how I read CS. It sent out sane, well formatted emails on every notification, so Gmail could just group them together.

    I was only half-joking.

    Apparently hitting "quote" and posting the message raises a "You have been Mentioned" rather than a "You were replied to" notification.

    Of course, since the notification box contains 3 notifications, and I have at least 29, it's useless anyways.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    http://i.imgur.com/Rr83udw.png

    👍

    Goddamn I hate the emoji set we have.



  • @tufty phpBB is pretty settled these days. I seem to recall there was a list of features, and phpBB is lacking on a few of them. NodeBB is probably as well, but mobile works nicely out of the box, as do a bunch of other bits people wanted. Other bits we can work with the devs to get implemented/fixed. I doubt we would get the same level of responsiveness from the phpBB devs as we have so far with nodeBB



  • @Nocha said:

    I seem to recall there was a list of features, and phpBB is lacking on a few of them.

    Indeed it was. Unfortunately, I'm not certain that list exists any more, as it was on CS, and may well not have been imported.

    In reality, I think you'll find nodeBB (and Discourse before it) are missing far more off that list, and, indeed, a number of fundamental other features. As a quick "for example", how, from a list of threads, do I see which threads I have contributed to?

    0_1458668706130_upload-c0f67286-ee5c-4b3b-a1d9-94bcffef7f38

    Indication of threads I've posted to, "active" threads, sticky threads, threads I've already read everything in, threads with attachments, threads with polls. All in a far more information-dense and readable form than either nodeBB or Discourse.

    That's toxic hellstew, that is.



  • @accalia said:

    i do find it odd that the ones who complain the loudest seem to so rarely do anything to fix the subjects of their complaints

    In defense of loudly complaining, I come here to avoid work, not to do more of it for free. I expect software to work.

    But then again, I'm not a webdev. 🚎



  • @accalia said:

    there will be a long list of complaints no matter what happens.

    There is a way to have 0 complaints. I've seen it done using Discourse.


  • FoxDev

    @fbmac said:

    @accalia said:

    there will be a long list of complaints no matter what happens.

    There is a way to have 0 complaints. I've seen it done using Discourse.

    504 OK doesn't count



  • @accalia what about 502 OK instead?


  • :belt_onion:

    @Arantor 302 Not Modified



  • @sloosecannon do you mean the soft redirect (302) or the not modified (304)? Never saw a mutation under Discourse of that one.


  • :belt_onion:

    @Arantor said:

    do you mean the soft redirect (302) or the not modified (304)?

    Yes.

    whoooos.......h


  • Fake News

    @tufty
    That designs screams "fuck mobile browsers!" though.
    Weren't the little arrow + document icons used to go to the first unread post? Better start zooming in and out so that you don't fat-finger it.

    What I also miss when using PHPBB is per-post unread tracking. I can't always be arsed to read a complete page in hope of finding my context again when I can return to the next page, so very quickly checking some posts is out of the question unless you want to lose your reading position.

    Each system has its problems. I just hope nodebb can have some of them fixed.



  • @JBert said:

    That designs screams "fuck mobile browsers!" though.

    Ironically, while testing different forums, the most complete mobile interface out of the box I found was with phpBB 3.1



  • @RaceProUK It's politically incorrect to actually develop solutions, because by the time the person is finished complaining, they've often developed a lot of paradoxes in their ivory tower. So, any solution will be just as riddled with failure. Then they come up with ideas that are really just critiques of the current system pretending to be a functional idea.

    I've likened it to people complaining that there are a few holes in the ship, currently surrounded by shark infested water, and suggest that it's a bad idea to stay on the boat.



  • @JBert said:

    That designs screams "fuck mobile browsers!" though

    1. That's an interface aimed at desktop browsers
    • For mobile browsers, "there's an app for that"
    1. As @fbmac says, phpbb is one of the least worst classic browsers for mobile anyway
    2. Given that we have a "responsive" forum that changes its design based on screen size or whatever, surely it can do an actual desktop-biased design for desktop browsers, rather than having a mobile-biased design that becomes more mobile-biased on mobiles.

    (side note - nodeBB almost gets lists and numbering right)

    Information density is a thing.

    The image I posted shows (some of, it's clipped) the most important information about 10 threads, in under 350 pixels of height. For nodeBB as currently implemented on this site, I can't get more than 7 threads-worth of information (and there's vastly less of it than "classic" forums have understood that you want for years) in a maximised window.

    Its not sparse. It's a fucking desert.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Lorne-Kates said:

    You joke, but that's pretty much how I read CS. It sent out sane, well formatted emails on every notification, so Gmail could just group them together.

    But that was also the easiest way to see what had changed. The web interface was shit for figuring out what you had or hadn't read.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @tufty said:

    As a quick "for example", how, from a list of threads, do I see which threads I have contributed to?

    Is that a terribly useful bit of information? I admit it could just be that I don't get it because I haven't used it, but I don't see why that would be particularly useful. It could also be that my habit is to try to read everything.

    I could see how an "ignore by thread" feature could possibly be more proactive than what you're talking about, too.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Is that a terribly useful bit of information?

    Yes. It allows me to see, instantly, which threads I'm involved in have new posts.

    I'm involved in discussions in a huge number of threads spread over a large number of forums. I cannot remember all the relevant thread titles, and even with the mention notifications here I can't rely on being kept up to date automatically. Unless, of course, I "subscribe" to every thread and have my inbox instafilled with spam. And given the number of forums, and how active some of them are, I can't possibly hope to keep up with every thread. I have an actual job to do, you know.

    It's better here now that the Discourse-enabled thread title cuntery has gone away, but I still have to remember exactly which threads I was contributing to.



  • @tufty it can also be taken to the level of "which threads am I watching" as well.

    SMF is at least trying to make this happen though their idea of watching is more old school. Though the 2.1 branch at least has some kind of notifications and can show you what you are watching and what you contributed to. It just doesn't have all the other shiny things that we would want here like streaming posts or live notifications, this is because it was still building for shared hosting and thus polling becomes too expensive to keep doing...

    And $deity forbid it becomes optional to poll lest the great unwashed start complaining that "my hosting provider says it takes too much load" which is the software's fault, never the fault of the person running on $2.99 GoDaddy shared hosting with free software. No, it must be the software's fault because Facebook can do it and that's free.

    I could claim Poe's law on this argument but I've had this argument with people for really realz. :headdesk:



  • @Arantor said:

    And $deity forbid it becomes optional to poll lest the great unwashed start complaining that "my hosting provider says it takes too much load" which is the software's fault, never the fault of the person running on $2.99 GoDaddy shared hosting with free software.

    I remember that stupid rant on how Discourse dares to require Postgres extensions that aren't loaded by default. Ugh. Some people should just not touch these things.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @tufty said:

    Yes. It allows me to see, instantly, which threads I'm involved in have new posts.

    That makes sense. You should put that in around here as a feature request for a filter on the unread view.


  • Fake News

    @boomzilla said:

    I could see how an "ignore by thread" feature could possibly be more proactive than what you're talking about, too.

    This is something I miss on many forums, but this one especially.



  • @Arantor said:

    never the fault of the person running on $2.99 GoDaddy shared hosting with free

    2.99 is expensive now, I run php stuff for free on redhat's openshift



  • @sloosecannon 302 it went through, 304 post once more?


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