# Can we build better forum software? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 14, 2012, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723 "2012-03-14T06:22:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2021, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/202 "2021-01-26T22:42:28Z")
Oh wow, I’d read about this discussion, but hadn’t seen it before. Very interesting. > [@codinghorror](#): > > a) of course we’d adapt, in some form, the general reputation system (probably per-subforum), badges, and governance (meta) concepts behind Stack Overflow/Exchange. [AKA “The Gamification”](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/10/the-gamification.html) > > b) What if certain trusted users – those that consistently produced quality content and were (somewhat) sane – could be democratically voted through a software election process into the position of mini-moderators? Perhaps even on a subforum basis? It’s absolutely crazy to me that forum software doesn’t ship with a built in immune system that lets the community protect itself from trolls and other bad actors. > > c) There has to be some kind of voting (or favoriting/starring) system for posts, even though it’s tricky because you could be voting “up” on a discussion post for dozens of wildly different reasons. Still, I think it’d be nice to come into these, uh, thousand plus page threads and not have to read 100+ PAGES to find the 20 or so excellent posts absolutely buried in there. Seriously, who reads pages 1 through 2,000 of these threads? What’s the point? Surely there’s a way to escalate or highlight the excellent posts win a thread ithout wading through so much noise – and also preserving the rest of the thread _in situ_ for posterity. > > d) this would be more of an explicitly open-source, we’re-not-about-the-money thing from the beginning, aping the WordPress model. I want the whole web to benefit from better forum software, FOR FREE. But written in node.js so it’ll be riding the leading edge of [Atwood’s Law](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/the-principle-of-least-power.html) and not the hell on earth that is PHP. I see this site has avoided most of points a, b, and c. And in fact, the software toned those down a lot, too, even in sites that make a lot of use of them. For instance, I see the “like button” (it’s disabled on this site, but used on two others I post on) used more as a “thanks for posting this” note than for anything like ranking or finding “good” posts or whatever. > [@jjimm](#): > > Not so much vertical space taken up per post - or maybe the option to have two- or three-column display of a thread > Better search options (e.g. show me only all threads that I have posted in which have been updated since my last visit) > Voting buttons for posts > Ajax-style live updating > Tapatalk-style mobile app (I think Tapatalk sucks but there’s no viable alternative) > **Fewer single-issue lunatics (the software would project a hand from the screen and bitch-slap them every time they tried to post)** Hey – he listened. The software actually DOES kinda do that. It pokes users if they dominate a thread, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2021, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/203 "2021-01-26T23:20:19Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > Seriously, who reads pages 1 through 2,000 of these threads? What’s the point? Surely there’s a way to escalate or highlight the excellent posts win a thread ithout wading through so much noise – and also preserving the rest of the thread _in situ_ for posterity. Note that this feature exists, but is… for some inexplicable reason… disabled on this forum. Normally you have a “summarize” button docked at the bottom of longer topics: [![](https://i.imgur.com/Tuc03QA.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/Tuc03QA.png) This will collapse the topic into the 10% “best” posts (capped at 100), as measured by likes, replies, bookmarks, read time, etcetera. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/204 "2021-01-27T02:11:31Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > for some inexplicable reason… disabled on this forum Because it’s a terrible fit for the culture of this board? Certainly that’s completely explicable. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/205 "2021-01-27T03:22:44Z")
I know that “likes” were turned off. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/206 "2021-01-27T03:26:45Z")
Not referring to the likes, but the summarization feature. They are related, but not intimately. The Cliff’s Notes version of a topic can be quite handy. [![](https://i.imgur.com/Fgqr1l6.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/Fgqr1l6.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![superwombat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superwombat/32/16616_2.png) [@superwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superwombat)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/207 "2021-01-27T03:55:51Z")
I’d love to see “Estimated Read Time” on some of our more verbose threads where each post probably took the better part of an evening to compose, or the 10K threads. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/208 "2021-01-27T03:56:07Z")
Part of this board’s historical social mores is the expectation that folks will participate fully in a thread, even if it’s 4,000 posts long. “Cliff’s Notes” is cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/209 "2021-01-27T13:54:46Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > The software actually DOES kinda do that. It pokes users if they dominate a thread, for instance. Yes, the software assumes that if posters A, B, and C ask three questions that have complex answers, and poster D gives the complex answers to all three questions, which take considerable length to answer, then poster D is dominating the thread and is told to shut up. The software encourages short and necessarily superficial answers to complex questions. Bad fit for GQ. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/210 "2021-01-27T14:08:32Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Part of this board’s historical social mores is the expectation that folks will participate fully in a thread, even if it’s 4,000 posts long. > > “Cliff’s Notes” is cheating. And given the linear nature of most discussions, I doubt the summarize feature works especially well. I can see it being helpful in a longish thread that starts with a question and has some answers that were upvoted. But having turned off the “upvoting” feature, I doubt that just going by how long a post was open in someone’s browser or how many times it was quoted will be reliable enough to be useful. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > The software actually DOES kinda do that. It pokes users if they dominate a thread, for instance. > > Yes, the software assumes that if posters A, B, and C ask three questions that have complex answers, and poster D gives the complex answers to all three questions, which take considerable length to answer, then poster D is dominating the thread and is told to shut up. > > The software encourages short and necessarily superficial answers to complex questions. Bad fit for GQ. Hmmm. I’ve seen it complain when one poster types a lot of posts in a row, and when two posters go back and forth for a while. I don’t think I have seen it complain about a single long post. Maybe we should look into getting that feature turned off. That IS a bad fit for this board. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/211 "2021-01-27T14:20:28Z")
No, not a single long post. It keeps track of total share a poster makes to a thread, and if that share is more than a certain amount, it tells the poster to shut up. It’s happened to me a couple of times now, when there have been questions asked about complex issues and I’ve done my best to give a good answer. Discourse discourages discourse on complex matters. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/212 "2021-01-27T20:00:32Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > And given the linear nature of most discussions, I doubt the summarize feature works especially well. I can see it being helpful in a longish thread that starts with a question and has some answers that were upvoted. But having turned off the “upvoting” feature, I doubt that just going by how long a post was open in someone’s browser or how many times it was quoted will be reliable enough to be useful. We’ve liked other features that we didn’t expect to. Perhaps if we ever get an admin again we could turn it on for a trial run. At any rate, it sounds like something you can just ignore if it’s not useful. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/213 "2021-01-27T21:36:32Z")
true. And I’ve never seen it in action. hmmm, I actually post on two other Discourse fora. I should go check that out… ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/214 "2021-01-28T01:34:25Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Yes, the software assumes that if posters A, B, and C ask three questions that have complex answers, and poster D gives the complex answers to all three questions, which take considerable length to answer, then poster D is dominating the thread and is told to shut up. Not exactly; the idea is that you’d write one post replying to posters A, B and C with relevant quotes, like so > User A said this response to user A > User B said this response to user B > User C said this response to user C > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Discourse discourages discourse on complex matters. Discourse discourages **excess metadata** in the discussion (theory being write once, read many – favor the reader) through replying 10 times sequentially when you could have written one post with 10 quotes, or two posts with 5 quotes. Discourse does not, _in any form whatsoever_, discourage long posts.\* (Though it is possible to dominate a discussion by replying with a novella to every single other person who replies. I’ve seen this happen, most notably in my personal memory with Trump fans circa 2017. Presumably these retired people with a _lot_ of time on their hands… it’s kind of a war of disproportionate response and it is _extremely_ un fun, depressing, even. But it is also lot of work so you don’t tend to see it that much in the wild.) \* well, there is a an absolute character limit for individual posts, but you’d have to write a whole lot to hit it… let me look it up… it’s 32000 characters by default. Not sure what it is here. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/215 "2021-01-28T01:49:51Z")
Nope, it’s not that I replied separately to separate posters. I got a warning that I had contributed too much to the thread and should shut up. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/216 "2021-01-28T20:00:01Z")
One thing that would be beneficial on a board like this is the ability to selectively throttle down the number of posts a problematic user can make. The mechanism which pops up a message if they post a lot to a thread seems like it could work to ensure domineering users can’t dominate every thread. Some users can dominate threads with posts that are really more distracting than discussion (sometimes known as “sealioning”). Rather than banning those users, it seems like the problem could be managed by limiting how often they could post. Limits could be set like X posts per day in a thread and Y posts per day total. I don’t think there should be a limit for everyone, but rather it should be something that the mods can do as an alternative to banning a user who is generating a lot of flags. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/217 "2021-01-29T02:35:31Z")
@codinghorror , I believe that @Northern_Piper got a nastygram from discourse when he had posted one post to a thread. His was the second post and answered the question in the first post with some cites. Does that sound like something you think ought to happen? What would trigger that? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/218 "2021-01-29T03:03:59Z")
No it wasn’t one post. I got the “shut up” around post 70 in a long thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/219 "2021-01-29T18:52:53Z")
Oh, sorry. I followed the link you sent me, and it went to post 2 in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2021, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/220 "2021-01-29T18:55:18Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > true. And I’ve never seen it in action. > > hmmm, I actually post on two other Discourse fora. I should go check that out… I’ve now tried this on several threads in two other fora. It cuts down long threads to something up to 100 posts, with “n posts hidden” interspersed between the posts it shows. The posts it showed didn’t see especially noteworthy to me, and it was hard to follow the thread. They do tend to be longer-than-average posts, so what it shows is actually something hard to read through. I don’t feel we are missing very much by not having the feature, although since it’s just an option, it seems completely harmless to have it. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723/221 "2021-02-18T22:05:28Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > One thing that would be beneficial on a board like this is the ability to selectively throttle down the number of posts a problematic user can make. Yes, this feature definitely exists and new users are sandboxed in a variety of ways. There’s also an entirely different set of limits that apply to all accounts less than 24 hours old. More at > **[Understanding Discourse Trust Levels](https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-trust-levels/)** > > The user trust system is a fundamental cornerstone of Discourse. Trust levels are a way of… @Northern_Piper I’ll see if we can tone down the message, because it definitely doesn’t say “shut up” … but I’ve heard the criticism before. Softer language might assist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-build-better-forum-software/615723.md?page=12)