|
|
Post by zodium on Feb 11, 2015 14:19:45 GMT
I can appreciate the appeal of having someone else manage forum hosting for free, but Proboards has two problems:
* Proboards sells users' information to advertisers. Currently, my Ghostery is blocking AlmondNet, Google Analytics, NetShelter and VigLink. Aside from how that looks, think about this: you could be selling our information to advertisers! Free money! Everybody likes money.
* Proboards are not very good from a user POV. There's a reason that "large and productive forums" and "forums which use RTF" are non-overlapping circles, and it's mainly that RTF sucks for hypertext, which is essential to forum discussions. It has some neat features here and there, but it's torturous to use for anything beyond simple exchanges.
As a small developer, I think it's important for Spiderling to have a forum that draws in users and facilitates productive discussion. Proboards mostly facilitates short, simple exchanges. A strong game forum software candidate features standard BBcode syntax, good search (internal or through Google), file and image management, subforums, permission groups, inline videos, and optionally projects/bug reporting and suggestions. I know vBulletin can do this, but I'm sure there are others. Proboards seem like it was intended for a world before you went viral.
It would be nice to couple this to game-specific Wiki installations such as MediaWiki (Wikipedia), since forums are manageable but inherently flawed when it comes to managing non-discursive information.
Paradox has been using this community model for years to great success, so I hope Spiderling will take a page out of their book.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arlekin on Feb 11, 2015 14:50:16 GMT
Oh god please!
As a moderator i'd love to have more convenient tools, and current forum makes some things pain in ass (long posts editing for one).
I don't have much experience with forum systems, and never wrote one but i believe that there are better solutions than what we are currently, for the lack of better word, enduring.
This is so important that i will even allow myself to be biased to the extent of bumping this thread to keep it visible if need be (but not so much as to stick it, at least yet).
|
|
|
|
Post by Von on Feb 11, 2015 17:48:17 GMT
This is something we've thought about and will look into.
When we first released Besiege we were not expecting the kind of traffic that we are now getting to the forums, which is why we chose to use a service like proboards.
Personally I'm a huge fan paradox's community forums, have been a participant for a long time.
|
|
|
|
Post by SuburbanSB on Feb 13, 2015 3:44:57 GMT
I completely agree with you on this zodium I was thinking of a very similar idea with a different forum system, and with the sort of traffic they have now, and if they are hoping to expand, then perhaps a paid forum system might be an idea as well? I know starbound has a fantastic forum system which allows add ons to customise the forum experience. Zenforo is also the forum software used by another forum community which I am apart of, so I am able to tell you it is incredibly easy to use and manage, with simple layouts, various tabs, user titles/subtitles, a huge array of moderating tools, A 'community news page' where updates/announcements can be made, Staff only forums, Private post submitting sections which allows for users to submit threads which can be only viewed by staff. The forum software is by Zenforo
I haven't set up any forums with Zenforo so I don't quite know what that entails, however I do know that it is very user/staff friendly, and comes with a variety of tools. It has a similar layout to the Paradox interactive forums as well as vBullitin. |
|
roo
Peasant
Posts: 5 
|
Post by roo on Feb 14, 2015 22:40:49 GMT
I'm a web developer. I could make us one as an Angular app. It'd be fun but would take a while if I'm the only dev-- we could make it an open source project, host it on github and do that whole thing. Actually Ghost ghost.org/ 's forum is pretty awesome but I think they use knockout or backbone. The stack I'd use would be: MongoDB Express.js Angular.js Node.js It's all JavaScript, so most web devs could contribute rather than only a select few who know php, rails, java, javascript, etc. Plus it's easier to test. ghost.org/forum/ * |
|
|
|
Post by Arlekin on Feb 16, 2015 11:13:05 GMT
roo well im no webdev, but im about to migrate my current project to angular (it just so happens it is done as a webapp), so i guess i could use some practice in angular on the side. But i don't know if i would have time after work, commute, moderating forum and life. But if we would make it a github project i think i would be able to contribute from time to time  Just for the record im using django for backend, i played with Mongo a while ago doing some android fun, about node i only read and about express not even that (although i just checked what it is ) Anyway - i like the direction in which this discussion is going 
|
|
|
|
Post by grimbriar on Feb 16, 2015 19:03:02 GMT
Yeah, I'm quite a fan of VBulletin, it's simple, easy to use, easy to edit and has a ton of options for both the user and the owner, including custom titles and easier navigation. Plus the so simple, but amazing, "View new posts" and "Mark all posts read" buttons.
I'd be willing to even donate time and money to get that started.
|
|
|
|
Post by ITR on Feb 23, 2015 9:06:07 GMT
Would be nice with a star system based on thumb-ups instead of amount of posts, so you can't just spam yourself to a fancy title.
|
|
|
|
Post by SuburbanSB on Feb 23, 2015 9:41:15 GMT
Would be nice with a star system based on thumb-ups instead of amount of posts, so you can't just spam yourself to a fancy title. Well in my case, if you care to go through all of my posts, majority of them aren't spam. I try to be as helpful/constructive as possible with my posts, yes you'll find some you could consider spam, but thats to be expected. Although, I am sure the mods would be right onto the case of spam, and will remove any posts that are considered as such |
|
|
|
Post by Von on Feb 23, 2015 14:33:06 GMT
So I come bareing good news and really bad news. We will be moving to a new forum soon, its almost ready and will offer us a lot of benefits over the forum we're using now. However, proboards is refusing to allow us to export the current forum database, which means we will lose everything when we move.  |
|
|
|
Post by spaar on Feb 23, 2015 14:41:17 GMT
Yay, a new forum! I'm excited! However, proboards is refusing to allow us to export the current forum database, which means we will lose everything when we move. That's really unfortunate, they should really allow that. Not exactly making a great impression there. But I'm sure that the new forum will fill up quickly again, with all these players who post stuff. |
|
|
|
Post by zodium on Feb 23, 2015 14:43:43 GMT
So I come bareing good news and really bad news. We will be moving to a new forum soon, its almost ready and will offer us a lot of benefits over the forum we're using now. However, proboards is refusing to allow us to export the current forum database, which means we will lose everything when we move. Screw those guys, we'll move anything important over manually. |
|
|
|
Post by Von on Feb 23, 2015 14:48:56 GMT
So I come bareing good news and really bad news. We will be moving to a new forum soon, its almost ready and will offer us a lot of benefits over the forum we're using now. However, proboards is refusing to allow us to export the current forum database, which means we will lose everything when we move. Screw those guys, we'll move anything important over manually. This is what I'm thinking, I will move all the important information over. I will leave this forum up for about a week afterward to allow people to transfer anything they want to. If people don't transfer their guides I will do so at the end of the week but I'd like to allow people the time to do it themsleves so that they can continue to edit them. |
|
|
|
Post by ITR on Feb 23, 2015 17:55:27 GMT
Would be nice with a star system based on thumb-ups instead of amount of posts, so you can't just spam yourself to a fancy title. Well in my case, if you care to go through all of my posts, majority of them aren't spam. I try to be as helpful/constructive as possible with my posts, yes you'll find some you could consider spam, but thats to be expected. Although, I am sure the mods would be right onto the case of spam, and will remove any posts that are considered as such Not saying people actually do it, just that it's possible :-P |
|
|
|
Post by SuburbanSB on Feb 23, 2015 23:19:05 GMT
Screw those guys, we'll move anything important over manually. This is what I'm thinking, I will move all the important information over. I will leave this forum up for about a week afterward to allow people to transfer anything they want to. If people don't transfer their guides I will do so at the end of the week but I'd like to allow people the time to do it themsleves so that they can continue to edit them. Well... that sucks... But it's an important change. Glad we got BBCode  Any idea on timelines? Or roughly within the month? |
|
Any idea on timelines? Or roughly within the month?