Move to a new forum system ?

Emp_Fab · November 2020

I think we've outgrown Vanilla - it's got too many bugs and ill-functioning features to continue with on a forum of this calibre.
I believe @digitalscream was planning on writing a new bespoke forum himself but I don't know any more on that front.

Lee... what other options are out there that could replace Vanilla ? Are they expensive ?

danishbacon · November 2020

Personally I like vanilla, as a front end user. Couple of minor gripes with posting photos/changing of location bug but otherwise it’s a nice layout, I like the discussions view and dm function. It’s not perfect but I prefer it hands down to the other 5/6 forums I’m a member of.

drofluf · November 2020

Don’t see Vanilla as being better or worse overall than the others that I’ve used but I don’t have to support them...

Also there would be a massive effort in migrating the existing content to the new software

GoldenEraGuitars · November 2020

I genuinely don’t see any issues here other than some of the people who use the place tbh. If anything, all I would want is for “ignore” to mean “hide”. Apart from that I can’t see any problems unless I’m missing something?

Dav275 · November 2020

Current system seems ok to me, and compares well to some other forums I use.

Only minor gripe I have is that the "quotes within quotes" on long threads can reduce the text down to a narrow vertical strip in the centre of the screen, especially when viewed on phone. Not sure this is a system problem though, or just peoples habits.

EricTheWeary · November 2020

It’d be interesting to know of examples of forums that look good and work well and that are significantly better than the platform here.

The big US guitar forums ( gear page, TDPRI, my Les Paul, strat talk) are all the same company and look like total arse.

I quite like using moneysavingexpert and that’s on Vanilla. Their search function seems to work fine which is the fix I’d like here most of all.

Strangefan · November 2020

If it would stop going back to the top of the previous page I'd be happy

DiscoStu · November 2020

I find this format much more user friendly than other forums.
The one major problem for me is the search function, it's hopeless. Fix that and I'd be happy.

monquixote · November 2020

This has been extensively discussed before.

Vanilla was the best of a bad lot at the time.

Discourse is a newer option but has been ruled out after being evaluated.

Writing a bespoke platform would be months of work and unless there is some opportunity to monetize the site it's hard to justify.

The search is sphinx rather than vanilla so that could be independently improved.

Danny1969 · November 2020

To be honest you don't need a site search, just type site:thefretboard.co.uk and then your query and google will do a pretty good job .... imagine I wanted to go back to a thread about line 6 repair

site:thefretboard.co.uk line 6 repair

It works pretty good I think

Kittyfrisk · November 2020

GoldenEraGuitars said:

I genuinely don’t see any issues here other than some of the people who use the place tbh. If anything, all I would want is for “ignore” to mean “eliminated”. Apart from that I can’t see any problems unless I’m missing something?

FTFY

Emp_Fab · November 2020

I think there are a number of gripes I have with it;

The editor - just poor - getting trapped in quotes, not responding, timeouts etc
The search function is pretty bad
....and my biggest bugbear of all - The ignore function doesn't work as other forums' do. This alone is the biggest source of aggro on the forum IMO. It's like having an argument in a room - you put your stupid sister-in-law on ignore and instead of her now becoming invisible and silent to you, she now has a flashing light bulb above her head every time she speaks instead.
Edit: Oh.... and it still shows you the opening post of new threads started by people you're ignoring !!

Kittyfrisk · November 2020

I don't think the site is broken enough to need fixing. Yes it has some little foibles, but that goes for any site.
I would like to be able to see repairs & servicing providers by geographic location just to spend things up, but its not the end of the world.

digitalscream · November 2020

monquixote said:

This has been extensively discussed before.

Vanilla was the best of a bad lot at the time.
Discourse is a newer option but has been ruled out after being evaluated.

Writing a bespoke platform would be months of work and unless there is some opportunity to monetize the site it's hard to justify.

The search is sphinx rather than vanilla so that could be independently improved.

This, really.

I've started writing an alternative, but the problem is time - I have none. Basically, at the time I was in my last job, and then I got involved with this startup, which sucked up all my spare time and then some. On top of that, there has been something of an explosion in traffic (we have roughly 60% more traffic now than we did when I decided to start the rewrite), which has kept me busy keeping this place optimised.

The search function is an odd one. If you use the advanced search, it's actually pretty powerful. However, I don't like it because even the delta indexing job slows the whole site down for 30s or so every half hour (and I can't relax that schedule, otherwise it's all out of date).

As for trying for an alternative, there aren't really any good ones that can be hosted in a practical manner. Discourse is probably the best of the bunch, but it's expensive and inefficient to host, and its Vanilla migration script actually crashes because it (the script) can't handle the volume of data we have.

Rich210 · November 2020

I can live with vanilla and it's quirks fine.i think the FB is ace

monquixote · November 2020

Emp_Fab said:

I think there are a number of gripes I have with it;

The editor - just poor - getting trapped in quotes, not responding, timeouts etc
The search function is pretty bad
....and my biggest bugbear of all - The ignore function doesn't work as other forums' do. This alone is the biggest source of aggro on the forum IMO. It's like having an argument in a room - you put your stupid sister-in-law on ignore and instead of her now becoming invisible and silent to you, she now has a flashing light bulb above her head every time she speaks instead.
Edit: Oh.... and it still shows you the opening post of new threads started by people you're ignoring !!

The editor and the search are both plugins and not part of Vanilla.

EricTheWeary · November 2020

Is it ironic that the biggest issue with a form of social media seems to be that people can't ignore other people enough?

In terms of the functioning of the forum my guess is that the biggest frustration/ learning curve for new members is photo hosting.

Cirrus · November 2020

Does anyone remember the Harmony Central forum change, which totally destroyed a thriving, large community and scattered them to the winds?

Personally I think it'd be madness to change from this, even if it's not perfect - because people get used to an interface, and are creatures of habit. The way a site looks becomes a key part of its identity, and we know that everyone who uses this place does so because of or in spite of the forum software as it stands. If that changes, even if it's objectively not worse, a sizable percentage of users will complain vocally and for a long time, while others just stop their habit of visiting because they can't be bothered to internalise the new design.

Internet communities are fragile things!

digitalscream · November 2020

Cirrus said:

Does anyone remember the Harmony Central forum change, which totally destroyed a thriving, large community and scattered them to the winds?

Personally I think it'd be madness to change from this, even if it's not perfect - because people get used to an interface, and are creatures of habit. The way a site looks becomes a key part of its identity, and we know that everyone who uses this place does so because of or in spite of the forum software as it stands. If that changes, even if it's objectively not worse, a sizable percentage of users will complain vocally and for a long time, while others just stop their habit of visiting because they can't be bothered to internalise the new design.

Internet communities are fragile things!

That's the only tricky part of writing the new software - making it look and feel similar to this, which is actually a fairly bastardised version of Vanilla (we've made quite a few customisations over the years).

WiresDreamDisasters · November 2020

Emp_Fab said:

I think there are a number of gripes I have with it;

The editor - just poor - getting trapped in quotes, not responding, timeouts etc
The search function is pretty bad
....and my biggest bugbear of all - The ignore function doesn't work as other forums' do. This alone is the biggest source of aggro on the forum IMO. It's like having an argument in a room - you put your stupid sister-in-law on ignore and instead of her now becoming invisible and silent to you, she now has a flashing light bulb above her head every time she speaks instead.
Edit: Oh.... and it still shows you the opening post of new threads started by people you're ignoring !!

You don't have to click the post to open it man. You really don't. Just like you don't have to read this message. You don't have to try to paint people you dislike as trolls because you feel offended that you're sharing a space with people who think differently to you. You don't have to get angry when you read something that hits one of your triggers. You don't have to deliberately and obtusely twist the joke into something that it isn't. You are in control. You can decide how you respond to the external stimuli before you.

As for the editor and search... there are perfectly reasonable workarounds for the limitations.

randella · November 2020

Emp_Fab said:

what other options are out there that could replace Vanilla ? Are they expensive ?

Get yourself signed up to AWS, have a look at Docker, and try a few out. Could be your route into DevOps

axisus · November 2020

I'm OK with the forum right now, warts and all. The one fix that I would really like though is the ability to uncouple yourself from getting notifications on a thread that you started. I assume that you still can't do that? I'm careful to not start a thread that will solicit a vast amount of replies, I got stung once with a Trump vs Clinton thread and it was painful for weeks and weeks!

Switch625 · November 2020

I have no problem with the site other than the search function is terrible. If that's just a plugin as stated above, isn't there a better one available?

JohnS37 · November 2020

If it ain’t bust then don’t fix it.
I frequent several special-interest forums, and this is one of the best, my favourite in fact. There’s a huge diversity of content, plenty of wisdom, and a great sense of humour, so please don’t go changing that!
On the other hand, if the platform is holding you back . .
Anyway, please keep us informed, and good luck.

JohnS37 · November 2020

Forgot to mention that one thing that is great about the current platform is that it loads very quickly, far faster than most. It also (usually) updates pages without being asked, which is also helpful. Seems like a good platform from my end.

digitalscream · November 2020

JohnS37 said:

Forgot to mention that one thing that is great about the current platform is that it loads very quickly, far faster than most. It also (usually) updates pages without being asked, which is also helpful. Seems like a good platform from my end.

I'm gonna go ahead and take the credit for that one - by default, Vanilla is terrible for optimisation, especially at the traffic levels we have here; it's tremendously wasteful in terms of data storage and processing. Back when we first launched, even with just a few hundred users it was grinding to a halt and taking 5-10 seconds to load the page!

That's where most of our customisations lie, really. Even then, I have to do a fair bit of work on a weekly basis keeping it ship-shape.

mudslide73 · November 2020

I like it and it works. Strangely, I recommended Vanilla to one of my football forum modmins as an alternative to MyBB and I think they're going for it. I'm a sysadmin myself and I get hacked off with all the moaners - maybe they could start up their own forum with the bulletin board framework of their choice.. and see where that gets them.

octatonic · November 2020

Emp_Fab said:

I think we've outgrown Vanilla - it's got too many bugs and ill-functioning features to continue with on a forum of this calibre.
I believe @digitalscream was planning on writing a new bespoke forum himself but I don't know any more on that front.

Lee... what other options are out there that could replace Vanilla ? Are they expensive ?

You won't be able to block Drew more effectively on another platform.

poopot · November 2020

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Emp_Fab said:

I think there are a number of gripes I have with it;

The editor - just poor - getting trapped in quotes, not responding, timeouts etc
The search function is pretty bad
....and my biggest bugbear of all - The ignore function doesn't work as other forums' do. This alone is the biggest source of aggro on the forum IMO. It's like having an argument in a room - you put your stupid sister-in-law on ignore and instead of her now becoming invisible and silent to you, she now has a flashing light bulb above her head every time she speaks instead.
Edit: Oh.... and it still shows you the opening post of new threads started by people you're ignoring !!

You don't have to click the post to open it man. You really don't. Just like you don't have to read this message. You don't have to try to paint people you dislike as trolls because you feel offended that you're sharing a space with people who think differently to you. You don't have to get angry when you read something that hits one of your triggers. You don't have to deliberately and obtusely twist the joke into something that it isn't. You are in control. You can decide how you respond to the external stimuli before you.

As for the editor and search... there are perfectly reasonable workarounds for the limitations.

@Emp_Fab has you on ignore drew... he won’t see it unless he’s tagged... like now!...

Sassafras · November 2020

If you don't like it you can go to TGP.

Wazmeister · November 2020

digitalscream said:

monquixote said:

This has been extensively discussed before.

Vanilla was the best of a bad lot at the time.
Discourse is a newer option but has been ruled out after being evaluated.

Writing a bespoke platform would be months of work and unless there is some opportunity to monetize the site it's hard to justify.

The search is sphinx rather than vanilla so that could be independently improved.

This, really.

I've started writing an alternative, but the problem is time - I have none. Basically, at the time I was in my last job, and then I got involved with this startup, which sucked up all my spare time and then some. On top of that, there has been something of an explosion in traffic (we have roughly 60% more traffic now than we did when I decided to start the rewrite), which has kept me busy keeping this place optimised.

The search function is an odd one. If you use the advanced search, it's actually pretty powerful. However, I don't like it because even the delta indexing job slows the whole site down for 30s or so every half hour (and I can't relax that schedule, otherwise it's all out of date).

As for trying for an alternative, there aren't really any good ones that can be hosted in a practical manner. Discourse is probably the best of the bunch, but it's expensive and inefficient to host, and its Vanilla migration script actually crashes because it (the script) can't handle the volume of data we have.

Lee, I really like the Format here mate...

My fave forum and layout, and much easier to read and use, compared to the other forums I frequent...

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