Antoine
Administrator
I'm going to be adding to this thread periodically so please stay tuned! I would like to let everyone know that I'm seriously considering migrating Mazdas247 from vBulletin to Discourse. For now, I will start with...
Why?
Bottomline, we have to move off our current forum platform (vBulletin 4) because it's already outdated and support from vBulletin themselves not to mention the plugin community is in rapid decline.
Why not upgrade to vBulletin 5?
While there was a time when vBulletin was regarded as the best, those days are long gone and now it seems they are playing catch up with fewer and fewer resources. I don't believe vB5 is a competitive product and while it could be someday, I no longer have confidence in the company itself.
What's Discourse?
Here's the official description from https://www.discourse.org/faq
Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. It works as:
a mailing list
a discussion forum
a long-form chat room
- What's different about it?
Discourse is a from-scratch reboot, an attempt to reimagine what a modern Internet discussion platform should be today, in a world of ubiquitous smartphones, tablets, Facebook, and Twitter.
We're civilized.
Our trust system means that the community builds a natural immune system to defend itself from trolls, bad actors, and spammers — and the most engaged community members can assist in the governance of their community. We put a trash can on every street corner with a simple, low-friction flagging system. Positive behaviors are encouraged through likes and badges. We gently, constantly educate members in a just-in-time manner on the universal rules of civilized discourse.
Uncompromisingly open source.
There is only one version of Discourse – the awesome open source version. There's no super secret special paid commercial version with better or more complete features. Because Discourse is 100% open source, now and forever, it belongs to you as much as it belongs to us. That's how community works.
Everything that most communities would want is included out of the box; a giant collection of complex plugins should not be required to have a great experience.
Simple. Modern. Fun.
Discourse pares all the complexity away and puts just the essential stuff on screen – the conversations you care most about, based on your participation.
All the modern amenities you'd expect from a big social website like Twitter or Facebook are present in Discourse. Mention someone by @name. Paste in a link or an image, and we make it awesome on your behalf. Simple quoting and linking of replies and topics. Reply wherever you are, online or via email.
And it "just works" on your phone and tablet.
Note that a lot of the elements mentioned above can be adjusted (at the admin level) so we can tailor Discourse to best match Mazdas247's community culture.
Are you working on a demo site?
Yes! In fact, it's already up thanks to our tech guru, Enry. I'm currently working on and testing a completely new forum structure (forums are called categories on Discourse). The demo site has not been made public but I may post screenshots of it here in the future.
If we migrate, what will change?
A LOT but for the better! Think of it as a sort of "clean slate" for the community. I will go into more detail in the future so keep an eye on this thread!
-------------------------------------------------------
Please note this is currently just a plan and not official yet but I want to keep everyone informed about our future. In order for Mazdas247 to continue serving Mazda Owners and Enthusiasts in a relevant manner, we need to modernize and adopt new and innovative ways to house our Community. I believe Discourse can help us do that and I will go into more detail on how soon!
As always, thanks for reading this and for spending your time on Mazdas247!
Why?
Bottomline, we have to move off our current forum platform (vBulletin 4) because it's already outdated and support from vBulletin themselves not to mention the plugin community is in rapid decline.
Why not upgrade to vBulletin 5?
While there was a time when vBulletin was regarded as the best, those days are long gone and now it seems they are playing catch up with fewer and fewer resources. I don't believe vB5 is a competitive product and while it could be someday, I no longer have confidence in the company itself.
What's Discourse?
Here's the official description from https://www.discourse.org/faq
Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. It works as:
a mailing list
a discussion forum
a long-form chat room
- What's different about it?
Discourse is a from-scratch reboot, an attempt to reimagine what a modern Internet discussion platform should be today, in a world of ubiquitous smartphones, tablets, Facebook, and Twitter.
We're civilized.
Our trust system means that the community builds a natural immune system to defend itself from trolls, bad actors, and spammers — and the most engaged community members can assist in the governance of their community. We put a trash can on every street corner with a simple, low-friction flagging system. Positive behaviors are encouraged through likes and badges. We gently, constantly educate members in a just-in-time manner on the universal rules of civilized discourse.
Uncompromisingly open source.
There is only one version of Discourse – the awesome open source version. There's no super secret special paid commercial version with better or more complete features. Because Discourse is 100% open source, now and forever, it belongs to you as much as it belongs to us. That's how community works.
Everything that most communities would want is included out of the box; a giant collection of complex plugins should not be required to have a great experience.
Simple. Modern. Fun.
Discourse pares all the complexity away and puts just the essential stuff on screen – the conversations you care most about, based on your participation.
All the modern amenities you'd expect from a big social website like Twitter or Facebook are present in Discourse. Mention someone by @name. Paste in a link or an image, and we make it awesome on your behalf. Simple quoting and linking of replies and topics. Reply wherever you are, online or via email.
And it "just works" on your phone and tablet.
Note that a lot of the elements mentioned above can be adjusted (at the admin level) so we can tailor Discourse to best match Mazdas247's community culture.
Are you working on a demo site?
Yes! In fact, it's already up thanks to our tech guru, Enry. I'm currently working on and testing a completely new forum structure (forums are called categories on Discourse). The demo site has not been made public but I may post screenshots of it here in the future.
If we migrate, what will change?
A LOT but for the better! Think of it as a sort of "clean slate" for the community. I will go into more detail in the future so keep an eye on this thread!
-------------------------------------------------------
Please note this is currently just a plan and not official yet but I want to keep everyone informed about our future. In order for Mazdas247 to continue serving Mazda Owners and Enthusiasts in a relevant manner, we need to modernize and adopt new and innovative ways to house our Community. I believe Discourse can help us do that and I will go into more detail on how soon!
As always, thanks for reading this and for spending your time on Mazdas247!