Forum² Admin AWS Posted July 1, 2016 Forum² Admin Posted July 1, 2016 I admit I have been lax adding new topics to spur discussions since I opened the community. The reason is that the current structure of forums are old and antiquated. The current structure, category hierarchy with linear list of threads, has outlived it's usefulness. People want to see what's new and interesting without having to click several links to get to the content. Saying that I am looking at options to move this community into the 21ST century. As it is now this community, as well as thousands like it, are stuck in the early 2000's. This is the single most reason why forums are failing. I am looking at alternatives. I have narrowed the choice down to either Vanilla, Flarum or Discourse. At this point in time I am leaning towards Discourse or Vanilla since I have experience with those. I had test sites up for staff of my tech site to play with before a planned migration. Discourse scales well as traffic to the site grows. Styling it is fairly simple since it can all be done by editing a few css files. As it is Discourse is the front runner. I have experience with Vanilla since I was an admin on a site that migrated from vbulletin to Vanilla. At first activity slowed, but once the users got used to the way it works activity increased. New user signups also increased and posting by those new users also increased. Flarum I have no experience with, but, I do like the aesthetics of it. I might install a test version to see if it will be a viable option. Look for changes to come. If this forum is to be a major player it has to step into the future. 1 IPB Webmaster - For Invision Community Enthusiasts - SEO Help Forum
GTB Posted July 2, 2016 Posted July 2, 2016 Yeah, I wouldn't go Vanilla though. I recently installed it again for a look at once more but decided no. I'd stick between Flarum or Discourse. There are too many XenForo sites around now for an admin forum, something different needs to be tried for a change that doesn't use the same old forum layout way of doing things. And there only really Flarum or Discourse to do that, Vanilla looks dated now compared to them two. 1
Sheldon Posted July 3, 2016 Posted July 3, 2016 The order of choice I'd personally like to see.... Flarum/Discourse Nothing.
GTB Posted July 3, 2016 Posted July 3, 2016 I prefer the look of Flarum to Discourse as well. Think Flarum looks the more appealing for using out the two. You have nothing to lose trying it and just keep a full backup of this site in-case it fails and you decided to revert back to XenForo.
Forum² Admin AWS Posted July 4, 2016 Author Forum² Admin Posted July 4, 2016 You can make Discourse look like Flarum fairly easily. I want something that will scale as the site grows. I think the dev team behind Discourse have a proven track record as far as the software running on heavy traffic sites. IPB Webmaster - For Invision Community Enthusiasts - SEO Help Forum
Sheldon Posted July 4, 2016 Posted July 4, 2016 You can make Discourse look like Flarum fairly easily. I want something that will scale as the site grows. I think the dev team behind Discourse have a proven track record as far as the software running on heavy traffic sites. I'm getting ready to dive into both (Discourse & Flarum) myself.... There are a few things in wanting to test out and investigate. I think with a little bit of creativity, something amazing will come out of it. 1
Forum² Admin AWS Posted July 9, 2016 Author Forum² Admin Posted July 9, 2016 I have a Discourse test site up. Forum² - Resources for Forum Administrators Feel free to use and abuse it. IPB Webmaster - For Invision Community Enthusiasts - SEO Help Forum
Forum² Admin AWS Posted December 25, 2016 Author Forum² Admin Posted December 25, 2016 I have decided that I am going to stay with XenForo and work to build this site to what I envisioned it to be. That being the new leader in the forum admin niche. IPB Webmaster - For Invision Community Enthusiasts - SEO Help Forum
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