From an experienced admin...

[DM Bluddworth]

I like the old school forum look and interface. I don’t need bells & whistles to post or interact with others.

[Elmo]

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.

An example might be Square space web hosts. Back in my day i had to code a website from scratch and to alter the site I alone had to do it because others didn't want a mistake to be made and a total collapse.

Look at Fallout 76 and it's recent leak of addresses etc... one mistake in scripting can be an issue

Now it's possible to make websites and fully flexible forums with just drag and drops similar to a Photoshop environment.
This will allow who ever runs the site to make changes on the fly and with fast effect, with little to no mistakes AND little to no experience needed other than one imagination and goal.

Just my opinion, based on my experience, don't shoot me.

[Aidy]

So when the site does officially "go live" would you rather it go live with zero members, zero posts, or with thousands of members and forum sections that are already filling out? It still doesn't address the other issues of why bother doing the work when it doesn't really need doing. If the site does switch to forum ABC then people will just post saying it should use XYZ, and when it uses XYZ people will say "use vBulletin" What I'm really getting at is that these suggestions aren't particularly helpful or constructive.

[Huzzinda]

ummm now is a great time to switch forums, the site has not even launched 80% of the people here will make an account on the new forums and if they don't they clearly were never going to be an active member of the community so what are you losing by deleting the account? And honestly, it doesn't look like a ton of work went into the current forum templates so it's not like months of wasted effort maybe a day hard maybe, but it's not really wasted because you now know what you want it to look like and that will make redoing it much faster

[Aidy]

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.

[Mr Robot]

I fully back everything you said Arnox. May I suggest, beside XenForo, IPB (Invision Power Board). It's pretty solid, highly customizable and very sexy visually.

How does an upvote downvote system stifle discussion?

It does if it takes the most upvoted comment to the top and the most downvoted comment to be hidden (this might tends toward a vote brigading). The big problem is that, in the end, a bunch of people will just stop writing or never do it, while others will repeat the same thing over and over again. To be "accepted in the community" and it really can become something shitty in both content and form. There's two solutions for that : remove voting/liking system or simply ignore it and don't bother. Sadly, the former is hard for a lot of us since every single social networks are based on liking and voting.

The good ol' moderation of posts and threads suffice. I think too that divergence in ideas can be healthy.

[DarkTranquillity]

Arnox "forbidding political discussion of ANY kind sounds like a huge recipe for disaster."

this is why im here... i wanna play games not talk about politics....thats what this fourms is founded on.

if you want politics go elsewhere. CNN probably has a spot for you.

[Firebrand]

I'm also an ol' dawg forumnaut. A downvote system (along with rep) will really hurt this endeavor, as any random can run amok stifling ideas/comments unchecked. The strength of this site should radiate from the admins who work closely with the mods, who in turn interact withe the generic populous. Admins: please use discord to communicate and manage ur mod team, and set common sense rules/expectations for users and staff alike.

[Arnox]

How does an upvote downvote system stifle discussion?

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, posts getting downvoted because it tells people what they should be hearing instead of what they want to be hearing, and posts deserving of upvotes not getting them simply because they're on the last page of posts and some users TL;DRing all posts past the first or second pages or initial replies. Not to mention the small amounts of drama it causes when someone gets a lot of or all the upvotes and another doesn't, no matter how intelligent or well they conduct themselves simply because of something that happened in the past and people are holding a grudge...

There's probably more I'm missing, but the TL;DR of it all is "Tyranny of the Majority". Unless it's just a simple post like system like what we have here. Then it's "Drama of the Majority".

Formerly being a Minecraft Dedicated Server Runner and Game java mod coder(-everyone rolls eyes-) and third party forum Enjin(https://www.enjin.com/) runner(::squeezes head through door:: after that brag)

Looking back, likes and dislike were more for ideas than discussion thing, if i like an idea I liked it else disliked it. They don't have too much value, but they have their place.

Enjin is an amazing forum engine that was like using Photoshop to create a forum and allowed direct api connection to games or sites via modules.

I Also used phpbb with an SQL backend(most forum installed software uses SQLlite backend), ah remember setting up a virtual SQL server, pain in ass though if it corrupted, but moved to enjin because it was so much more user friendly and far far more flexible.

Also Enjin(forums creation) has it's own infrastructure and protections etc and so on...

Sorry to shill for Enjin (Engine), but based on experience with it and how easy it was for the people i ran the forum for and that it was like drag and drop control as well as api/coding addons.

I recommend Enjin (https://support.enjin.com/hc/en-us)

I'm not saying I know better, but I can only go on my experience.

Heh. I use to use SMF. Really good free forum software. The big problem with it though is updates to it are so slow. Slow enough actually for phpBB to finally catch up to it, but yeah. A paid forum solution though is very very nice due to it being able to accomodate pretty much... Whatever you want. And look good doing it and have very convenient tools for doing what you need.

[Elmo]

Formerly being a Minecraft Dedicated Server Runner and Game java mod coder(-everyone rolls eyes-) and third party forum Enjin(https://www.enjin.com/) runner(::squeezes head through door:: after that brag)

Looking back, likes and dislike were more for ideas than discussion thing, if i like an idea I liked it else disliked it. They don't have too much value, but they have their place.

Enjin is an amazing forum engine that was like using Photoshop to create a forum and allowed direct api connection to games or sites via modules.

I Also used phpbb with an SQL backend(most forum installed software uses SQLlite backend), ah remember setting up a virtual SQL server, pain in ass though if it corrupted, but moved to enjin because it was so much more user friendly and far far more flexible.

Also Enjin(forums creation) has it's own infrastructure and protections etc and so on...

Sorry to shill for Enjin (Engine), but based on experience with it and how easy it was for the people i ran the forum for and that it was like drag and drop control as well as api/coding addons.

I recommend Enjin (https://support.enjin.com/hc/en-us)

I'm not saying I know better, but I can only go on my experience.

[RevolverGirl]

Does the Reddit sub really effect the forums here that much? Yeah this site has an upvote system, but it doesn't have a downvote system so its not like anyone is going to get downvote thrashed for an opinion.

[Jokerthefoolio]

How does an upvote downvote system stifle discussion?

[Arnox]

UPDATE 1: Didn't watch the video close enough. I see that there's both an official sub-reddit and the forums here, the former having a looser ruleset. I'm afraid it's not gonna work out here. Or at least not gonna work out how you think. As said before, upvote-downvote systems impede real discussion negatively, and people who want to speak their mind without having to worry about such rules on this forum won't have a place to speak. They're either gonna subject themselves to the reputation nonsense of Reddit, or their gonna have to abide by these really harsh rules on the forum. There's no real middle ground here.