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Post by howtophil on Feb 24, 2019 10:46:35 GMT
This is a potential forum for those not happy with a shift to "Discourse" as a forum software on the largest interactive fiction forum. I have no delusions that the majority of the userbase will migrate here (or even a large portion). However, I figured it's something I should give a try or I'll end up wondering "what if" forever.
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Post by hanono on Feb 25, 2019 19:04:52 GMT
It looks as though capital letters are not allowed in user names.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 25, 2019 19:10:42 GMT
Quite possibly.
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Post by hanono on Feb 25, 2019 20:33:26 GMT
Well. THIS WILL NEVER DO. PREPARE FOR RAGEQUIT. IF I CAN'T BE KNOWN AS cApTaInCaMeLcAsE I am so outta here FOR GOOD
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Post by howtophil on Feb 25, 2019 20:36:10 GMT
Actually, if you click "Reply" you'll move to "Full Message"
I think you'll see a lot of people leaving the other forum, because the interface does matter and there are a lot that hate or "heartily dislike" the new interface over there...
/shrug
They may not come here, but they'll drop off from there...
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Post by howtophil on Feb 25, 2019 20:46:40 GMT
And if you're fine with losing some of your userbase, that's fine. However, I don't see a reason that those expats shouldn't have a place more to their (our) liking.
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Post by Meh. on Feb 25, 2019 20:49:34 GMT
This is a potential forum for those not happy with a shift to "Discourse" as a forum software on the largest interactive fiction forum. I have no delusions that the majority of the userbase will migrate here (or even a large portion). However, I figured it's something I should give a try or I'll end up wondering "what if" forever. Meh.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 25, 2019 20:51:34 GMT
Hello meh. Glad you've meh'd here to meh the meh. Hope you meh it as meh as possible.
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Post by hanono on Feb 25, 2019 20:53:36 GMT
Actually, I'm quite glad you did this. I'll be happy to direct people here if we can't make them happy on the other forum.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 25, 2019 20:55:23 GMT
Actually, I'm quite glad you did this. I'll be happy to direct people here if we can't make them happy on the other forum. That's the general idea.
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Post by davidg on Feb 26, 2019 4:01:24 GMT
Hello. There was considerable discussion over which software to use. The moderation functionality of Discourse is quite a bit more advanced than in phpBB. That's what the rest of the mods were sold on. I kept holding out for phpBB and the appropriate plugins or for Xenforo. Xenforo costs $140 for the first year and $40. I think that's quite reasonable, but the rest of the mods didn't want to delay another fortnight to evaluate another package. I'm fairly certain that I can craft a plugin to Discourse to tune or disable infinite scrolling. It also looks like the forum skins can be altered to very closely match the old forum. That combined with the upcoming pagination plugin made me reluctantly agree to using Discourse. Thus the changeover became unanimous. I'm still keeping a close eye on things.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 26, 2019 4:14:00 GMT
Glad to know you're keeping an eye on things and working towards making Discourse work more like a real forum, but so far, Discourse has proven to be broken when it comes to basic, normal forum functionality and expectations. The fact that so much has to be done just to make it work the way a forum is supposed to work, that, to me, makes it a failure as forum software. I'm not a fan of javascript being required to use a forum either... I'm not sold on "it's easier on the mods" as a reason to shoehorn users into a piece of software that doesn't work for them... A community should cater to the userbase over the mods, within reason. Hence, I threw together this Proboards forum, which looks and functions much more in the way those who are displeased with Discourse expect a forum to work and look. I'm not trying to pilfer the userbase from over there, but rather have a place where people who are just not going to be happy there anymore can go. They aren't going to want to use a site that no longer suits them and this is a place where they can kick back and enjoy being part of a community that uses a forum style that suits them. They don't have to feel trapped, with only one space to gather, that no longer feels like a good fit. Heck, maybe they'll try this out and head back there when they feel "what the heck, why not" about it. I just think it's good to have options and this is an option.
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Post by realnc on Feb 26, 2019 11:09:21 GMT
It doesn't look like this can work. It's owned by boards.net, with their own "code of conduct" and "terms of service" (meaning they can shut it down without notice, since the forum is theirs, not ours) and they put ads on the forum.
I think that creating an alternative forum requires more than opening a free one on boards.net. Even if miraculously every single intfiction.org user migrated here, it wouldn't be a good place for the community, as we don't actually own the place. We're guests.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 26, 2019 11:15:07 GMT
I don't actually have the income to rent server space, and I haven't seen a lot of hard-nosed action from Proboards in the past either, so I doubt it would be shut down out of the blue.
I doubt "every single user" will come from the main board. This, however, does give us some breathing room in a space that's got proper forum form and function.
We're always guests. Even "owned servers" are at the end of rented lines. /shrug
I also don't mind trading adspace for free service.
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Post by howtophil on Feb 26, 2019 11:20:15 GMT
PS - I'm totally in if/when you've got a better alternative-to-my-alternative. But I can't spend more than a few seconds on the main forum now without my head throbbing, so this is where I am, because at least here, the forum works like a forum.
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