From an experienced admin...

[Aidy]

Ok well I've just done some basic debugging. Someone else has reported that error messages just have placeholder tokens like "some_error_here" rather than proper text, and the slowness of creating a new topic is due to that. When you create a new topic it needs certain text resolved that it can use in messages and the page makes an ajax call to an api giving it a list of tokens that it wants proper text for so it can use them on the page, things like click_to_add_caption, error_uploading_image etc, however the api that it is calling has not been correctly configured for some reason (that's the site admin's job to find out why) so the call is returning the 404 page. However the site retries this api call 9 times (maybe 10) and each time it is taking (on my system anyway) 0.27ms so the site takes 2.7 seconds in total trying to access this api before it gives up and just uses the untranslated tokens.

So once this api is probably configured the slowdown people get when creating new topics will stop happening. So that's not a feature of vB, it's not just how it works, it's because whoever has set this site up has obviously neglected to properly setup the translation api.

[Arnox]

So you're saying that is how vB works? That every vB site has those issues?

vB5? Yes. Yes, I am. Personally, this is the second vB5 site I've used that was buggy.

I actually loved vB4 to pieces but it's sadly getting pretty old now, so I don't believe it's entirely viable for deployment anymore. XF though does a pretty damn good job of being a spiritual successor to vB4, so it's all good. IPB may work too. I dunno about that one.

[Aidy]

But yes, the first example being that when I first clicked the button to make a thread, it took a minute before I was actually able to click the text input boxes. Even further, when I tried switching pages via the numbered buttons, the whole thing just stopped working and I had to refresh.

So you're saying that is how vB works? That every vB site has those issues? Or do you think it is just down to a detail of implementation regarding this specific site that will be fixed when they resolve whatever it is?

[Arnox]

Yes, I posted some facts on that thread regarding functionality

You know what, they don't even need to use XF per se. As long as it's not vB5. vB5 is not recommended because it's buggy, if anything else. Now, these two examples are small problems, but at the same time, they're basic features that should work out of the box. But yes, the first example being that when I first clicked the button to make a thread, it took a minute before I was actually able to click the text input boxes. Even further, when I tried switching pages via the numbered buttons, the whole thing just stopped working and I had to refresh. I don't have these problems on any other site. And yeah, they COULD spend time and money and do vB's job for them and fix it, but what's the point? Just use something that actually works.

[Tysakasa]

Yes, reputation//karma systems that are community based are terrible. It's one thing to have a like option that is just sort of there but doesn't influence the flow of discussions. Groups of people will, as mentioned, go around up//down voting friends and people they hate regardless of what the person actually posted. Personal experience from a Ragnarok server I use to play on, I got on the bad side of this one guild, didn't matter what I posted, whether it was tech support related (the server's support team were a little slow at times, so I'd throw my two cents in if I knew how to address the issue) or making a simple comment that contributed to off-topic stuff, they'd downvote every one of my posts simply because they hated me (half of the community didn't like them and I was one of the few that spoke out against them).

If you want to have a reputation//karma system, it should only be serviced by the staff as they're suppose to be unbiased and reward//punish people for their behaviour//contribution with the site.

[aileron]

Someone mentioned email address verification in this thread and another thread. I think that makes sense. As for development, I don't know too much about it, but I'm pretty sure the forum is more configurable, changing settings, rather than a piece of software they would actively be developing and modifying. For example, I notice all of the error messages seem to be some sort of default _this_is_an_error_ message. I'd expect them to change those to more user friendly text eventually. But fundamentally changing the forum software, nah, they'd just switch to a different out of the box forum software.

[Aidy]

How it looks is little to do with the forum software. I think it looks ok, have you found the OP's forum? Do you think that looks better than this? As for the sluggishness etc that's just how they've set it up, possibly an issue with their host. It's a lot better now than it used to be. Again not the fault of the software itself. I agree the alert system is bad here, I've seen other vB forums with much better alert systems, hopefully that's something they can re-configure. There are other things missing here as well like a global "new activity" page. The forum supports all these things, some have either been disabled for a specific reason, or not enabled because no-one knows they are there

If there are problems getting this site running properly on their architecture then it's just as likely there will be problems with other forum software as well. Better to spend the time fixing the issues here than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[alba Phenom]

OK, you were looking for reasons why they should opt for Xenforo over this, couple reasons, this looks bad, old and works sluggish, Xenforo looks good and is easy to set up new cool looking styles. The design of this is awful, the alert system requires you to jump to a separate page as opposed to a drop down box... I don't why it is but this forum loads slowly, freezes when posting new topics ... so what are the reasons for sticking with this software?

You seem pretty adamant to stick with vB, I'm no web dev or designer so maybe you know something I don't

It's already been pointed out that there is no great upheaval in migrating everything over to XF or another software, I don't mind which one, I'd just prefer anything other than this.

[Aidy]

People are suggesting it because they have experience running forums and know which software offers the most functionality and flexibility. I made another thread suggesting XF before I saw this thread...

Yes, I posted some facts on that thread regarding functionality

[Aidy]

Aidy you give a good point and I'm not saying your wrong, but if one gets a good start then later down the road things more serious issues can be avoided.

The server back-end script/SQL lite database is key to allowing for flexibility . If the people running this forum are totally at home with adding scripts and maintaining a SQL database then it will be fine.

If not or if someone leaves to work on another project in their life, then moving to a simpler forum engine will allow changes to be made very quickly and without error by other less experienced.

Let's get honest here there is no "development" on this site. I know Jeremy uses that word in his videos, but the forum software is plug-and-play...you just install it. No-one is going to be modifying it or maintaining it or anything like that. There seems to be a fair few common features that are not enabled for some reason (polls, account verification etc) which might get enabled later. Likewise when the main site goes live it'll just be an off-the-shelf CMS like Wordpress and again the only "development" is going to be the front-end design, developing the templates etc. They might need some form of custom plug-in for their voting system but there are lots of WP add-ins out there already so they're equally as likely just to use something pre-made for that too.

[Merlin]

AFAIK this is just quickly slapped together to get us to do just this give feedback and help build it, so I don't see why your feedback would be taken poorly. Also in terms of what kind of forum to use, I wouldn't know as a pleb, but I have to admit I don't like whatever this is, its too messy. You seem to imply there is a reputation system, but I don't even see it anywhere or how to upvote or downvote people's posts(that is how confusing it is for me, a dum-dum average user).

I remember seeing some cool clean forum designs in the past that I've liked that were cleaner than this. I hope to use that. Simple and clean is best.

The Iceland thing sounds like a good idea because I feel like there might be some bad press that will try to harass hosting services potentially, and in terms of avoiding bureaucracy that is always nice. My concern is always user data privacy, so I appreciate you bringing up that tip. Cheers!

With regards to your concerns about keeping things about the games, I don't see it really being a dramatic issue. I think the closest you'll ever get is talking about the politics of a game(like discussing the political/religious hierarchy of the Covenant in Halo) or historical accuracy of a game(like the many WW1 and WW2 shooters). But if you have experience about this stuff I'm not going to knock it. I've just seen other sites be fine without even making the rules explicit to no politics.

[N7Mith]

In terms of a system like Imgur or Reddit, what it leads to is friends upvoting each other just because they're friends, funny posts getting upvoted instead of the more smart and thoughtful posts, posts getting upvoted because it tells people what they want to hear instead of what they should be hearing

If people want to give friend-likes to their friend's bad posts, let them. When there's a large and varied community they don't make much of a difference. Bad posts either don't get a response or are countered with good replies. Fake likes aren't going to change that. Or there's more bad ones, which is where moderators come in.
Yes, 'need to hear'-posts can get less support than what people like to hear. But everyone is allowed to take the blue pill instead of the red. It's their loss.

[N7Mith]

I agree that user reputation systems have side-effects, but (from what I've seen so far) they only have likes on posts. That usually works positively; users are motivated to make good points and people make fewer comments saying the same thing.

[MrE]

I'm actually surprised he didn't choose Discourse for the forum software. It's amazing software with a lot of features.

[alba Phenom]

Just look over the existing questions, they are full of "don't use that, use this!" None of the suggestions actually give any reasons why though. Why would people use what you've suggested over the thousand other forum systems other people have suggested? Do you really think that at this stage, with thousands of users, Jeremy is going to just abandon this forum, switch to another which will involve re-doing the design templates, and make everyone re-register, probably losing 80% of the users in the process? And then when people start posting on that forum "don't use this, use that!", switch all over again?

Who cares what forum software is used as long as it functions ok and has decent features? I'm sure potential platforms were looking into before this one was chosen. People should just leave the running of the site to the people running it.

It doesn't work like that, all of the registrations and data are migrated over to the new platform, at most you might be down for a couple of hours during the switch over.

People are suggesting it because they have experience running forums and know which software offers the most functionality and flexibility. I made another thread suggesting XF before I saw this thread... if you wish you can go browse around in a Xenforo website and a vBulletin one and see which feels more modern and intuitive for yourself.

We're suggesting these things because now is the time for user feedback and we want the website to be a success.