There are so many excellent free forums these days...

the aloha

i would say the techier among the users want to always have stupid features; the less techie the more they don't care. the less technical also will not venture beyond the main category, but the more technical think your board is weak unless you have a bunch of categories. i think it is just something the geeks learn to want instead of stopping and thinking about how people work instead of thinking about how machines work. if sigs are an extension, that is one thing. however, they are something that should never enter the core. sigs are the worst things about boards. who really needs to "sign" what they post every single time they post? then the sigs are almost never funny or insightful even though they are all almost ripped off (even the img sigs). furthermore, i must respectfully disagree with jesusphreak's assertion that you can learn about a person through there sig. the only time people talk about sigs is if they are done well or offensively. since quotes are so often used in sigs, you only know what a person plucked. their own words on the board are far better at fleshing the person behind the user name.

jesusphreak

The funny thing is, I think the people who frequent the Vanilla (Lussumo boards) are techier than just about any other crowd I know.

I mean, there's plain just a lot of knowledge on tech/programming/the web here, and its funny because its the gaming people on my boards that don't know crap about tech but love those fancy piece of crap forums.

Minisweeper

Yeah, i must admit i'm slightly opposed to the aloha - and to be honest i think that gamers are likely the people who get most attracted to the fancier forums where their stats are more obvious as stats seem to be a big thing in the gaming world (no offence meant to anyone, but it does seem to be gamers who contiually measure their e-penis compared to most other computer users) I think tech people are more likely to appreciate vanilla for its technical achievements - i.e. the nice clean code and fully compliant (?) css/xhtml etc that mark has worked so hard to remain - than they'd appreciate the other boards which fail slightly on some of these counts.

Kosmo

Well, I'm not sure how to say this, since in my head it makes complete sense but when I say it loud, the meaning is just completely distorted. But here goes nothing. I think that it is mostly the contributors (or if you like, techies) that like these king of things, and the average users, or just plain 'users' (or gamer if you want to) are attracted to the forums and community tools of old. To me those names, contributors and users make way more sense than techies and gamers.

Krak

I'd say you guys are right on. It does seem that most of the people here have some knowledge/skill in the programming arts of one form or another. And I would agree with what Mini said, about the gamers being the ones that want the fancy/typical stuff. I have made probably about 3-5 sites for clans over the past few years (a lot of my e-buddies are claners/gamers) and thats exactly what they always wanted. Something super fancy littered with eye candy. I've always hated the fact that a typical forum page will have only about 15 posts on it (per page), and you have to scroll for dayyyyys to get to the bottom. I like Vanilla, no crap, with space everywhere, its all posts. I dont have to go through 8 pages just to read 30 comments.

jesusphreak

Exactly. The whole category system is just stupid (at least using it on the frontpage). Who came up with that anyway?

Krak

Oh I totally didnt see your post Kosmo, we must have made em at the same time. Having a BBCode like sig extension would rock! Great idea. To address what Jesusfreak said about categories.. I do and dont like categories. I dont like having to sift through category after category just to view all of the new posts, I hate that. But I think categories are a necessity. The way Vanilla handles them is perfect. By default it shows only the posts, and the categories are used more of a filter. Thats awesome. Say someone is a part of the community, just to be there and mingle, and they dont want to see their screen cluttered with posts about say troubleshooting or something, or for a game they dont play. They can just block that category and the posts dont show up for them. I freaking love that. Is there a tutorial/walk-through posted somewhere on what the category blocking is/does? I dont think people really understand/know its there. Took me a few days of playing around to find it.

the aloha

i do think us vanilla people are only a small part of the "contributors"; the few with any taste. i should have excluded us in my simplistic thought misinterpreted as analysis.hahaha most contributors i know love to add any dumb thing just to show off that they could do it. if other contibutors had taste, they would hold off on using flash for every project, their sites would be more than vanity pages, and vanilla would be appreciated for the greatness that it is. of course, clients can get in the way of taste. i would put a gamer in with the techies. a line of techies who really do not understand the technology but have quick reflexes. they are used to created worlds wherein the contributors give them everything including a few ways to seperate themselves from other people also playing the game. therefore, things like post count and sigs would matter to them. they are also on the computer alot more often than other users. the true average user will accept what they are given provided it works and there are other people they know using it. standard compliance is an e-penis measurment or merit badge to most of the contributors. i code to standard so i have something to code to, but i hardly make a deal about it. other times, compliance gets in the way of something working. validity, to most should be whether or not the information or application works correctly, not whether or not the w3c can understand it. that vanilla can comply and work quickly and beautifully is something not enough people appreciate. number of languages known, the race to interact with memes the earliest, and the amount of computing power are among the other merit badges that some contributors use to flaunt instead of to do good.

Krak

Im always amazed on this site how simple topics like "other forums" turns into a great huge (and good) discussion. I like it here.

jesusphreak

Its cause we have helpful/well-informed and respectful people. Its a killer combo.

erissiva

Up 'til now, I've experimented with many different forum systems.

I've stuck with punBB. Small, light-weight, easy to style and integrate...No frills - not even a PM system. Everything is optional.

The best Message-board software I've ever found is THWboard, which is wierd. It has so much stuff, it shouldn't be fast...But it is. I've talked to many programmers, and none of them understand it either. It's chock-full of features, but it's fast as anything I've seen.

This system (Vanilla) is really starting to grow on me, however. I love the simplicty of it. It will just take a while to convert the database info over.

Minisweeper

jesus, THW really is quick. It makes vanilla look sluggish - though i suppose my latancy to the vanilla server will be considerably higher. Impressive though. If you're converting the database yourself erissiva, are you writing a migrator? Or just moving the info with queries?

Mark

For the record, most of the features you guys are talking about will be possible as extensions in the next version, and a lot of them already are possible in the current release.

And for those who just don't like the layout or look of it, you can seriously totally change the look of it in the next rev. I'll post that new theme I've been working on again just for the record:

lech

dude, quit pimping it, you're gonna make me want to book a plane ticket to Canada and steal your computer just so I can toy with it now :D

lech

QUIT TEASING ME! IT'S DRIVING ME INSANE!

erissiva

Mark - that is so hot....No, seriously.

minisweeper - Re: THWB - I once did an English translation of the software - and fully modded part of it (called the THWBoardX project), but realized that development was slow (there hasn't been an upgrade for 7-8 months). So, the modded version sat around on my compy until a major crash. Didn't bother to restart the project.

As for the database - because of the lack of users and posts (I shut my site down for months and just restarted it), I'm doing it all by hand. Heh.
I'm not a big coder. More into styles and whatnot.

nathan

lech: while I like to see it, I have to agree. I'll come with if you plan on getting his computer. I have never been to Canada. STOP TEASING US MARK! *books plane ticket.

Mark

Well, my wife is going away towards the end of October for two weeks. I imagine that during that time all of my spare time will be spent working on vanilla (and other lussumo projects). I'm aiming to get it out then.

Kosmo

Now look here you gordbellied codpiece, I'm not not paying you to just sit all day, now make with the forum or else. <? if (Mark makes forum) { reward Mark handsomly } else { punish Mark with nasty things } include(nasty things); ?> You are free to use my piece of code for the next release :D

Mark

You're including nasty things regardless? mean!