C’mon folks, that is not likely to happen. Message boards are obsolescent media. It might continue to limp along as it is, it might sputter and fail. But I really doubt it will be revitalized in any meaningful way.
And I prefer being called realistic to cynical .
I don’t like Discourse. But I don’t particularly hate it, either. It’s annoying but tolerable. I would have much preferred the XenForo option, but sadly the powers-that-be have so far refused to grant me the responsibility-free absolute authority I crave.
I feel the need to mention that I don’t have numbers to put on my previous calculated estimate of ‘shitload’ and that there could be other factors at work that make it appear as though a lot of data is whizzing around.
The first is that my phone gets hot to the touch when browsing SDMB using over the air tower data. I don’t recall this ever happening before and I associate it with more modem use, both sending & receiving, and the processor power needed for additional data. This also guzzled battery life, of course. However, I did have to move to a new mobile browser since Discourse doesn’t allow my primary one: Opera Mobile. BTW, Opera Desktop works fine. So I’m using Chrome with just a single tab open but some extra heat may be due to this second browser which has a bit of a history of being unkind to system resources.
The second is that things really slow down during my unfortunately frequent periods in 3G dataland. It simply isn’t as snappy as it used to be and my assumption is that it’s because there’s more to move on the same small pipe. I’m happy to be proven otherwise.
Next are ads. The board basically has until May next year to get this figured out or my direct payments stop. The “Pray for Trump” ad with a graphic of hands clasped in prayer just isn’t an acceptable use of my data.
Last, the embedded stuff can’t help but be more data intensive. Article previews, youtube thumbnails, onebox insertions simply must use more data than the old text site. I wish these all could be disabled when on mobile. They seem ok, maybe even good when on the desktop and wifi.
Discourse automatically checks for new content so the board is requesting data more often than previously. That’s the culprit, not the amount of data per se. Before the switch you would do this manually. On mobile, you could try quitting your browser when you’re not using it and/or using the DiscourseHub app since it’s nearly featureless. I don’t know if there’s a way to change this server side.
I like the functionality of Discourse but I think the visual style could do with some work. I liked how obvious the “read” vs “unread” threads appeared in Vbulletin. Overall I think Discourse is an improvement.
Maybe. What are the characteristics of message boards that make them obsolescent media?
I’ve read people posting that Discourse is too much like Reddit or Twitter for their taste because it’s not a flat style interface. Both Reddit and Twitter are doing fine. Like Discourse, Reddit and Twitter have a combination of text and images. How are what you’re calling message boards different than those types of media?
Why do you feel that those types of media are doing well, but message boards are not?
I’m a software developer and I built a conversation platform very similar to Discourse/vBulletin about 8 years ago. I’m currently in the middle of a rewrite to bring it up to modern age. I fear that our new software will get much of the same criticism as we are hearing here and I want to understand the criticism more than I currently do. Please help fight my ignorance.
From my (software developer) perspective, the Discourse is almost functionally identical to that of vBulletin.
Sure, there are some old features missing and there are some new features that we don’t like. The layout and some colours have changed and some buttons have different labels but, fundamentally, Discourse is, to. me, the same kind of “thing” as vBulletin.
By contrast, Facebook is not like vBulletin or Discourse. Twitter is not like vBulletin or Discourse. They are very different kinds of “thing”.
How does Discourse differ from vBulletin? Is it the aesthetic that you don’t like or is it something more fundamental?
MyBB sounds and interesting and if it’s open source it would be cheaper than either vBulletin or Discourse, right? Did anyone seriously consider that and could it be an option in the future?
Personally I can tolerate Discourse but I would prefer something that looks more like vBulletin.
But the FAQ has nothing at all to do with Discourse vs. vBulletin!
Those are the guidelines for SDMB. It was probably the same on the old board. Nothing to do with Discourse. Those guidelines were created by the SDMB moderators.
It’s a little of both. I might compare it to the difference in presentation style between the NY Times and USA Today. Even if both papers had the same content, the different presentation styles will appeal to different people.
But the way the threads are presented in Discourse is making the threads less engaging for me. One reason is the lack of pagination. With pagination, I have a sense of where in a thread a particular aspect of the discussion was being made. I might have known something was said X pages back, sort of like with pages or chapters of a book. It made it easier to go back and refresh my memory about certain points. With the infinite scroll of Discourse, I don’t have that same mental placement of the discussion. To go back and find a point of discussion with the new board is more work than I want to put into it, so I don’t bother.
Another reason is the collapsed quotes. I know I can click to open the quote, but again, it’s more work than I want to put into it. It makes it a little harder to follow the discussion when I have to open the quote to see what a person is replying to. So I typically don’t bother.
It’s these kinds of things that make me have less affinity for the boards. It seems more casual now and more for just light browsing rather than having deep discussions and serious debates. You’re right that it’s essentially the same as the old board, but there are enough differences that the experience isn’t the same.
I’ve heard that the moderators looked very carefully at a number of different bulletin board options over a period of months before deciding on Discourse.
It was considered and discussed in detail. It wasn’t an impulse decision.
I don’t think there’s anything fundamental with the tech behind discourse. I do think there’s something fundamental about the mentality of the product team. I think if they fixed a few major things, the board would be at parity or way ahead of vBulletin in every area:
Abandon infinite scroll in favor of pagination, or at least make a user option for pagination. I’m on record as saying that I think the Discourse team has done a great job with infinite scroll, but it still requires an always-on, low-latency network connection to work well. It requires more data and more battery for mobile devices, and doesn’t really allow preloading of much content. Discourse has pagination as part of their NOSCRIPT implementation, but they obviously don’t care about it because it’s barely useable.
Cut out the nannying bullshit: no more telling people they’re posting too much, or replying to the same person too much. And for god’s sake, no more removing content the user intentionally quoted.
Don’t allow users to delete posts. If they want to edit it down to ‘n/m’ in their 5-minute edit window, fine, but ‘delete’ just seems like a broken feature.
Have you heard of the Satir Change Model? It was originally about making changes within a relationship like a marriage but it seems to apply to all kinds of change, including the introduction of new software. It tries to explain what happens when someone or something interrupts the status quo.
(just check out the image here - bummer that I can’t just post the image)
People have a mental model that the change should be making things better (otherwise, why would we even make this change, right?). But it doesn’t get better right away. It gets worse. Much worse. Not everyone experiences every change this way but enough seem to that it’s a useful way to think about what to expect.
People should expect things to get worse because there’s always an inevitable period of chaos. Some people are ready to give up but those who don’t will eventually find the higher plane where things get better.
I can’t promise that everyone will eventually find this higher plane but I expect that most will. Future Dopers will laugh “Remember how we used to think vBulletin was better than Discourse! Hahahaha!”.
If you haven’t read Dinsdale’s testimony in this thread, you should check it out:
A few days later…
My advice to anyone still struggling with the new design is to try to find a place of Zen. If you still can’t figure out how to get around and read and reply, ask for some help.
If you are already reading and replying, you are 90% of the way there. Just let everything else wash over you and withhold judgment for a while. Maybe it will get better for you too.
Dayum! So these new boards let me know my name was being taken in vain in a thread I’ve never even opened! Don’t recall ever seeing that sorta thing in the old place.
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