Posted by yxibow on June 20, 2009, at 5:22:00
In reply to Forum Software - Worst ^gazillion, posted by desolationrower on June 19, 2009, at 7:22:34
> if you are away for a week, threads scroll to the archive and are hard to find, especially if looking to make sure you reply to things you posted to. can't easily read through threads. can't easily search. no avatars, just faceless text (which is especially bad, since many people are here in need of human contact, but the software seems designed to keep posts as depersonalized as possible.)
>
> I have never run a webforum but i don't understand how every other site manages basic functionality except this one.
>
> -d/r
Well this is a sort of "roll your own" set of Perl CGI scripts with forms and basic HTML 4x from what I can tell.And then there's the Google indexing which I highly disapprove of -- this post will be there soon.
Most "Web 2.0" boards that people subscribe to, e.g. what I've mentioned before, fan boards for music bands, discussion forms for cell providers, etc, are run usually on hosting providers with servers running Linux or Windows back-end.They have commercial software, usually vBulletin, sometimes Lithium, and some other ones, which have complex Java/Javascripting, CAPTCHA signup codes, "Avatars" -- your name with sometimes an icon next to it, buttons for reply and the like, usually a theme colour for the board -- I must say the plain black on white here is better for my vision -- continuing....
...the posting box has smilies, a choice of displaying HTML and vBscript (bleh), a main owner of the board, moderators (really vile and degrading, e.g. racist, ad-hominem trashy postings are just erased or edited and people are warned they may be deleted from the board, sometimes), a choice of displaying whether you're "online" (that is you logged into the board), a choice of PM (private messaging) people and a choice of having that on or off (that's usually vBulletin)....
...etc.
I can understand the frustration but as you said, you've never run a web forum.I would imagine that this forum, either with Dr. Bob himself or with computer support help, has many hundreds of lines of Perl code, it runs the ubiquitously used Apache server with Perl extensions which I've run, on FreeBSD.
vBulletin (by far the largest used), and Lithium, and others -- those are closed source software typically. They cost money, may have per so many user licenses, or commercial or non profit licenses, etc. So already you're paying for it.
And then you have to customize it, not a completely easy task at all.
And there is a huge database behind it, I am sure this site has a back-end database of users and passwords.
And finally the hosting fees and traffic fees.
While I disagree with the rules here, this is admittedly an admirable study (I'd prefer it be private than Googled) of internet therapy that you aren't paying a dime for.
Typically those sites, which number many and many, the vBulletin ones... they have contributors, to the cost of vBulletin and to the bandwidth, which on huge fan sites is incredibly large to host on a domain and service provider (e.g. GoDaddy or 1&1 Internet, etc).Well I've out-geeked myself here, but just pointing out some pros and cons.
If you want a really slick board, Dr Bob would have to get a huge grant in this recession or people here would have to start PayPal donations.-- tidings
Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:902012
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090529/msgs/902218.html