Re: Build Boost Back Better

From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-04-06 08:44:10

On 06/04/2022 01:54, Marshall Clow via Boost wrote:

>> https://www.discourse.org/ <https://www.discourse.org/>
 >
> * It doesn’t interrupt me when “new stuff is available”; I can look
 at it when I want.
> 
> I looked at Discourse a year ago, and hated it.
> 
> I didn’t see any information about alternate clients, workflows etc a
 year ago, so I’ll take a look again, but the my take on the default
 experience was “like Slack, but with cheesier graphics and more sounds,
 animations, and interruptions”.

Discourse is absolutely awful. I say this as someone who has been using 
it for most of the past decade.

It requires Javascript enabled to load any content.

Search engines - even Google - appear completely incapable of indexing 
most of its content.

It locks the content into database formats which require maintaining.

It's a wide open security hole.

I think the display of conversations and topics has crap UX.

It tries to be IM-y rather that discussion-y, and it ends up being crap 
at both.

In short, I hate Discourse. It has all the overhead and maintenance 
hassles of phpBB, but with worse UX, worse usability, worse 
searchability, worse scalability. It's inferior on most metrics.

Something tolerable - currently before they ruin it - is Reddit. I 
particularly like that search engines index it well, and given the 
useless rubbish Google nowadays returns for a query, I often wish for a 
Google which exclusively searches Reddit and returns no other results.

Its mobile integration is also tolerable, though I uninstalled its app 
because it spys on you and then its UX tries to refuse to work if it 
detects a mobile phone browser, because in the end you're not their 
customer and as usual they're ultimately out to get you.

Reddit has no maintenance nor security overheads for us, its main issue 
is lock in and undoubtedly its owners will at some point ruin it and 
then all our content will be gone forever.

I'm still struggling to find much better than email mailing lists 
personally. I wish it weren't so, but there's a real gap in the market 
for decent, modern, non-lock-in, low maintenance, discussion software.

Niall