First I'd like to say hello to everyone.
HI! :D New member here. It's great to meet you all!
However... uh, as a new member I must say I am immediately and totally taken aback at the current forum system.
Really... what in the world is this? Do you guys know about the many other forum programs out there? Many of them are free!
Here's my board for example:
www.clanrat.com
(It's a new on line gaming clan. I just retired from running another one for the last two years and wanted to start a fresh one from grass roots)
Seriously, I'm really not trying to be rude here, but if you all want to look like your serious and professional at what your all doing in BYOND to new members, then you need a different and much more robust forum board system.
I have extensive experience in both phpbb and IPB if you need it.
-RATFather
ID:186039
 Sep 1 2005, 4:51 pm
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He finds the whole way the forum is set up 'old school' I believe. Basically, he says that there are lots of free forum programs that are better than the current setup.
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These forums where made by the BYOND developers, and are GREAT! PhpBB is not a great forum system, infact, I find it ugly and very often an eye sore. I think that the BYOND forums are great. They are simple, clean, and well formatted. The tree view is, quite possibly, the best forum style I have ever seen.
The idea to not give the signature ability is a great one. I really don't see a feature that I could possibly want, or at least find function able. I actually blame my BYOND existence on these here forums. They do their job 110%, plus an extra 20% for style. | |
RATFather wrote:
if you all want to look like your serious and professional at what your all doing in BYOND to new members, then you need a different and much more robust forum board system. But PHPBB and IPB are hardly 'professional'. They're just generic one size fits all forums. These are developer forums, so they need to be clear and too the point. Most popular boards flood users with features that aren't really needed. For instance why would I need to see your entire profile full of contact details everytime I read one of your posts? What would I gain from seeing a signiture attached to every post? I think if you ask most developers here they'll tell you they're happy with the feature list of these forums. They appear basic, but they beat the pants off any of the generic boards I've seen when it comes to being able to communicate clearly. | |
IPB, PHPBB etc are very generic and are every where.
They are also bandwidth heavy, and bloated. I have been messing around with Simple Machines Forums recently and found it quite nice. It is rather easy to theme and has some nifty SSI features built in. They are also rather secure. An example of them in work can be seen at Hackerlounge. And the forum system in work, and themed can be seen at the Hackerlounge forums. | |
I would rather go with this forum board anyday. Everything is easy to find and more clear, as DarkView pointed out.
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RATFather wrote:
Really... what in the world is this? It's a custom-made forum system built from scratch using BYOND's DM language. I fail to see how putting up one of the freeware packages used by everybody and their brother and their brother's dog for amateur personal webpages is supposed to make the site look more professional. | |
exactly. while i, too, might be considered experienced in phpBB installations and customizing (been doing it since the early days of phpBB), i find BYOND's *hand-made* forum system to be refreshing and contains the necessary features without all the fluff that phpBB can have. it works as a forum should.
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Ya digi, you should switch to the DM style forum. That is the one thing I don't like about digitalBYOND and secureBYOND(I think that is what it was called).
Something like these forums could be made with PHP and MySQL, and I would be willing to help develop some(As long as the source was publicly released afterward). This would stop byonds key authentication system(At least in a pure PHP environment). But it would be useful to those many, many people who don't have access to a DMCGI enabled server. | |
Being professional is what they are doing. They made their own forums, which is quite professional. judging by the users... this is quite okay.
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RATFather wrote:
Seriously, I'm really not trying to be rude here, but if you all want to look like your serious and professional at what your all doing in BYOND to new members, then you need a different and much more robust forum board system. Nah, I would disagree on that. The BYOND forums are much better then phpbb(in my opinion). The BYOND forums are different from all the others, I'm actually suprised about your opinion about these forums, almost all community's have phpbb forums, isn't it nice to see something different? These forums are created from scratch by the BYOND staff(like others have pointed out). These forums are original and very unique(and I like them! :)) A phpbb forum for example has a to big account settings panel(in my opinion), its harder to find older posts back(unlike the BYOND forums), you don't need(actually you can't :p) to register the forums(if you're registered to BYOND you can start posting :)). I always saw the BYOND forums like small and compact and easy to use.I mean what else do you want? you can post posts, you can reply, you can edit, there are moderator functions, what on earth do you want added!? I'm really not trying to be rude here Me neither! :P O-matic | |
I agree, I think this system is MUCH better than what I've seen on other boards. It's more professional and contains a lot less riff raff.
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Justin Knight wrote:
He finds the whole way the forum is set up 'old school' I believe. Basically, he says that there are lots of free forum programs that are better than the current setup. Again. Better how? In what way? | |
Everybody's jerk reaction is to point out how you're wrong. I'd like to start by welcoming you to our community.
When everybody has something to say that makes your opinions seem worthless, it sends the wrong message to you as a new user. We want your opinions, and we want you to participate in our community. Please don't be discouraged by adversity on the forums, because most everyone here has been tempered to take posts with a grain of salt and handle people's sacrasm and most blunt opinions. One thing that hasn't been said is that our forum certainly stands to improve. It is not a perfect forum, and in fact the developers did not intend it to be one. However, as it has been pointed out, we really do take the forum seriously and we consider it as professional as many other forums. I understand the reaction to it that you may have when comparing this to a forum system with heaps of cool features and a more sophistocated-looking graphical user interface, but I think you'll find that the difference is only skin-deep. When you think of something that should be improved on the forum, post it on the BYOND Features board here and it will probably be considered. Good luck posting and contributing to the community. | |
Seriously? I had always assumed it was done in some scripting language like CSS or JavaScript (or both).
Hiead | |
What features do you find lacking in the current system? You can post any suggestions you have to the BYOND Features section of the forum.