Why not use XenForo 2.x?

[Arnox]

This forum software is serviceable I guess... But XF is and has almost always been recognized as the best of the best for good reason.

[Eigenvektor]

Because the forum works just fine and it would likely be a huge pain in the butt to migrate the data.

 

You should likely also clarify what the "good reason" is… unless there's a big benefit I don't think anyone is willing to spend the time and effort to migrate anything.

[Arnox]

10 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Because the forum works just fine and it would likely be a huge pain in the butt to migrate the data.

 

You should likely also clarify what the "good reason" is… unless there's a big benefit I don't think anyone is willing to spend the time and effort to migrate anything.

Yeah, it's probably too late now for sure, I'll give you that. I guess I'm much more asking why they chose to migrate to Invision instead of XenForo at the time they were switching from vB5.

 

And the good reason(s) is... I dunno, it's just nicer. Faster. More reliable. More responsive. Has better native features. Has a nicer editor. Is priced really well.

 

The software even has a backup no-Javascript version it can fall back to in case it detects that the user has completely disabled Javascript. Many, MANY other sites would just dump the user at a broken page and leave it at that.

[Dedayog]

37 minutes ago, Arnox said:

Yeah, it's probably too late now for sure, I'll give you that. I guess I'm much more asking why they chose to migrate to Invision instead of XenForo at the time they were switching from vB5.

 

And the good reason(s) is... I dunno, it's just nicer. Faster. More reliable. More responsive. Has better native features. Has a nicer editor. Is priced really well.

 

The software even has a backup no-Javascript version it can fall back to in case it detects that the user has completely disabled Javascript. Many, MANY other sites would just dump the user at a broken page and leave it at that.

There is always something better.  I am sure there are reasons for their decision but not sure you (or I) need them or deserve them.

 

It's their forums, they can use whatever format/software they want.

 

I think it's interesting you worked to get the ability to post about this.  Work for XenForo?  Seems like a terrible first post, basically bashing their forum software.  At least your 2nd post outlines some reasoning, much more helpful and persuasive.

[Arnox]

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

but not sure you (or I) need them or deserve them.

What do any of us "deserve," or, "need?" This is a silly question.

 

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

It's their forums, they can use whatever format/software they want.

No... Really?

 

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

I think it's interesting you worked to get the ability to post about this.  Work for XenForo?

I wish. I do have an XF-powered forum though and have been running forums for a very long time now. vB4 and XF is the best quality forum software I've seen to date.

[LogicalDrm]

Do you have some good example forums that use it? Bigger the better.

 

I can't give you reasons, you would need to get Linus to notice since only he and Luke know the reasons for selecting Invision. My guess would be that in early 2013 Xenforo didn't have competitive features or wasn't known well enough to be considered as valid option. And changing from software to another would be even bigger mess than just version updates (so not likely to happen anytime soon).

[Arnox]

2 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Do you have some good example forums that use it? Bigger the better.

No problem. I know XDA Developers, OBS, IGN, and MacRumors all use it.

 

5 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

My guess would be that in early 2013 Xenforo didn't have competitive features or wasn't known well enough to be considered as valid option.

That's fair. XF 1.0 wasn't really anything to write home about and vB4 was still king (although it was starting to get a little old by that time).

[LogicalDrm]

17 minutes ago, Arnox said:

No problem. I know XDA Developers, OBS, IGN, and MacRumors all use it.

Of those XDA Devs and OBS load about same as this forum, so any "speed" gain are too small and occasional to compare. UI is clean, but then again, we use custom theme here. Editor is probably better because this isn't that good, and its among those resources that can't be easily changed.

 

Have you had more experience with IPB forums? You state stability as one reason. I assume you are aware that reason to go from vB5 beta to IPB3 was stability. At least in the five years I've been moderator, I can't recall something happening that would/could be attributed to forum software being the reason for instability.

[Arnox]

23 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Of those XDA Devs and OBS load about same as this forum, so any "speed" gain are too small and occasional to compare. UI is clean, but then again, we use custom theme here. Editor is probably better because this isn't that good, and its among those resources that can't be easily changed.

 

Have you had more experience with IPB forums? You state stability as one reason. I assume you are aware that reason to go from vB5 beta to IPB3 was stability. At least in the five years I've been moderator, I can't recall something happening that would/could be attributed to forum software being the reason for instability.

Well, the Javascript thing is a good example of XF's inherent stability. I noticed it also very gracefully handles any errors and there might be more I'm not thinking of. As to vB5, nobody liked vB5. lol It was atrocious. It MAY be better now, but honestly, I don't really care. Internet Brands has shown themselves to be really terrible, and the XF devs (formerly the veteran vB team who left Internet Brands a little before vB4 got released) got into a big legal fight with them before Internet Brands finally settled with them and they left it at that.

 

I have experience with IPB only as a user, but that along with looking through their site and also looking at the software capabilities have seriously turned me off of using them. If I recall correctly, even their demo system on their site for the software was incredibly borked at the time and I couldn't even get an instance going.

 

Again, it's not the end of the world that we're using Invision at all. It works okay, and I'm sure you guys have been working on smoothing over its rough edges for a long time now. Nevertheless though, it's just not the preferred standard at all really.

[colonel_mortis]

I can't speak to the original decision back in 2013 - that was before my involvement - but at this point a lot of time has been spent on customizing the forum to get it to what I believe to be a pretty good place, and switching software at this point would be a very large investment for pretty minimal gain.

1 hour ago, Arnox said:

And the good reason(s) is... I dunno, it's just nicer. Faster. More reliable. More responsive. Has better native features. Has a nicer editor. Is priced really well.

Such vague feelings are hard to justify and even harder to actually make decisions against. We have done a reasonable amount of work over the years to get the forum to a pretty performant state (which is not to say other software couldn't be faster, just that where we're at is good enough that I don't think it is causing any pain or problems), and I'm not aware of any reliability issues at this point. As for features and editor, I haven't used xenforo recently, so I would be curious what you think would actually be useful for this site - even if it's not an IPS native feature, we can always add new functionality if it is actually useful.

[Kilrah]

Looking at the dates XF would have been at V1 and involved in a lawsuit at that time... not exactly something that would be your first choice. Then once you've got something it's usually better to work on improving it than changing completely.

[Arnox]

8 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

I can't speak to the original decision back in 2013 - that was before my involvement - but at this point a lot of time has been spent on customizing the forum to get it to what I believe to be a pretty good place, and switching software at this point would be a very large investment for pretty minimal gain.

Such vague feelings are hard to justify and even harder to actually make decisions against. We have done a reasonable amount of work over the years to get the forum to a pretty performant state (which is not to say other software couldn't be faster, just that where we're at is good enough that I don't think it is causing any pain or problems), and I'm not aware of any reliability issues at this point. As for features and editor, I haven't used xenforo recently, so I would be curious what you think would actually be useful for this site - even if it's not an IPS native feature, we can always add new functionality if it is actually useful.

Well, again, I totally understand your position. Since you guys have already put in all this work and have all these years of content built up already, it definitely would be a huge pain in the ass to switch everything over for questionable gain. I could take a much deeper look for you and find areas for improvement if you so desire, but I also don't want to be annoying about this. You guys have given very good reasons as to why you have and are currently running Invision, so unless you'd like me to specifically look, I can just leave this alone now if you like.

[LogicalDrm]

45 minutes ago, Arnox said:

Again, it's not the end of the world that we're using Invision at all. It works okay, and I'm sure you guys have been working on smoothing over its rough edges for a long time now. Nevertheless though, it's just not the preferred standard at all really.

The thing is, when you make such suggestions, you better be ready to give some valid pointers. You kinda don't seem to want to, even to point of backing of when asked to give more detailed reasons. It feels odd overall. Like Mortis said, apart from changing WHOLE infrastructure, all ideas are taken in, discussed and then evaluated whether its good for more than one person, and whether its easy to do or takes some tinkering.

 

I've done switch to software infrastructure once professionally and doing some work now for another. Its is lengthy and expensive process, regardless of what it involves.

[Arnox]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

The thing is, when you make such suggestions, you better be ready to give some valid pointers. You kinda don't seem to want to

Ok, fine then. Here we go.

 

- There's no plain-text view in the editor.

- BBCode formatting lingers even when you turn them off and you're forced to clear the editor.

- No way that I can see to embed media besides images. (Could simply be a current permissions thing.)

- When you quote someone with no text entered in already and if you want to type something before the quote, you're not allowed to.

- No way to insert a data table.

- No way to make a user-defined editor template.

- Threads cannot be bookmarked.

- Thread drafts cannot be saved.

- Last time I looked at the Invision manual, there was not even a way to turn off reactions in the admin CP.

- On some Invision forums, all line breaks must be double-spaced. Thankfully doesn't apply here.

- No way to post a status quickly without loading the heavy editor.

- Many options missing in the user CP.

- There's no way to get a list of all users registered to the site.

- No way to get a list of all site staff.

- Sidebar doesn't show latest posts. Only latest threads.

- Demos at the official site don't work properly. (Checked again. It still doesn't work.)

 

There's probably a lot more I'm missing. Also, since I can't get access to a demo, I can't see the Invision backend, so I can't compare that directly to the XF backend for you. Now again, is all this a super big deal? No. To be quite honest, I'm just happy to get away from Reddit. Nevertheless, you asked and so, I delivered.

[Spotty]

15 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- No way that I can see to embed media besides images. (Could simply be a current permissions thing.)

You can attach files other than images to posts. Supported media files will embed and any file types that aren't supported will be attached to the post and need to be downloaded. Certain links will also automatically embed with the media player or content, such as Youtube video links, Reddit posts, and more...
Attaching files to a post is as simply as drag and dropping the file in to the editor or using the choose file button at the bottom of the editor to browse your PC for a file to attach.

 

26 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- When you quote someone with no text entered in already and if you want to type something before the quote, you're not allowed to.

On desktop you can drag quote boxes by clicking the top left corner of the box to change where they're positioned. To move a quote box below text type whatever you want below the quote box and then drag the quote box below the text. Unfortunately mobile input in the browser is not so elegant to allow click and drag on the element in the editor.

 

16 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- Threads cannot be bookmarked.

You can follow threads and access them from your followed content page under My Activity Streams, though I prefer bookmarking pages through my web browser.

 

17 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- Thread drafts cannot be saved.

The editor will automatically save a draft of your post (most of the time). You can also use the Test Post section for drafting threads.

 

31 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- Last time I looked at the Invision manual, there was not even a way to turn off reactions in the admin CP.

There is. The reactions are customisable and can be toggled for the entire site or for individual member groups.

 

18 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- There's no way to get a list of all users registered to the site.

There isn't really many reasons to view a full list of all ~850k members of this forum. If you go to the Member search page and hit search members without a search term it will show the full list of members.

 

18 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- No way to get a list of all site staff.

Forum staff are listed on the Staff page (under the More top menu item). https://linustechtips.com/staff/

You can also select the moderator & admin member categories from the member search page or other categories such as LMG employees.

 

19 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- Sidebar doesn't show latest posts. Only latest threads.

Having every reply show up on the sidebar would be very chaotic for a large size forum. You can view a feed of all topics and replies in the All Activity page from the top menu bar.

 

 

 

52 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- No way to make a user-defined editor template.

If given the opportunity, what would you change about the editor template?

 

52 minutes ago, Arnox said:

- Many options missing in the user CP.

Such as? As Colonel_mortis mentioned earlier if there are useful features that the forum lacks we can consider adding them.

[Arnox]

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

You can attach files other than images to posts. Supported media files will embed and any file types that aren't supported will be attached to the post and need to be downloaded. Certain links will also automatically embed with the media player or content, such as Youtube video links, Reddit posts, and more...

That's what I was thinking was probably happening, but all the same, one may not want the post to automatically embed for whatever reason. (Usually to keep the link in line with the text flow.)

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

To move a quote box below text type whatever you want below the quote box and then drag the quote box below the text.

I understand, though it is a bit of a pain to have to do so, and especially if you've inserted multiple quotes at once.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

The editor will automatically save a draft of your post (most of the time).

The problem is that there's no feedback as to when this has happened at all, and further, there is no button to manually save the draft or delete it altogether.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

There isn't really many reasons to view a full list of all ~850k members of this forum.

Yeah, I'll give you this, though occasionally, it can come in handy, and it also serves as a very quick gauge of how large a forum has become.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Forum staff are listed on the Staff page (under the More top menu item). https://linustechtips.com/staff

Oh, there it is. My bad.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Having every reply show up on the sidebar would be very chaotic for a large size forum. You can view a feed of all topics and replies in the All Activity page from the top menu bar.

True, but I think personally it would be cool to have a separate sidebar just for latest posts. Really shows off your forum activity as well and encourages users to engage further with the community.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

If given the opportunity, what would you change about the editor template?

Not much at all since you guys don't have many editor controls, but it's still a missing feature that XF has.

 

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Such as?

Lessee... Just a few missing options here that are on my (out of date) XF 2.1.x board.

 

- No way to set a user timezone.

- No way to set a global email notification option.

- No way to set default content watching options.

- No way to restore user-dismissed notices that the site staff has set.

 

Putting all that aside, for me personally, if you guys really wish for my arrogant opinion on what would be a priority for me, I would,

 

- Add a way to have the editor go into plain-text mode.

- Add a way to insert data tables.

- Add a way to have even just a little more control over the drafts.

- Turn off Reactions completely. (I'm sure though a lot of people would get mad at this.)

 

In any case, thank you very much for giving me your ear. Many site teams just ignore community suggestions completely. Even if none of this is implemented, I'm glad to at least have been politely acknowledged. lol

[Spotty]

7 minutes ago, Arnox said:

That's what I was thinking was probably happening, but all the same, one may not want the post to automatically embed for whatever reason. (Usually to keep the link in line with the text flow.)

When a link that can be embedded is inserted in to a post it is automatically embedded but it will provide a prompt at the bottom of the editor to revert to a basic link. You could also insert a link like this with the link tool in the editor toolbar.

 

For example here I've pasted a Youtube link which embedded the video player and at the bottom it has a button to "Display as a link instead" which will leave me with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lN-lu-6L1g

 

11 minutes ago, Arnox said:

The problem is that there's no feedback as to when this has happened at all, and further, there is no button to manually save the draft or delete it altogether.

Yeah, I admit it isn't perfect and I would not recommend relying on the editor saving the draft. Sometimes I've gone back and forth between pages in a thread and lost the saved draft in the editor (it will also clear if you change pages in a thread and then quote somebody without opening the editor to restore the saved draft first).

You can however completely clear your work in progress post in the editor with the trashcan button in the editor toolbar. I believe this is an add on not a native feature of Invision forums.

 

13 minutes ago, Arnox said:

Yeah, I'll give you this, though occasionally, it can come in handy, and it also serves as a very quick gauge of how large a forum has become.

There's a members statistics widget at the bottom of the main page which shows the member count, most simultaneous online members, and the most recently joined member. As far as I'm aware that's a standard Invision widget that can be added to the page.

 

 

Hopefully that helps you a bit navigating our forum.

For suggesting features you would like to see within Invision forum software beyond the linus tech tips forum you would be better off discussing it over on the Invision Community forums.  https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/

[Gork]

Just an average bear poking his out of mario kart a second: 

JavaScript (the react and vuze kind) doesn't have a good rep in general. The Geocities kind has a slightly better rep: because it's being used for what it was built for.

This forum reminds me a bit like wpforum and some other cool one I used back in the day.  My take as a poster is the forum itself seems fine. I've been on some forums that use xenforum some are good, some pretty busy.

Ok now back to the royal rumble. Spotty! take it away!.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Remember when this forum was running off a 980X system with vBulletin 5 I believe?

[Guest]

On 7/8/2023 at 5:52 AM, colonel_mortis said:

 

I can't speak to the original decision back in 2013 - that was before my involvement

 

If I recall correctly, it was a migration compatibility to get away from VB - @Whaler_99 or @Slick can correct me. I’d actually come from an XF background but there wasn’t an easy way to go from VB to XF but there was for IPB. That may have changed since (and likely has) but here we are. 

[8tg]

The perfect forum format is phpBB, anything else is bloat.

LTT should migrate to this:

phpBB • Community Home

 

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

The perfect forum format is phpBB, anything else is bloat.

LTT should migrate to this:

phpBB • Community Home

 

[Flashbacks to phpbb 2 code injection attacks]

[Arnox]

19 hours ago, 8tg said:

The perfect forum format is phpBB, anything else is bloat.

phpBB is missing a lot of features out of the box. SMF would be a much better choice on the free forum software side. I used to run SMF actually, and it served us all pretty faithfully until we finally switched to a paid solution.

[Whaler_99]

On 7/9/2023 at 1:46 AM, Windspeed36 said:

If I recall correctly, it was a migration compatibility to get away from VB - @Whaler_99 or @Slick can correct me. I’d actually come from an XF background but there wasn’t an easy way to go from VB to XF but there was for IPB. That may have changed since (and likely has) but here we are. 

Yes it was a scramble to get off VB at the time and move with as little downtime and rework as needed. Back then @colonel_mortis wasn't part of the team and there was just a few of us working on this, so Invision was chosen because we could migrate things over pretty easily.

[Slick]

On 7/9/2023 at 1:46 AM, Windspeed36 said:

If I recall correctly, it was a migration compatibility to get away from VB - @Whaler_99 or @Slick can correct me. I’d actually come from an XF background but there wasn’t an easy way to go from VB to XF but there was for IPB. That may have changed since (and likely has) but here we are. 

 

On 7/11/2023 at 5:17 PM, Whaler_99 said:

Yes it was a scramble to get off VB at the time and move with as little downtime and rework as needed. Back then @colonel_mortis wasn't part of the team and there was just a few of us working on this, so Invision was chosen because we could migrate things over pretty easily.

All correct - Invision was more easily compatible and was also highly accommodating at the start, there have been some frustrations since but XF wasn't a great option at the time.