Vanilla vs. Kareha: which is better for your users?

shii

Here is a quick comparison between Vanilla and Kareha ( http://wakaba.c3.cx/ ). My opinion, in seven points. Feel free to point out logcial mistaeks or start a lively flamewar.

1. When can a user start posting? What effect does this have on the popularity of your forum?
   Vanilla: A user cannot start posting immediately. He must wait for administrator approval. More likely, he will be annoyed by the hassle of registration and forget about posting.
   Kareha: A user may post as soon as he reads a thread. There is no wait and no need for registration. The quick reply field practically invites discussion.

2. How "exclusive" is the forum?
   Vanilla: Tries to entice new users with "Did you know that there is a whole world of functionality you're not seeing? ... If you don't have an account, you can apply for one now." In short, pretends to be an fancy resort in the Bahamas when it is really just an Internet forum. Additionally, the "quick PM" feature encourages forming cliques among users.
   Kareha: Shows you the posts and gives you a box to reply in. No illusions that might encourage haughtiness or cliques. You are just someone chatting, not a "member".

3. How secure is a user's identity?
   Vanilla: A user must stick to a single identity. If someone wishes to stalk him they have access to all his posts.
   Kareha: A user may give anything as her name, verify her identity with a simple tripcode, or use no identity at all. If someone wishes to stalk her they will soon have second thoughts.

4. How do you start a thread?
   Vanilla: How, indeed? (alright, this is just a stylesheet issue...)
   Kareha: Fill out a subject and post right on the front page.

5. What sort of people will come to your forum?
   Vanilla: Only the people who are lifeless enough to go through the whole registration process despite the waste of time, and then bored enough to come back to the forum when their registration is actually approved.
   Kareha: Anyone with knowledge or an opinion to share.

6. How prone is the board to trolling? What sort of /identities/ will come to your forum?
   Vanilla: "Fora with only registered accounts are like a garden full of flowers of vanity a troll would just love to pick." --some guy
   Kareha: "If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, 'it's boring,' if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work." --the administrator of the largest Internet forum in the world, 2ch

7. How easy is it to read threads?
   Vanilla: The same as any other damn forum. How is Vanilla all that different from phpBB, anyway?
   Kareha: You can read the threads right on the category page.

davidcollantes

I am sorry, but I took a look at the forum you mention (Kareha) and there is no way to compare. They are a mess! It is pretty much like oranges and lemons, both citrics... but nothing else in common. :-)

Ben

You're right David; there can be no contest.
Oh and the admin-aproval of users can be turned off.

Mark

I like your icon, shii :)

jesusphreak

shii, since most of your points are based off the concept that users have to have admin approval before posting (which is flawed), this comparison is pretty poor. Plus its ridiculously biased.

How easy is it to read threads?
Vanilla: The same as any other damn forum. How is Vanilla all that different from phpBB, anyway?

Not really. You have a front category page on phpBB and IPB. In Vanilla you just have a list of threads. Pretty big difference.

Also, to be honest without being rude, I just checked out these other forums you were speaking of, and it confused the heck out of me. The interface isn't intuitive at all, imo.

And quite honestly, I'd rather have registration, PMs, etc, because IT BUILDS A COMMUNITY. That's what forums are for. If I just want to chat and goof around, I'll use IRC. Vanilla gets away from a lot of the complexity of other boards, yet it still keeps its functionality.

The forum you listed just feels a bit like a guestbook.

This is a further explanation of shii's viewpoint

Your whole concept is based off anonmyity and how that is a good thing. Well, it might be a good thing for you, and it might even be a good thing for the Japanese, but Americans/Westerners tend to be much more individualistic. I don't want to sit there and anonymously post comments and never get recognized for them being mine.

I respect your opinion, I just don't think you understand that the vast majority of Westerners WOULD NOT enjoy such a board as you are linking.

jesusphreak

And really...what the hell is this?

Mark

That is a dream come true!

Kosmo

I'm sorry, I really am, but Shii, you really should consider learning what objective comparision means, you are being WAY too subjective for that to be anything but a really lame joke that actually only makes the one-celled lifeforms only known as Kahera users (oh no, am I being blatantly subjective) laugh. But keep on going and you might get yourself douchebagged. :edit: Now they should be right eh?

jesusphreak

Kosmo, I think you mean it the other way around. He's being very "subjective" when he should be "objective" if he is to be taken seriously.

Kosmo

Oh right... sorry, bitey made me do it.

lech

Wakaba is also written in perl, the only place I think I have seen that board used is on 4chan and that place is a damn mess. But we won't go there. Vanilla is much cleaner when you get down to it in terms of simplicity and usability-wise, it's probably the best thing I've encountered so far.

ADM

Hi shii. I stumbled upon Kareha awhile ago and thought it was actually quite nifty but it confused me alot, I don't think I could post at a site running that. The reason I thought it was quite nifty was because it looked like a perfect forum for me to start coding as it's not very advanced at all. As David Collantes said you can't compare those forums together, they're way too different. It's up to you which one you're more comfortable with. For me it's this.

davidcollantes

The hotlinking of their image (their "mascot") might not be a good thing to do though.. Just thinking out loud.

jesusphreak

The hotlinking of their image (their "mascot") might not be a good thing to do though.. Just thinking out loud.

I would do something about it, but these forums don't get that much traffic relatively.

Krak

gah! thats all I have to add, just, gah!

Minisweeper

I think jesusphreak summed up pretty much what i was thinking. But since you were sensible enough to do it in a point by point summary for reference: 1. I believe this matter has been discussed previously, and someone was considering making an anonymous post extension so people could use the board in a similar way to Kareka. 2. I really dont see the problem with mark talking it up a bit - i'd rather see that than 'please make an account, we're all really very boring'. Course you could always change that in the dictionary if you so wished. And i'm not sure what you mean by the 'Quick PM' thing - if you're talking about whispers then theyre no longer a default function of the forum. 3. I'd really hope noone would bother stalking people - and i'm not entirely sure what you mean by that anyway. A user has the ability to hide ALL personal information, and they have the ability to change their username by default for what benefit this might have. If someone was stalking you, my idea would be to get them out or get yourself out anyway. 4. In all honesty i've sometimes sat looking at the page wondering this myself till i slap myself for being so retarded (no i'm not being sarcastic). It is pretty simple to be fair. 5. I'd say we had a pretty good community going here - 50+ people who obviously check back regularly and the remaining 1000 who obviously have better things to do with their time and check less often or just came to ask something. Most people who were worth their time of day and thought of the community likewise, would probably be willing to sign up in the knowledge that the people they were posting amongst were likeminded. Kareha seems to make no community feel or build relationships between people unless they use the same username all the time. 6. Trolling is part of the fun of forums in my opinion. When someone here is having a serious discussion i feel that due to the feel of the community most users respect their views, if someone didnt i'd hope that most people have the ability to rise above it or take themselves down to the level and have a bit of fun and games. I'd imagine an open forum would leave itself to much more abuse and doesnt have any more ability to hold an 'accurate argument' - chances are in a registration based forum people will be much more likely to bring up and accurate argument otherwise people will judge it against their name. 7. I'd like to see you have 50 discussions comprising of 1-1000 posts in a single page. Is a click *really* that much more effort than scrolling down the page? I'd say it was less. Thankyou for your time.

the aloha

although i agree that oftentimes cliques develop, i don't see how people can stay anonymous. they like to talk about themselves and will figure out ways of establishing a pecking order despite a software package.

lime

Very good point the aloha. I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not I like PMs/Whispers for that reason.

nathan

*bites tounge*

nathan

Sorry. I can't bite the tounge any longer (blood pouring from mouth). I just found this: http://wakaba.c3.cx/sup/kareha.pl/1127092367 I think they think mark stole their software logo? At least the design (not a direct rip). WTF?

jesusphreak

nathan, I just see someone named "Anonymous" doing a lot of bashing. Who is this guy? He seems pretty busy on those boards. ;) Some of the people on that site have been outright hostile towards Vanilla, and I really don't understand why. Why give a forum like Vanilla, which is trying to be different than all the other IPB-clone forums out there a hard time? How does that make any sense? Simply because its different than yours? Is that why there is the hostility? That's called close-mindedness, and you won't get many people listening to your points.