Can I throw away my WordPress installation?

[dandv]

There is an incredible resistance in the PhPBB community to move forward, simply because many PhPBB community members don't understand how end user behavior has changed as a result of Web 2.0. For example, there is no default E-mail notifications in PhPBB. You have to hack it yourself. THis was my end users number 1 complaint. Yes, they WANT to be notified by default when someone replies to any of their contributions. This is new behavior - thanks to Facebook, Twitter and the likes. Users need this, otherwise, they will never come back to your site, because thousands of pieces of content on the web are calling them for their attention. WP has this by default, but the PhPBB old timers resist this simply because they "don't want to be spammed". It's just a very different culture from the Modern Web 2.0 world of blogging and social networking.

PhPBB could use some solid Web 2.0 product management to bring it into the 21st Century.

I just wanted to say "Amen" to that. It was amazing to me how virulently some have opposed even clean, user-friendly URLs, let alone threaded views, even though these features are used by most modern social knowledge sharing sites (reddit, Disqus, Instant Debate, Wikipedia etc.), and even by older ones (Slashdot).

Oh, and e-mail notifications of discussion replies - duh! Of course you want them enabled by default for new users! Alas, that can only be done with a mod, which has been abandoned for 3 years and is currently broken. Assuming humans will 1) remember to check back periodically to see if they actually got a reply to a question, and 2) actually do so, betrays a complete lack of knowledge about basic human psychology.

Couple these painfully obviously neglected aspects with the (almost?) complete lack of AJAX usage, the fact that MODs need to hack core (Dupal's #1 rule, printed on t-shirts, is "Don't hack core") and phpBB looks (structurally) like a pre-Y2K forum. This despite it having 6+ years of development prior to newer contenders such as Vanilla Forums, which do get a lot of things right, out of the core, without 3rd party MODs.

I'm not saying these to criticize phpBB; rather, I'd like to gently advance the idea that the better way to discard the weight of the legacy might be to have a code rewrite. MyBB is doing it, replacing their spaghetti code and antiquated concepts with modern code written for a PHP framework. Arguments for why a complete rewrite done by the same developers is actually a great idea (contrary to what's commonly touted), can be found in this excellent essay.

[/a3]

Oh, and e-mail notifications of discussion replies - duh! Of course you want them enabled by default for new users! Alas, that can only be done with a mod, which has been abandoned for 3 years and is currently broken. Assuming humans will 1) remember to check back periodically to see if they actually got a reply to a question, and 2) actually do so, betrays a complete lack of knowledge about basic human psychology.

Yes, perhaps it should be reconsidered if topic subscriptions are enabled by default for users or not. Just for reference, there is an option in the UCP which allows auto-subscription to topics which the user posts to (Notify me upon replies by default), although it is not enabled by default.

I don't see why that's so painfully obvious that you have to scream out "duh!" though. To many users such notifications might be annoying.

Couple these painfully obviously neglected aspects with the (almost?) complete lack of AJAX usage

There has already been discussion on this for such pages (eg. Your message has been posted.).

the fact that MODs need to hack core (Dupal's #1 rule, printed on t-shirts, is "Don't hack core")

There is already work underway on hooks to minimise core edits. For phpBB4, perhaps this will disappear.

It was amazing to me how virulently some have opposed even clean, user-friendly URLs

Did you even read the proposition? It was that title text would be used as well as the topic ID. That means that the number is still there. The URL is no shorter than what it previously was. Perhaps it will make people happier because the funny looking question mark thingy isn't there.

[DavidIQ]

Oh, and e-mail notifications of discussion replies - duh! Of course you want them enabled by default for new users! Alas, that can only be done with a mod, which has been abandoned for 3 years and is currently broken. Assuming humans will 1) remember to check back periodically to see if they actually got a reply to a question, and 2) actually do so, betrays a complete lack of knowledge about basic human psychology.

Yes, perhaps it should be reconsidered if topic subscriptions are enabled by default for users or not. Just for reference, there is an option in the UCP which allows auto-subscription to topics which the user posts to (Notify me upon replies by default), although it is not enabled by default.

I don't see why that's so painfully obvious that you have to scream out "duh!" though. To many users such notifications might be annoying.

That is why they are disabled by default. And really to change this is a one line fix
I've used many different forum software and they all seem to not auto-opt you into these subscriptions so perhaps there really is no "duh" factor there except to say that it would be considered spamming. The change there could be that users are given the option to auto-subscribe to topics at registration but doing it without their consent is not something that we would likely be pursuing.

The rest has been well covered by /a3

[Sierron]

I never have automated subscriptions activated at any board I'm on. Just the topics I want to informed about I will subscribe. But default on? God, imagine a lively board with over 200 active users. You will get spammed the hell out.

It was amazing to me how virulently some have opposed even clean, user-friendly URLs,

Eye candy

let alone threaded views,

That's nothing new. That's more like years ago that was used.

MyBB is doing it, replacing their spaghetti code and antiquated concepts with modern code written for a PHP framework.

MyBB is a complete different story. That forum software is much simpler than phpbb3 and also less functional. You need to add hundreds of plugins before you have some basic functionality like pm's or attachments...

Did you even read the proposition? It was that title text would be used as well as the topic ID. That means that the number is still there. The URL is no shorter than what it previously was. Perhaps it will make people happier because the funny looking question mark thingy isn't there.

I love my question mark.

I only use clean urls, to make my own much shorter. instead of /index.php?category=thiscategory&file=thisfile ==> /thiscategory,thisfile.html . There i see a reason for doing so, but a forum software which uses the topic titles will just add much more work needed to get the topic. Not to beginning with topics with the same name...

[dandv]

I never have automated subscriptions activated at any board I'm on. Just the topics I want to informed about I will subscribe. But default on? God, imagine a lively board with over 200 active users. You will get spammed the hell out.

What I'm advocating is default subscription to the topics you start or reply to. It doesn't matter how many active users there are, or how lively the board is. You'll only get notified of what you've contribute to, because obviously you've had an interest in it. Also, every notification e-mail you receive has an unsubscribe link in it. Also, you only get notified ONCE, no matter how many replies there have been until you visit the forum again.

What the opponents to this suggestion don't seem to understand is that defaults matter, A LOT.

Opt-in doesn't work, due to human psychology: people are way less likely to opt into a service that has dubious benefits (do I want notifications about this topic? What if I get too many?), and opting in takes effort.

For example, consider organ donation in case of a fatal traffic accident: in Germany, which uses an opt-in system, only 12 percent give their consent; in Austria, which uses opt-out, nearly everyone (99 percent) does. The only difference is in the organ donor registration form:

Germany: Check this box if you would like to be an organ donor.
Austria: Check this box if you would not like to be an organ donor.

It was amazing to me how virulently some have opposed even clean, user-friendly URLs,

Eye candy

I roll my eyes at another ignorant comment. Have you read the Wikipedia article I linked to? There are a lot of usability advantages to clean URLs, beyond aesthetics. Please read my extensive list of arguments for clean URLs, and refutation of counter-arguments. If you have an unaddressed issue (more cogently expressed than "eye candy"), I'd love to hear it.

let alone threaded views,

That's nothing new. That's more like years ago that was used.

No. Reddit, Disqus, Intense Debate, and many other new social news systems use threaded views. Anyway, I've argued extensively for threaded views, and addressed all rational objections here - http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... #p13012833 (BTW, does that URL by itself tell you anything? What if I pasted by mistake another URL? Would I realize it?)

MyBB is a complete different story. That forum software is much simpler than phpbb3 and also less functional. You need to add hundreds of plugins before you have some basic functionality like pm's or attachments...

What in the world are you talking about? Attachments and PMs are included out of the box (it's Vanilla Forums that needs a MOD for attachments). MyBB has WAY more features than phpBB, in a fresh installation. Try it out at http://demo.forum-software.org/mybb/admin/index.php (nice URL, eh?) The user/pass is admin/admindemo.

Did you even read the proposition? It was that title text would be used as well as the topic ID. That means that the number is still there. The URL is no shorter than what it previously was. Perhaps it will make people happier because the funny looking question mark thingy isn't there.

The point is not only to make the URL shorter, but easier to grok, spell out, and type. See my comment above on rational objections to clean URLs.

I love my question mark.

A question mark implies an equal sign per URL parameter. Equal signs are a bit nasty to type on mobile devices. And more and more people are using mobile devices nowadays. Do you have some rational reason why you like the question mark?

Look, we don't need to point fingers to who's right or wrong here. We're debating ideas. I don't care if a good idea is mine or yours. Let's admit that some ideas are generally useful, even if we personally don't like them, and move on. If the only argument against an idea is that it takes work to do it, then that's only an indication that it's valuable. As always, you get what you pay (work) for, and There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

[RMcGirr83]

Alas, that can only be done with a mod, which has been abandoned for 3 years and is currently broken.

It isn't broken at all nor is it abandoned. Not sure where you got that information unless by using Automod the find couldn't be found which, if I were a QA software engineer as you purport, I would look at the file in question to see what the problem was.

http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/n ... 73#p219873

Line 315 within the includes/ucp/ucp_register.php file

Code: Select all

					'user_inactive_time'	=> $user_inactive_time,

I roll my eyes at another ignorant comment.

I roll my eyes at ignorant/unfounded comments all the time...such as yours above.

[dandv]

Alas, that can only be done with a mod, which has been abandoned for 3 years and is currently broken.

It isn't broken at all nor is it abandoned. Not sure where you got that information

From the MOD page: "Last updated Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:42 pm". As you noticed from the screenshot I posted in its forum, the mod doesn't install in the current phpBB. Hence, to a new phpBB user, this MOD looked "broken and abandoned".

Anyway, I'm glad you're still looking after the mod, and thanks for replying to my post and posting a fix.

[sooskriszta]

worldsight, you have made an excellent point. When you get down to the very core of it, blogging and bb software are very similar to say the least. If this were 10 years ago, I would agree with most of what you have said.

However, this is 2011, and users are very very demanding in terms of what they expect from their software. The "usage" of the two is different. Consequently, as Oleg has pointed out, there is a litany of specialist features that mark differences...many of these are tiny, e.g.
- a blog orders posts by time of original post while a bb orders them by time of last post
- a blog, more often than not, requires a great deal of rich post editing capability, compared to a forum, where the post editor can be fairly rudimentary
- a blog requires a great deal of flexibility with regards to how much of a snippet/preview of the content is shown
- a bb requires a much greater deal of nested organisation capability while a blog is more or less flat
- a blog requires greater flexibility in sorting and nesting of comments...forums are flatter at topic level...in that respect, each blog post is like a board, rather than a topic....and don't even get me started on the new-fangled ideas like Disqus and Intense debate
- a blog typically is concerned with trackback and pingback when it comes to comments, while in forum topic replies, most people couldn't care less
- tags and cross-promotion are quite important for blogs
- in blogs, usually, there is a small set of users (lets say admins) who can create posts/topics, but almost anyone can reply/comment....(although, admittedly, this can be done relatively easily using phpbb)
- several cosmetic, but still big differences
etc etc etc
While most of these when taken in isolation appear very small, when taken together, the flexibility/configurability demanded of the system creates a level of complexity that is best left out of a single system. Simple skinning won't do.

I would rather have my bb software separate from my blog software.

That being said, there is a massive demand for "integration" of bb and blog software. This should not be misconstrued to mean that the 2 should be merged. A request for integration is just that - a request for integration. Similar to bb-blog integration, there are plenty of demands for (many to many) integration among blog, cms, ecommerce, bb, photogallery, wiki, etc

But phpbb team would do well to listen to these requests....people want to use several different software, and they want them to play together. At the very least, they want SSO among these software.

The phpbb team also needs to think about the strategy as a company.

Perhaps due to the numerous "integration" requests as well as inadequacy of phpbb on several fronts (while phpbb is awesome, it is for a great very many user too complex and lacks some basic things that many users care about such as one-click upgrades, extensibility and pretty URLs), the Wordpress team have launched bbpress (worldsight, as you will note, Wordpress didn't build the forum within the blog software, but rather as a separate software because the differences are material enough). While bbpress is an infant compared to phpbb, it should give the team a lot to think about. While it may not look possible at the moment, bbpress threatens to make phpbb disappear into a has-been oblivion within a couple of years if the phpbb team do not speedily improve upon certain aspects. The thought of a rewrite from ground up (which seems to be the idea behind 4.0) will be a massive step backwards and should be abandoned.

To compete effectively, phpbb should focus on rapid deployment of frequently requested features -
- one-click upgrades,
- extensibility (hooks),
- pretty URLs,
- configurable themes like Wordpress Weaver
- user agent detection and mobile themes
- multilingual installations
- integration with akismet,
- integration with gravatars,
- integration with wordpress, joomla, and gallery 3

Additionally, the phpbb team should consider whether or not it wants to diversify by creating a blogging software (which could reuse SOME of phpbb code)

[dandv]

The thought of a rewrite from ground up (which seems to be the idea behind 4.0) will be a massive step backwards and should be abandoned.

I would think, on the contrary, that trying to go forward with the current code base (one that suffers from such essential architectural flaws as the lack of hooks) would be a dooming idea. The current code base is, in my opinion, a ballast, a legacy that would pull phpBB down, and I support a rewrite from the ground up. Let's use what was learned from developing phpBB, the test cases (if any), and start afresh.

To compete effectively, phpbb should focus on rapid deployment of frequently requested features -
- one-click upgrades,
- extensibility (hooks),
- pretty URLs,
- configurable themes like Wordpress Weaver
- user agent detection and mobile themes

Also, integration with SSO systems: OpenID, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo!. A *lot* of users (approximately 30% on my board) prefer to just sign in with their Facebook (or Twitter, if I had it enabled) account, and not have to bother with re-entering their details for every forum.

[sooskriszta]

The thought of a rewrite from ground up (which seems to be the idea behind 4.0) will be a massive step backwards and should be abandoned.

I would think, on the contrary, that trying to go forward with the current code base (one that suffers from such essential architectural flaws as the lack of hooks) would be a dooming idea. The current code base is, in my opinion, a ballast, a legacy that would pull phpBB down, and I support a rewrite from the ground up. Let's use what was learned from developing phpBB, the test cases (if any), and start afresh.

In this article viewtopic.php?f=75&t=41583 Joel Spolsky argues that, in fact, most software should almost never be rewritten from ground up, even though the idea almost always seems very appealing. And I agree.

P.S. If I understand correctly, 3.0 actually has a hook system that no one uses and 3.1 will feature easier-to-use hooks. viewtopic.php?f=84&t=32805

To compete effectively, phpbb should focus on rapid deployment of frequently requested features -
- one-click upgrades,
- extensibility (hooks),
- pretty URLs,
- configurable themes like Wordpress Weaver
- user agent detection and mobile themes

Also, integration with SSO systems: OpenID, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo!. A *lot* of users (approximately 30% on my board) prefer to just sign in with their Facebook (or Twitter, if I had it enabled) account, and not have to bother with re-entering their details for every forum.

Not sure what point you are making here, but it seems to dovetail into the idea that people care about SSO...even if they can't use Facebook with your website, at the very least they expect all parts of your website to have single registration, signon etc