Migrating the forum to Discourse

[EEVblog]

This discussion holds no ground here, because i trust both Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform. 

Correct, won't ever happen.
I won't rule out moving to Xenforo though, but it would likely need some form of major prompting like something failing, or for good long term technical reasons.

[PlainName]

major prompting like something failing

Where 'datacenter burning down' clearly isn't anywhere near 'major'.

[Whales]

major prompting like something failing

Where 'datacenter burning down' clearly isn't anywhere near 'major'.

I think Dave is referring to major failing in smf itself, not other stuff.  It's not like SMF caused the datacenter fire.

...

Hmm, actually wait a second...

[Black Phoenix]

major prompting like something failing

Where 'datacenter burning down' clearly isn't anywhere near 'major'.

I think Dave is referring to major failing in smf itself, not other stuff.  It's not like SMF caused the datacenter fire.

...

Hmm, actually wait a second...

You own me a coffee for that joke - I spurt all the coffee on my table...

[wilfred]

If this thread were the Wild West, there would be dead bodies in the street by now.

Seriously, some people just dont know how to disagree, state their reasons why, and move on.

A weird comment, did you post this to a wrong thread? I think I have never seen such unanimous total agreement on this forum, ever.

I think we need to thank the OP for joining everyone together on this. Maybe the idea was just a positive version of trolling? If the OP was serious, though, I kinda feel bad for them.

I feel bad for the OP too.

Unanimous agreement with what exactly? Changing to something else because it's not SMF, changing to discord or something else that  the various posters  like, or leaving it as it is because the new stuff is crap? 

Somebody else suggested there should be a poll. But this thread and all the polls I can recollect attract a very small number of responses largely selected from the vocal minority. And a very small minority at that. There are thousands of forum members who have not chimed in with their thoughts. Should they be assumed to be happy with the status quo? Or not?

I agree with TomS. Some people do not know how to disagree and move on. That is why these threads devolve into the agreement of a few who discourage others voicing differing opinions and then they stay silent.

A few years ago when I first started noticing this behavior I decided to see if there was anything in it and I extracted the names of posters and the number of times they posted in selected contentious threads. Long term members will know the ones I mean. One thing was consistent. You didn't have to go past the top ten posters to get past 50% of the thread. Often-times not even ten and a lot more than 50%. I'm sure some of them thought the world agreed with them too. I concluded those that disagreed mostly left the thread.

[magic]

Hmm, actually wait a second...

LOL, but I prefer the status quo over having 10 huge images auto-load each time I open a topic in "beginners"

[Ranayna]

I suppose I wouldn't mind if the appearance or skin can be made to match this forum and in size onto the next without the white spaces, convert any fixed element to absolute or a setting, get rid of eye hurting dimming or any overlay stuff on dialogues and loading spinners/animations to a point where I am going to notice 'much difference and don't have to do any work hidng the above elements that annoys me.

I understand where you are coming from. You are mentioning a couple of things that i also do not like about modern webdesign, but from what i experienced, Xenforo only uses these things in moderation, and in some cases i actually prefer it how they are doing stuff.

I have to admit that my eyesight is not getting better. I rather like the larger default fonts of Xenforo and increased spacing.
Whitespace on the sides can be adjusted, and the discussions of whether it is sensible or not to use the full width of the screen are as old as widescreen monitors are.
I have a good comparison for this aspect, one forum that i am also active in has a narrower view, another that i am only occasionally visiting has a full width view.
I personally prefer the narrower view, i find it easier to read. The full width view has enourmous amounts of wasted space, especially on shorter posts.
Yes, the forum list, and the topic list as well are higher than here. You may reasonably see that as wasted space. But the separation works for me.
Loading times indeed sometimes happen. Opening the notification panel sometimes takes a moment, as well as for some reason loading the smilie list. But none of these use full screen dimming or huge spinners, just a small loading animation. I don't think that i ever saw full screen dimming.
Overlays are only used for attached pictures. True, they take a moment getting used to, but image handling in Xenforo works better than it does here.

All said and done, i do not know what of these things are Xenforo defaults, what are plugins, and what are selfmade changes.
Anyway, i sound like a salesman

[EEVblog]

major prompting like something failing

Where 'datacenter burning down' clearly isn't anywhere near 'major'.

Why would it be?

[ebastler]

I feel bad for the OP too.

I don't. Trying to pre-empt and disqualify criticism by listing "grumpy users complaining" as one of the downsides in his original proposal did probably not set the best tone for this discussion.

[MarkMLl]

I have to admit that my eyesight is not getting better. I rather like the larger default fonts of Xenforo and increased spacing.
Whitespace on the sides can be adjusted, and the discussions of whether it is sensible or not to use the full width of the screen are as old as widescreen monitors are.

Regrettably, that sort of thing catches up with us :-(

One thing I've found on one moderately-busy SMF-based forum is that the "Updated Topics" page also has a feed of newly-arrived questions down the side. That makes it an ideal base page, since as well as seeing if there's been an update to something in which one is involved one sometimes spots newly-active topics which one is able to help with.

MarkMLl

[Zero999]

I have to admit that my eyesight is not getting better. I rather like the larger default fonts of Xenforo and increased spacing.
Whitespace on the sides can be adjusted, and the discussions of whether it is sensible or not to use the full width of the screen are as old as widescreen monitors are.
I have a good comparison for this aspect, one forum that i am also active in has a narrower view, another that i am only occasionally visiting has a full width view.
I personally prefer the narrower view, i find it easier to read. The full width view has enourmous amounts of wasted space, especially on shorter posts.

I don't see how either of those points count towards using different forum software.

1) If the fonts are too small, change the browser's zoom/text setting.

2) If you prefer the narrower view, adjust the window size.

I've put a user, who shall remain nameless, on my ignore list, because they keep adding unnecessary line breaks in their posts. Many other members and I, politely asked him to refrain from using unnecessary line breaks and to allow the forum to wrap the text, but he didn't listen, so I blocked him.

[ebclr]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

[PlainName]

major prompting like something failing

Where 'datacenter burning down' clearly isn't anywhere near 'major'.

Why would it be?

Tediously, technically it wouldn't, but humour often works by conflating stuff.

[xrunner]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Well many of the people at the Arduino forum don't like it, and they're obviously trying it, example -

Congratulations, forum team, you’ve just choose the absolutely worse layout and working style that you can choose from all the various possibilities available.

I understand that in a world filled of impaired peoples able only to run around with a smartphone glued to the eyes, choose to transform a decent forum in a bad and ugly copy of a smartphone screen may appear a good solution, for peoples that don’t know how to manage SMF scripts, but this is NOT that what the most part of the serious users was expecting from you.

The actual forum is totally absurd and totally bad. Period.

https://forum.arduino.cc/t/do-you-like-the-new-forum/847695/54

[beanflying]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Clearly you have NO clue at all 

Discord searches and index's terribly within its own format and google all but ignores it - FAIL
Discord sections become like Farcebook timelines and are IMPOSSIBLE to follow a technical focussed discussion on. Ever wonder why Yahoo groups more or less went the way of the Dodo? FAIL

Discord SUCKS as can be witnessed by the complete lack on content on the EEVBlog option and the only one I have seen come close to working in the Electronics area is Jon Oxers Home Automation one as it is a very small tightly focussed niche group. Even this group is a shocker to try and follow an ongoing discussion and content gets lost.

Any other FAILS for Discord needed?

[PlainName]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Clearly you have NO clue at all 

Actually, I think he has rather more than first appears. He is playing 'discourse' - "written or spoken communication or debate" - as mis-type in the original, against 'Discord' - the unlovely forum software - and noting that communication is good, so what is the downside of that?

Sorry to spoil the joke by having to spell it out. Seems to be a distinct lack of a humour  bone in this topic.

[tggzzz]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Clearly you have NO clue at all 

Discord searches and index's terribly within its own format and google all but ignores it - FAIL
Discord sections become like Farcebook timelines and are IMPOSSIBLE to follow a technical focussed discussion on. Ever wonder why Yahoo groups more or less went the way of the Dodo? FAIL

Discord SUCKS as can be witnessed by the complete lack on content on the EEVBlog option and the only one I have seen come close to working in the Electronics area is Jon Oxers Home Automation one as it is a very small tightly focussed niche group. Even this group is a shocker to try and follow an ongoing discussion and content gets lost.

Any other FAILS for Discord needed?

Precisely.

Who gives a tinker's cuss about how pretty it might be, if you can't use it easily and effectively for subtle long-running technical discussions, then it won't exist.

Anything remotely like the Farcebook interface would be (pah! is) a disaster.

Ditto other online forums that discourage multi-level quoting - they are fine for asking which button to press to floggle the ditz, but crap at any interesting discussion. Yes, I'm looking at you, stackexchange and edaboard.

[beanflying]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Clearly you have NO clue at all 

Actually, I think he has rather more than first appears. He is playing 'discourse' - "written or spoken communication or debate" - as mis-type in the original, against 'Discord' - the unlovely forum software - and noting that communication is good, so what is the downside of that?

Sorry to spoil the joke by having to spell it out. Seems to be a distinct lack of a humour  bone in this topic.

"Discord" was mentioned and a question asked following a 'statement' FALSELY claiming only advantages. I see nothing of humor here at all.

I have been around list and email type groups since the days of 9600 baud modems NONE of those groups exist now in any form and those that went to Yahoo Groups that were the more technically focussed discussion was a PITA.

Want to see a disaster zone of repeated rubbish newbie topics head on over to Farcebook and try and follow say a 3D printer groups content

[EEVblog]

" Dave and the members involved will never allow a move to discourse or any similar platform.  "

That's a statement from someone who never tried discord, why not?

Discord Only has advantages, whats is the dow side?

Clearly you have NO clue at all 

Actually, I think he has rather more than first appears. He is playing 'discourse' - "written or spoken communication or debate" - as mis-type in the original, against 'Discord' - the unlovely forum software - and noting that communication is good, so what is the downside of that?

I always get Discourse and Discord confused.
I think Discourse is pretty horrible. Why anyone would move an existing working popular bbs style forum to Discourse is beyond me.
Actually, it's ok for what it is as it's own thing, but as a replacement for a bbs style forum that's been around for generations, nope.

[tunk]

Here's another post (#1205) from the Arduino thread mentioned above:
https://forum.arduino.cc/t/do-you-like-the-new-forum/847695/1204

Hi there,

The odds are good that no one cares about my opinion but I’ll give it anyway.

I haven’t been on this forum for a while…
As the page loaded, my first thought was ‘Wait something’s wrong, ho no I hope they didn’t changed it to make it look like some of those other forums I’ve seen that are so horrible… wait they did…argh’.

The main page is horribly overloaded, I don’t need to see an abstract of stuff happening in every part of the forum as soon as I arrive and get a squashed tree of the different categories on the left side.

The topics aren’t sufficiently visually separated with that minimalistic BS trend. Everything kinda blends together, this is absolutely horrible UI.
Same thing for each posts inside a topic… And don’t get me started on that infinite scrolling cr*p.

And one more thing… I kind of want to annihilate that little check mark that keeps disappearing and appearing with a bazooka, that’s not annoying at all.

There is a reason why the ‘forum look’ spread to every corner of the web, it’s because it’s clear and intelligible, information is presented with clear demarcation features.

I had to severely restrain myself to keep the curse words to a minimum, I’m actually kind of surprised I succeded. Well… end of rant for me, good day / evening / night.

[Refrigerator]

Here's another post (#1205) from the Arduino thread mentioned above:
https://forum.arduino.cc/t/do-you-like-the-new-forum/847695/1204

Hi there,

The odds are good that no one cares about my opinion but I’ll give it anyway.

I haven’t been on this forum for a while…
As the page loaded, my first thought was ‘Wait something’s wrong, ho no I hope they didn’t changed it to make it look like some of those other forums I’ve seen that are so horrible… wait they did…argh’.

The main page is horribly overloaded, I don’t need to see an abstract of stuff happening in every part of the forum as soon as I arrive and get a squashed tree of the different categories on the left side.

The topics aren’t sufficiently visually separated with that minimalistic BS trend. Everything kinda blends together, this is absolutely horrible UI.
Same thing for each posts inside a topic… And don’t get me started on that infinite scrolling cr*p.

And one more thing… I kind of want to annihilate that little check mark that keeps disappearing and appearing with a bazooka, that’s not annoying at all.

There is a reason why the ‘forum look’ spread to every corner of the web, it’s because it’s clear and intelligible, information is presented with clear demarcation features.

I had to severely restrain myself to keep the curse words to a minimum, I’m actually kind of surprised I succeded. Well… end of rant for me, good day / evening / night.

The arduino forum has a scroll bar to the right so it's not like there's endless scrolling but it would be nice if bookmarks of sort could be placed and would show up in the scroll bar.
For example like placing notes to self that at post #256 there was this important thing the user said that you might want to check later.
Maybe like a colored bubble on the scroll bar that would expand if you hovered your mouse over it, click on it to take you to the post.
Perhaps add marks where it points out where other users replied to you or mentioned/quoted you in their post, i think this would add some useful functionality to the scroll bar.
If anyone from the arduino forum is reading this and think it's a good idea you can post this idea there, i don't have an account.

I still dislike the overall look, with no lines to separate sections i just find it confusing, but not something i couldn't get used to, yet still not something i'd feel comfortable using.

[Jackster]

Just logged into the Android forum for the first time in a while...


I actually feel ill.

[ebastler]

This discourse on Discourse seems full of discord. 

[Ed.Kloonk]

I agree with TomS. Some people do not know how to disagree and move on. That is why these threads devolve into the agreement of a few who discourage others voicing differing opinions and then they stay silent.

I have a browser plug-in that keeps track of users and works like a naughty/nice list. So I know who I can engage and who to keep at arms length.

[cdev]

I greatly prefer SMF

Also, do you think consolidlidation of these forums is a good thing? I don't.

Hello,
I have had this thought for a few years. Wouldn't it make sense to migrate the forum to the Discourse platform?

Yes, it's not easy. This is a big forum.

There are pretty much only advantages in switching platform, it's pretty much time, but there are risks in the migration also.

Pros:
* finally modern mobile experience
* much better readability for the forum
* improved engagement with younger audiences (!!!)
* way better search
* Ability to easily leverage managed databases such as digitalocean's ones which I personally recommend
* Lower resources consumption
* faster website
* improved engagement with the many tools discourse provide
* ease of moderation, discourse forums are mostly self-moderating requiring only limited oversight
* modern features like modern editor, better emojis, social login,
* way way way easier management and upgrades


Risks:
* broken link during migration. new and old website could be scanned and data compared to check for broken links before migrating. The discourse importer includes generation of all redirects required in theory.
* miss of custom functions?
* grumpy users complaining
* SEO issues - this should be ok with the redirects working.
* users need to reset the password