Is Vanilla a great choice for a multi-community site?

korsakov

I am torn between Vanilla and Phorum while I am trying to choose a forum application that lends itself to support a (very sizable) multi-community site. The support of the Phorum lead developers is great vs. (unfortunately) non existing on the Vanilla side. My admittedly not very educated opinion is also telling me that Phorum might be a more stable product although it is missing some neat features Vanilla is offering. I`d be happy if someone could give me advice. Thanks for any input!

SubJunk

I use Vanilla on forums with thousands of active participants so I can verify that it is good for large communities. As for non-existent support for Vanilla, I and others dedicate hours of our spare time to helping the Vanilla community, I don't think that could be called non-existent support

korsakov

Thank you for your comment! With my opinion about the support on this panel I was referring to the lead developer ,~)

Raize

I've recieved great support here for my Vanilla installation! Everyone is very patient and I appreciate the help I've recieved so far

SubJunk

Ah I see what you mean. Well I don't know anything about the support the lead developer provides, but one of the coolest things about open source products like this is that anyone can be an expert if they spend enough time learning it. It can be argued that the lead developer will always know more than others, but that extra knowledge is probably negligible when it comes to 99% of support questions.
Anyway I can't say that Vanilla is better than Phorum for everyone, but I think it is very good and it is my preferred forum software. I wish you luck with whichever forum software you choose.

WallPhone

Mark is focusing his attention on Vanilla 2 at this point. It's a little misnamed as it would be the fourth (I believe) rewrite of what is now Vanilla. Its probably better he isn't poking his nose around in his old ideas. It's also a good thing the community is able to thrive on its own.

fmimoso

Furthermore, the problem isn't Vanilla. Vanilla works like a charm. As its name suggests it's a simple core, nothing more.

The problem lies in the add-ons. The basic behavior is:

-> discovers Vanilla
-> spends some minutes around and says "WOW, this is cool"
-> questions some stuff here
-> decides to use it
-> begins to install add-ons
-> doesn't find one feature that really wants
-> develops an add-on
-> releases it to the public
-> will be around the forums for some time, maybe months
-> answers every question about his add-on and improves it
-> gets bored, has a baby or his project didn't go through
-> leaves
-> we get an orphan add-on that won't be updated and eventually will break some installation
-> sometime later someone else will install it, and it won't work
-> puts his problem here, but as the original add-on developer isn't around anymore won't get a solution
-> the above happens with some more add-ons
-> annoyed, says that there isn't any support and quits the idea of installing Vanilla

So, this is what's happening. The support of the lead developer is given by Dinoboff, he's always here, but neither he neither everyone can help you out about every other extension.
If you only install the core, you'll get every support you need. If you install extensions, see above.

Dinoboff

Mark is working on Garden - the framework Vanilla 2 will use - since summer 2007 and mostly left Vanilla 1 support to some users. The ones that give support after each release are the ones that committed that changes that break your forum.

squirrel

-> we get an orphan add-on that won't be updated and eventually will break some installation
-> sometime later someone else will install it, and it won't work
-> puts his problem here, but as the original add-on developer isn't around anymore won't get a solution

That is a problem but projects like Vanilla Friends are trying to address it.

Raize

fmimoso is bang on...one of Vanilla's biggest strengths is the awesome extensions and how easy they are to implement. Ironically, this is also the biggest weakness right now since you are limited to using extensions which have been updated for the specific version of Vanilla you are using. This then becomes an incentive not to upgrade to newer versions. For example, when Vanilla 2 comes out, I can be that most of the extensions I am using right now won't be compatible unless they are updated (if the original developer of the extension is even around). The only best option, then, is to learn the programming language of Vanilla and it's extensions so that you can support yourself and at the same time learn a thing or two about coding...which is actually very beneficial in the long run.

jacmoe

Yes, that's the best way. And - of course: do upload your fixed orphan extensions. :) It would be nice to auto-tag the dormant extensions, so that users know that they are about to download an unmaintained plugin.

squirrel

But some dormant extensions work just fine. And some active extensions aren't so good. I would like to see a "distribution" of extensions that have been code-reviewed and tested against each other for conflicts. I wouldn't mind pulling down a 500k package of extensions if I could be sure they all work properly.

SubJunk

I'm working on a website that will offer ways to verify extensions as a community. I'll post here when a beta is ready for testing.

Max_B

When I came aboard this boat, two years ago, I had also refined my search to Vanilla and Phorum. IIRC, one reason I did not use Phorum was because it was not completely UTF-8 compliant. This might have been addressed since, but check it out if you need multilingual capability.

jacmoe

squirrelBut some dormant extensions work just fine. And some active extensions aren't so good.

Of course.
But I think it is important to know if the author is still around, or has left the building.
If he/she has, then I know that I need to fix bugs myself.