Sponge XenForo

Discourse is WAY better than traditional forum software, it just needs a better style sheet.

[quote=“teozkr, post:131, topic:1218”]
Why? Because it defaults (this is configurable by the way) to showing all topics instead of showing a list of subforums? You do realize that XenForo has freaking status updates, right? I’d say XF is far closer to Twitter than Discourse will ever be.[/quote]
I realize that you can still view a list of subforums in Discourse; I just believe that the way in which it is laid out is not the most ideal, and from a user’s perspective, it is a turn-off for me. While XF may have status updates, the layout isn’t as difficult to navigate as I think Discourse is.

[quote=“teozkr, post:131, topic:1218”]
Perhaps because a forum is not a blog.[/quote]
Nor did I ever claim it to be? But for a project like Sponge, the diffusion of important information is going to be vital for a project such as this, especially if there should ever be a game-changing update that server owners and developers would need to see, or if there was a security issue that needed prompt attention.

[quote=“teozkr, post:131, topic:1218”]
Wat? Any examples or are you just going to call it empty names?[/quote]
I think the layout of threads is difficult as the lack of pages feels counter-intuitive to me, and seems like information overload. The thing that mainly frustrates me is how only recent and relevant threads seem to be promoted. Older threads that might have valuable content are easily lost in this layout, and I think this could be an issue with important information that might affect some users.

[quote=“teozkr, post:131, topic:1218”]
Do you have any substantial factual complaints, or are you just going to keep making baseless claims?[/quote]
I don’t know how you want me to make “factual” complaints based on an opinion of how I perceive Discourse. Your entire response was worded quite venomously, and it seems like no matter what my opinion or logic is, you’re going to berate me anyways about how ridiculous it is that I don’t like Discourse.

Once again, how is this at all different from literally any other forum software on the face of earth?

XenForo looks exactly the same there, as does SMF, phpBB, nodeBB, …

I can’t help but notice you’ve been quite aggressive towards anyone who dares oppose your opinion.

Anyway, I do agree with you on that point that most forum software promotes like jflory said.

Just hit / ( ? without shift ) and it will open up the search at the top. it searches both within the post, and within other thread (threadNames and posts) for more, hit ? ( with shift ).

I don’t know if it’s just because of the current theme, but to me, Discourse looks like something I would expect to see after 2 hours of “My First Website” HTML tutorials. What annoys me the most is that disgustingly neon-green bar at the bottom that shows me how many times I will have to scroll to the “bottom”, just to have another set of posts chunkily loaded into the page. Before anyone tries to defend the chunky loading with “but you would also have to click on the next page to get to the next posts on other forums software”, realize that from a user experience perspective, scrolling up or down a page has a significantly lower “expected delay” than clicking a button at the bottom of a page to get to a new one. Discourse has a lot of usability issues because of how “traditional” forum software works, which is what a lot of people are used to. Saying that people “should just stop being stuck in their old ways” is a very poor argument in the given context - it’s a community forum after all.

The mindless “defense” of Discourse is worrying to me, because it shows that proponents are completely incapable of understanding the perspectives of the nay-sayers. If someone says “this is missing” or “this isn’t as good”, it does, indeed, not necessarily mean that said feature isn’t there or isn’t as powerful, but the fact that someone has had trouble finding it or understanding it is not equivalent to them being an idiot. Perhaps said feature could be more visible, or perhaps it could be more intuitive or better described. Alas, XenForo has a lot of issues as well, one being that it is massively bloated.

Unfortunately, the developer claiming that something is user-friendly has a lot less merit than the user claiming it isn’t. The word user in user-friendly sort of gives the weighting away. Of course, there is a learning period involved with every “new thing”, but sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “la-la-la Discourse is awesome” is exactly as detrimental to the atmosphere as “la-la-la I hate Discourse and want XenForo back”.

This is an attitude I see a lot in the Sponge community, and it is extremely dangerous. Realize that Bukkit lived for a very long time, and would have continued to live for even longer, sans current circumstances. There is a reason for that, and it’s that Bukkit did something right. Underestimating or overlooking that something (or the many somethings) is probably the dumbest thing you can do when creating a successor. Staying away from “stuff Bukkit did” just because Bukkit did it is irrational the moment you give it second thought. I wish more doomsayers would understand that.

@garbagemule summed up everything I was trying to say in that paragraph. I think these are the biggest problems with Discourse, and it is because of the way it is set up and appears that I personally believe Sponge would be better using a “traditional” forum software in terms of scalability, as I foresee potential issues with new users becoming a part of the community because of the frustrations caused by Discourse.

Sure, XenForo may not be the exact answer, but I don’t believe the type of forum Discourse creates is suitable for a communtity of this expected magnitude.

Sure, but the delay is exactly as low as you’d expect (and even further from traditional paging than usual) if you’re actually reading the replies.

I disagree. I expect zero delay when scrolling up or down on a page. The dynamic loading would, ideally, happen without the user even noticing anything, but it only happens when you get to the “bottom”, in which case, scrolling halts, and you have to wait. Sometimes, you are not opening a thread to read it from start to finish, or you may want to scroll up or down some amount of posts, and doing so results in the unfriendly, chunky, choppy experience best described as “lagging”. Like I said, the expected delay of scrolling a page is significantly lower (close to zero) than the expected delay of clicking a “next” button at the bottom of a fully loaded page. This is interaction design 101 - when it comes to user experience, it doesn’t really matter what is actually faster or what you think is “better” for the user. What matters is what the user experiences, hence the name of the term.

Couldn’t agree more with the stated and with the way expressed.
Kudos!

…And… finally, to see someone else who shares the perspective on this topic while focusing on the well being of everyone here, not only on themselves individually.

XenForo is a great forum tool, however if they are going to use it, its just going to look like Bukkit.

Thank you. I also think Discourse is much more modern and easy to use.

I prefer pretty much any traditional forum software over Discourse. Everything is so dynamic in this system (e.g. hover over this to see likes, scroll down to get to next page, etc.) I’m also not a fan of the minimalist youtube-commenets-esque post design.

XenForo was nice and clear, though I don’t really think spending $140 for it is entirely necessary. There are other free alternatives that are static, clear, and better organized than Discourse.

Not exactly. There are many different themes that you can get for XenForo that would make it look different.

No matter what theme you pick it won’t look (very) different from Bukkit or Spigot. Its still the same software.

You do have a point there.

I actually don’t like the software. I would prefer something else. That being said, I come back because I need to keep abreast of what is going on.

I don’t want to start a fight, but I do not understand why is it so important that Sponge has to be different under all accounts?

Forum software used for Bukkit (and even Spigot got mentioned here) looks the same (or similar) like 90% (if not more) of other forums of any kind in the world. The reason for that is because the “traditional” forum look, feel and functionality is almost identical in the leading products in that field (for years).

Having said that, it seems that people are bored with forum software being used for forum needs. They want something new and wild and exciting. OK, fine.
Just, when you criticize, try to have at least some objectivity. You do not like something, or like something better. No problems. Please just do not serve your likes and dislikes as a factual things and the only relevant sources of wisdom, and allow other people not to feel like idiots.

The answer to it all.

I definitely think garbagemule put it best:

Steering away from Bukkit in every sense possible isn’t a wise decision. sighs