For users, It’s an unsorted bin of posts chronologically listed. There’s no structure, no way of finding stuff logically. Yes, one can try with categories, but…
Is it a wet dream for admins? It’s not user friendly, to say the least. There’s no need wondering why so many repeat questions come up, the main stream is one day old and no one finds FAQs or older posts where everything has already been explained.
Discourse seems to have a fairly comprehensive Search function and Navigation menu.
I suppose the problem is you need to use these tools to find anything, and the results depend on the user knowing what they are looking for, and stuff being posted with suitable titles.
This doesn’t seem too bad here. (he writes, in order to maintain, or perhaps increase? his quota of brownie points issued by those with the power).
I use a few different forums with different software. All of them have their good and bad points. I like that when someone posts a new reply here, it gets added without me having to refresh the page. I keep a tab for new threads. When someone posts a new thread, it gets added without having to refresh that page.
One thing about finding info, you need to have the right terms to search for. It’s hard, sometimes impossible, to find something if you don’t know what you are looking for. This is true with any search tool. I find myself sometimes having to post on a mailing list or something with info about what I’m trying to accomplish in order to find the right terms. Once I have that, I can find the info I need.
No matter what software a website uses, there is always good and bad points to it. Since we not the ones putting in the work to maintain it, we just have to go with what we got.
I would have difficulty to explain in details, but I like the “mechanics” of this forum much better than EEVBlog or any of the few others that I have participated in.
The ability to send PMs, the ease of adding attachments. I just like this one much better…
And I will occasionally correct some title misspellings that were presumably posted by our ESL colleagues.
I think Forums in general live or die based on their organisation of top level subjects and moderation to keep content in the correct places . . . these things alone make finding stuff easier . . . that with a decent search is pretty good.
Then all that is needed is the will of a user to look before asking, that is the hardest part.
In my opinion most forum-tools have the issue that they look and feel as if they were designed in the early 2000s. Discourse is one of the few modern alternatives. This is - at least for me - the reason why I prefer it over the alternatives
This is what I don’t like in Discourse. However, everything else is better if compared with phpbb or similar (eevblog seems to run on SMF). At least phpbb, as far as I have used it, has been extremely clumsy. Editing is painful, attaching images etc. is clumsy etc. As a moderator who reads (well, skims through) about every post I find Discourse good and modern. When I write or edit something I appreciate the features.
As far as I know, Discourse has a vision and strategy. They focus on vibrant community and lively discussion. Unfortunately well-organized archives of information don’t fit well with that goal. The bright side is that KiCad is always changing, and is a better match for Discourse than some other subject matters would be. If you want to discuss something where all posts will be relevant for years to come, I don’t recommend setting up Discourse.
Year ago (after 8 years being at KiCad form) I registered at EEVBlog. Then I found how KiCad forum (compared with EEVBlog) is friendly to me.
Here to add picture or file to my post I just drag-drop it at my post. At EEVBlog I have tried to add pictures few times and gave up - decided to not try it more. There when I add picture by selecting it at my HDD the post editor still says that no picture was added (but somewhere I see it listed). I have tried it several times with the same result. So decided to ignore that info and add second and third pictures. I had post with 3 pictures listed, but after posting it they were in different order - my second file was first in the post, my third was second and my first was added at the post end. All my conception about texts between pictures was damaged. When I have asked there someone told me that he posts his message and then enter edit mode to make order with graphics.
Before making account at EEVBlog I didn’t supposed any forum software can be such problematic.
Here effortlessly I found how to bookmark some posts to be able to easy link them. There I even don’t know if it is possible.
Here I mark a sentence in someones post and Quote it. There the only way I found is to quote the whole message and then delete what I don’t want. If quoted message is complicated with many quotes in qoutes to delete what you need is really complicated.
May be I just don’t know how this forum could be better, but for me it is very good compared with one other I know.
So please - never use the software that EEVBlog uses !
I agree the ‘freshness’ of material is appropriate for this community. To me the software solutions that list ‘latest’/’current’ posts are the most useful. At the end of the day, this software kind of acts as a service/customer help ticket. Like @eelik I at least peruse each topic/post. Sometimes just seeing what regulars are in the thread is enough for me to know that if there’s a problem it will be identified.
Moderation is inconsistent? Yeah, probably less so (or more so) since more level 4’s were appointed. That’s why we actually discuss this stuff in the lounge occasionally.
Finally, moving it would take a ton of work and planning.
Moderation is impossible to please everybody. Defining spamming, personal abuse, off topic posts etc all have grey areas.where we don’t all agree, with extra challenges due to poor translation.
I think the Moderation job being done here is pretty good . . . historically spammers get jumped on very quickly and the rest is generally handled with a firm, but gloved, hand.
I’ve been a long term member of other forums that have been ruined by one or two moderators . . . we are doing great
I guess it depends on what your expectations and goals are. I come here for two reasons:
Find a solution to a problem I have. In this case I feel going back into archives are not very useful to me as often once you go back 1 or 2 versions the information is obsolete ( or at least different).
To read how others do things, and their problems and usually solutions. I also like to add my opinion when it makes sense. My background is in designing product (not the actual design of boards) and what it takes to make a product viable.
An aside, I would have loved to have a program like KiCad instead of going to an outside vendor. And getting a board made in a few days would be heaven.
