So, uh, about the new forums …

… you may not like it but I think it’s going to be damn cool.

After rediscovering Vanilla Forums (http://vanillaforums.org), I’m going with that. It has a much more social media/networking feel to it without deviating too much from the raw forums discussion board.

The interface is much more simple and in some respects there are fewer features and in other respects there are more features. It look like top notch work on the level of what Automattic does for Wordpress. Frankly, I’m very excited to be installing it.

Who would like to be early testers of it? The caveat is that all of our “test” discussions might be clobbered when the migration occurs.

I’ve been exploring their community for plugins that we’ll need and I’m finding that the simplicity of the interface makes it fun again to post.

There is a some built in spam controls as well as a plugin that works with Akismet and another service for anti-spam specifically for forums.

The forum will actually not look similar. To get it out the door ASAP, I’m not going to have time to put a fancy design around it.

@Imperious:

I looked at this but don’t see much focus on anti-spam plugins and safeguards. This must be a key component.

Defiantly don’t use the plug in called “kudos”. AS long as the forum looks similar but with a more tailored theme, it should work.

I like the Hell Ban plug in feature. Kinda funny.

I also hope its cheaper or even free and can be integrated ASAP>

You may not have the patron badges out of the gate. Vanilla Forums don’t have a badge plugin yet so I might have to build it.

The temporary solution is that you will see your name on every page of the forum as a gold patron. It would be with the ads on the right side.

@Gargantua:

I don’t want to lose my patron tag!  Or my avatar!  Guess I can re-upload the latter…

Just soon please.

I get banned 3 times a day.

That’s the other problem. I have to write a dice roller plugin.  :oops:

@Cmdr:

Oh yea, I forgot that one, I so second!  Dicey has to function!

No, I need more free time.

@Gargantua:

Do you need more contributions?

There are a few threads about this already. The gist is that this forums software is steaming pile.

Issues:

• People are frequently unable to register.
• The forum inexplicable bans users for no reason.
• Spam controls are non-existant.
• Can’t ban users because the update query causes table locks on tables causing the entire site to freeze up and give 50x errors.
• The code base is a mish mash of crap. Mods are not plugins, they are modifications to the code base of the forum. This makes things VERY fragile.

Vanilla Forums is a Web 2.0 refresh to the idea of the forum. It keeps everything you need, removes the rest, and gives more integration with social networks.

@Cmdr:

Why can’t we fix this site and stay here?  Sorry, I seem to be confused as to why it is you want to move.