We’ll never know exactly what went into the decision, and you can bet your bippy that there’s no going back or changing to something else for some number of years probably larger than 10. This little board does not make anyone any money, as I understand it, and a lot of people have put in a lot of time and effort and grief to make this work (I have been through a couple of processes like that in my career, and I feel for them). I am encouraged by how quickly some things have been fixed since we went live, and the addition of the new themes (I would like a Simple Sam’s Dark theme, please). And I am already learning to turn off or ignore as much of the extraneous crap as possible. So I’m for giving the wizards some time to work their magic, and hoping for the best. Because that’s pretty much all there is.
This.
My knee-jerk first impression was “We hates it! We hates it forever!”
Over time, I’m slowly getting more used to it and not being quite as annoyed, and occasionally seeing things that make me think, “Okay, I might actually turn out to appreciate that, once I get used to it.”
I was perfectly happy with vBulletin. I still can’t tell how I’ll like Discourse when/if I get more comfortable with it.
The SDMB banner is really fugly.
As for functionality… at least this works at all.
The old site was not posting/double posting/404/505/504. I haven’t done enough stuff to have an opinion on the new UI. I think I like the “reply” to a specific post better than the “quote” function. Less repetitive.
Re: Mouseover — in the time that actually loaded you can open three threads on the new site. It was useless for at least the last 5 years.
The Straight Dope Light and Dark themes have a very nice banner, including the words "Fighting ignorance since 1973. (It’s taking longer than we thought.) all arranged and formatted very cleanly. Check it out! I hope that TPTB will eventually have the time to install that banner into Sam’s Simple theme and any other themes that seem popular around here.
Oh, yeah. And TPTB are doing a great job of trying to make this work. I’m sure it will be fine. And yes, maybe it will eventually be a huge improvement. Even if it isn’t, it’s a platform that works with the load we have, which the old set-up wasn’t. I really thought the old board was likely to die, and despite being grumpy about odds and ends, I’m delighted that it’s been rescued. Thank you to everyone who helped make that happen.
It reminds me a lot of a text-only Twitter feed.
I’ll give it some time to shake out, but if we can’t do something to get rid of the approx 45% white space, I don’t foresee me sticking around. I hate it as it is right now, with the need for constant scrolling.
I’m still reserving judgment. Things are different every time I visit, so I’m hopeful that all of the unacceptable crap will be dealt with. The width issue and the endless scrolling are looking to be deal killers.
I like how this change happened and was announced after all of the Charter Members renewed our memberships for two years.
I’m trying to give it a chance, but man there are so many things I hate about the new board. The unbelievably crappy layout, the endless scrolling which besides being annoying, makes it impossible to use the browser search function to find something on a page, the avatars EVERYWHERE (which apparently can’t be hidden like on the old board), the stupid insulting “badges”, the lack of post numbers (no, the stupid scroll bar at the right doesn’t give you that because there is more than one post showing on a page, and it doesn’t display on my phone anyway). I’ll give it a few weeks but I doubt I’m going to stick around unless the mods can perform some fairly miraculous customization. I would literally prefer the old 503 errors to this.
Well, definitely different. I’ll have to walk around and kick the tires before I give it thumbs up/down.
Depends whether you want a tool or a toy. Discourse is for people who want to explore its endless possibilities. vBulletin if you want to get in, perform a simple task and get out.
VBulletin is for people who want sociability over shiny new toy. Discourse is a much more anonymous experience. Its much harder to keep up with friends.
I like it so far. I haven’t had a single time-out, and I’m catching on to some of the little tricks. For instance Made you click! 
it’s kinda cool how it spoilers, using old brackets of [ and ] etc., having the reader to click the blur. Anyway nothing is perfect…we shall see.
Could you elaborate a little about which features cause this to happen?
Personally, I like the threaded conversations better. In a flat format like vBulletin, if someone plops down something in the middle of the thread, people have to ignore them and pretend they’re not there. In a threaded conversation, people who want to talk to others can just go on around them by replying to other people. But to me, this adds to more sociability, not less. And Discourse won’t be a shiny new toy in a few months. It’s just a platform.
No more new posts/posters on the threads page
No more locations/etc that allowed posters to be more individualized
New shiny and fun but really unneeded features have driven some old posters away. I have noticed a few posters from the old boards havent made the switch.
Maybe if the choice of new software had been more open…maybe three options with previews and then a board vote?
Several of my favorite forums have closed. They were all vBulletin. They didn’t always close for the same reasons, however. At least one closed due to security issues (same user name and passwords were used for buying things on their site).
I personally am enjoying this experience a hell of a lot more than vBulletin, which I didn’t think was going to happen. And I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that, at least right now, the majority of voters favor Discourse over vB (49% to 41% at the moment with 73 votes.)
Ah OK. But those are easily fixable. Have you tried the new Straight Dope Light skin? That’s looking a lot more like the old site. And I’ve seen people requesting some of the details on the page, and many of them are changing all the time. Mouseover preview just got added, for instance.
There’s a thread for requesting stuff in the new skin if you’re interested. One Theme To Rule Them All I’ve seen some of your suggestions, and I’ve seen some changes to the skin that have been made pretty recently, so I know it’s constantly changing.
As for old posters not making the switch, it’s only been a couple days. Maybe they’ll arrive shortly?
There really wasn’t any choice to be made. The decision wasn’t made by the mods. It was made by the corporation that owns the board based on a money decision. The board and the mods/admins didn’t have a vote.
Where’s the “other” option? XenForo, Invision Power Board, or even a vBulletin-ish/Discourse-ish hybrid like NodeBB?
I just checked that one out and ya, that’s a nice clean presentation. The thread list is easy to read, the posts are clearly delineated but with subtle boundaries (to avoid visual overload of competing info), additional information is neatly set aside to left/top/bottom in generally smaller/lighter styles.
I would definitely give that site an A.
(I always appreciate well done UI’s and I am amazed at some of the stuff out there like Amazon’s crazy ass trip through the aftermath of an information tornado website).
I would compare the difference between Discourse and vBulletin like the difference between Mac and Windows, with Discourse being more Mac-like and vBulletin being more Windows-like. Obviously people greatly prefer one interface or the other. If you are forced to use your non-preferred OS, you’ll be able to figure things out, but you may not love the new way. I wonder if Discourse will attract people who prefer a Mac-like interface while the people who like the Windows interface may hang out on more traditionally formatted boards.