We’ve been experimenting with some new forum software and we’re at the stage where we’d like to get some more general feedback.
If you’re intrigued, you’ve got an hour spare and you’re an opinionated gobshite (note to self - I might need to narrow that criteria down a bit) let me know below and I’ll provide access for you.
The software is called Discourse and you can read more about it and the philosophy behind it here www.discourse.org.
If you’re a geek then you might be interested to know that Discourse was created by the founder of Stack Overflow (Stack Exchange). So he knows a thing or two about how to build communities that avoid unnecessary conflict.
If you’re not a geek, then, look over there, wooosh.
IMPORTANTLY: we’ve made no decision about moving to this yet and we may very well stay where we are. After all, it works well and pap has made it perform now, but I perceive that there are some advantages to the new software that would help with
attracting new posters
bringing back lapsed posters
rewarding regular contributors with increasingly greater capabilities up-to moderation powers
keeping discussions ‘nice’
automatically intervening when downvotes are detected
weaving social media and football content through the site (Optimus Trousers two dot ohh).
I’ve been "alpha"ing this for @saintbletch and am well impressed by the ease of use of the Discourse board. Obviously there are things that are different but it is a good piece of “forum software”,
Not taking anything away from our @pap , things that he has done here, with a lot of effort, are provided out of the box on Discourse.
For mine I would recommend moving over but that is entirely down to the community…