Switching Forums to use Discourse?

[Avamander]

Unlike Discourse, MyBB is still usable with Javascript disabled, so I'd rather say that MyBB is one that works.

I don't think disabling JavaScript is a very common use-case, but okay.

Not sure what you mean here, MyBB isn't broken on my end.

MyBB's editor simply does not work for normal formatting and it's even worse on mobile.

[jasonriedy]

Meanwhile, there are curmudgeons like me who are annoyed at all the web goo. Email works quite well across many platforms. Archives are wonderfully searchable via web goo or my own stuff. IIRC, the latest mailman has a full forum-like interface. I'm sure someone else could come up with a discourse-like interface. To me, discourse is far too opinionated on how people work.

[ryo]

I don't think disabling JavaScript is a very common use-case, but okay.

Admitted, it's not common indeed.
However, if you own an old PC where current year web (aka, web apps overtly bloated with Javascript) lags while normal websites work perfectly fine or if you take privacy very seriously, it's pretty essential to disable Javascript, or at the very least control it with uMatrix (so you can enable/disable specific types of elements for each individual website).

MyBB's editor simply does not work for normal formatting and it's even worse on mobile.

That's true.
I've never been a fan of WYSIWYG editors, so I just use it in "view source" mode (the right-most button on the editor that looks like a sheet of paper), which is the only mode that works without Javascript anyway.
Markdowns in Discourse is indeed 1 thing that makes it better.

[jasonriedy]

Markdowns in Discourse is indeed 1 thing that makes it better.

I'm an org mode person myself.  But email remains my ultimate preference.

[ryo]

Markdowns in Discourse is indeed 1 thing that makes it better.

I'm an org mode person myself.  But email remains my ultimate preference.

What do you mean by "org mode"?
For email, that reminds me of the usergroups feature in Thunderbird which one community that used to be around since 1996 kept using until a few years ago when they migrated over to a forum.
That community used to tightly gatekept, but they loosened it when they migrated to a forum, then at one point they made it "for everybody", and the community didn't last for long after that.

[Avamander]

Email works quite well across many platforms. Archives are wonderfully searchable via web goo or my own stuff. IIRC, the latest mailman has a full forum-like interface. I'm sure someone else could come up with a discourse-like interface.

I personally like e-mail as well, but mailing lists have major issues. They're often misconfigured, out-of-date (buggy) or even mangle peoples e-mails. Some of these misconfigurations end up with violating security protocols like DKIM and DMARC, causing nondeliveries. Even Ubuntu's mailing list is misconfigured. It's really not pretty.

Meanwhile, there are curmudgeons like me who are annoyed at all the web goo.

Yep, now we stumble upon the issue of SEO, people really really need to be able to find everything they need from search engines if it's more support or tutorial-oriented community. Mailing lists, their archives or old forum software are not great at that.

To me, discourse is far too opinionated on how people work.

It is valid to find some workflows incompatible with one's own, but I think there's a very real "common good" situation here. Where for the majority it'd work better. Someone also mentioned it in their review of the Purism Librem 5 and PinePhone: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2021/12...l5-and-pp/

[fire219]

I'll just pop in here to say that a switch to Discourse (or another "modern" forum platform) is under consideration.

The current forum has admittedly fallen behind and been forgotten somewhat, no small part of that being my own fault.

[jasonriedy]

Um, anything with an NNTP interface would be good. Not all of us are web-central folks. Or a mailing list that can be archived appropriately (e.g. via publicc-inbox). And, well, search for topics related to the Linux kernel. You'll see the links once you remove the ad additions.

[moonwalkers]

Granted, my exposure to Discourse is limited to Github and Discourse's own demo instance, but so far I'm not impressed - existing Pine64 forums load in mere couple seconds at most on my RPi400 and PBP devices, and are even more or less usable on the original Allwinner A64 Pinebook, whereas Discourse takes much longer to load, and after it is loaded it still keeps my CPU pegged at a noticeably higher load while I'm simply scrolling around a (much smaller than Pine64 forums) page.

Had Pine64 been manufacturing powerful devices that showed no performance difference between the two solutions (like on Apple's M1 hardware and most modern x86 systems) I'd say knock yourself out and switch, but when the candidate solution works noticeably slower on the company's own current production devices (PBP and PPP), especially on the lower end (while the original PB is no longer sold, PP is still a thing), I'd say that should disqualify it immediately.

[ryo]

Had Pine64 been manufacturing powerful devices that showed no performance difference between the two solutions (like on Apple's M1 hardware and most modern x86 systems) I'd say knock yourself out and switch, but when the candidate solution works noticeably slower on the company's own current production devices (PBP and PPP), especially on the lower end (while the original PB is no longer sold, PP is still a thing), I'd say that should disqualify it immediately.

That's a good point, yes.
Be the example you're selling basically.
Making your own stuff inaccessible or less accessible than let's say DigDeeper, the any browser campagn (which pretty much all of the current year web fails at by default), Spyware Watchdog, or Born Free is quite a middle finger towards your own customers.