Didn't know there were so many options! There are two that I came across today which really impress me.

MyBB - very similar to vBulletin
MyTopix - very similar to Invision Power Board

And then there are others.

UseBB
PubbBB
Simple Machines - site not working right now

And then there's of course Vanilla. Why don't need a link to that one, do we?

I'm amazed at how far forum software has come. phpBB, IPB, and vBulletin have some serious alternatives now. Best part of all is pretty much every single one of these forums is very young - most haven't even hit release 1.0 yet, and they already look this good.

I'm really starting to enjoy MyBB. I think I'm gonna use it for my forum. My forum is mostly gamers/teenagers, and they don't seem to appreciate the simplicity of Vanilla.

where were all these alternatives back in the day?

Most people just stick to phpbb, vbulletin (I fscking hate that one), or whats that other one, ikonboard? Easyforum has been around for a few years, its just small and nothing special, most people dont like that.

They need their 800x400 sigs, their 300x300 avatars, their total post count in visual range, total views, etc etc.... Ive tried to setup a different forum other than phpbb for some peeps I know in a clan, and they threw a fit. Had to put phpbb on to shut them up... bastards.

HAHAHA, where can I get these, tranquilizers? lol

Well, and that in itself is a problem with Vanilla.

I had probably about 30 active members on my old site. When I converted over to Vanilla, I had maybe 10. Many simple refused to use it.

I head more than one say "it feels like a blog, not a forum". I don't have any problem with reinventing the wheel. Forums are great pieces of software, and its good to see free stuff instead of having to fork over lots of money for the same functionality.

But I still love Vanilla. I just can't get my users to use it.

I hear that. I love Vanilla, but I dont know anyone that would use it (outside the ppl in this community). I think the reason is that people have grown accustom the the way those forums work. They have been told "this is how a forum should look/work" and anything other than that is a blog, or crap or not good enough.

I do and dont understand that at the same time. Why should how it looks (or what useless features it has) define what it is, or why you'd use it? I know some people that would hate Vanilla (but love phpBB) because its so simple, because its all about discussions and conversing. But they dont care, they want the eye candy, and the "typical" forum setup/look. If its not bloated, if it doesnt have your statistics plastered everywhere, and if it doesnt have that stupid same old layout, they dont like it.

I think thats just the way its gonna be. We might not be able to "switch" a lot of people, but hopefully we can at least get some of the "newbies" before they are corrupted.

Im all for Vanilla, was a little sketchy at first, but after using this forum for a few days I totally converted. Tore down that phpBB crap and replaced it with Vanilla. I didnt have any users as it was, so it wasnt really a problem. Although Im sure that might be whats keeping a lot of people from converting, their users.

Vanilla plain has a better layout that anything else.

Having all the options in the sidebar is great. Having tabs up top to deliniate between different sections is natural...and most of all, not having that silly category page as the first thing you see is awesome.

I've never understood the desire to split forums up into hundreds of different categories. It just slows down discussion, imo. I know one guy who has around 10 active members online at any given time, but he literally has 20+ categories for his forum. I just don't understand it.

Vanilla is plain smart. People have just gotten so used to the worthless stuff. My users HAVE to know who is online and exactly where they are online, and they want their post counts, and they want custom titles, and they want big massive banners as signatures. It drives me crazy, but no matter how much I'd like to use Vanilla, if I use it, 2/3s of my users will leave, and I'll have a major problem attracting more.

nathan, Drupal's forums are interesting. One thing I've always enjoyed about Drupal's forums is it finally follows my mindset that forum posts should be able to show up on the frontpage if an admin chooses so. That just makes sense to me.

EDIT: Nathan, I've seen the discussion at drupal.org about forums. I know what you mean.

However, I'd like to add that Vanilla is indeed lacking a few basic things which I do think help discussion flow better. First of all, I think Vanilla needs a WYSIWYG editor. You know, highlight a section of text you are typing, push down the "B" button, and its bolded. It also needs quoting. Quoting is damn near essential to keep some conversations flowing well.

And signatures...I think they are important, too. Maybe not massive banners for signatures (though the admin should have the option), but the ability to have a "personal quote". You might be saying, "Hey, that's extra stuff that isn't really needed!". However, I think having a small siggy for each user allows other users to understand them better, to possibly see where they are coming from and who they are. Ultimately, that leads to better discussions.

All those features have been disussed. And Im sure many will be made into extensions. I know quoting...just use simple <blockquote> tags, and if the style your using (like my Clockwork :) ) has the proper tag, it gets formatted so you can plainly see its a "quote". That and maybe add Quoted by: XXX or something...and toss it into a button.

Sigs have also been discussed. I love the fact that Vanilla is just a basic simple core of a forum. So the ones that dont want the bloat, dont have to have it. The ones that do, can simply install the extension for what they want.

The funny thing is, I think the people who frequent the Vanilla (Lussumo boards) are techier than just about any other crowd I know.

I mean, there's plain just a lot of knowledge on tech/programming/the web here, and its funny because its the gaming people on my boards that don't know crap about tech but love those fancy piece of crap forums.

Well, I'm not sure how to say this, since in my head it makes complete sense but when I say it loud, the meaning is just completely distorted.

But here goes nothing. I think that it is mostly the contributors (or if you like, techies) that like these king of things, and the average users, or just plain 'users' (or gamer if you want to) are attracted to the forums and community tools of old.

To me those names, contributors and users make way more sense than techies and gamers.

Exactly. The whole category system is just stupid (at least using it on the frontpage). Who came up with that anyway?

i do think us vanilla people are only a small part of the "contributors"; the few with any taste. i should have excluded us in my simplistic thought misinterpreted as analysis.hahaha

most contributors i know love to add any dumb thing just to show off that they could do it. if other contibutors had taste, they would hold off on using flash for every project, their sites would be more than vanity pages, and vanilla would be appreciated for the greatness that it is.
of course, clients can get in the way of taste.

i would put a gamer in with the techies. a line of techies who really do not understand the technology but have quick reflexes. they are used to created worlds wherein the contributors give them everything including a few ways to seperate themselves from other people also playing the game. therefore, things like post count and sigs would matter to them. they are also on the computer alot more often than other users.

the true average user will accept what they are given provided it works and there are other people they know using it.

standard compliance is an e-penis measurment or merit badge to most of the contributors. i code to standard so i have something to code to, but i hardly make a deal about it. other times, compliance gets in the way of something working. validity, to most should be whether or not the information or application works correctly, not whether or not the w3c can understand it.
that vanilla can comply and work quickly and beautifully is something not enough people appreciate.
number of languages known, the race to interact with memes the earliest, and the amount of computing power are among the other merit badges that some contributors use to flaunt instead of to do good.

Its cause we have helpful/well-informed and respectful people. Its a killer combo.

jesus, THW really is quick. It makes vanilla look sluggish - though i suppose my latancy to the vanilla server will be considerably higher.
Impressive though.

If you're converting the database yourself erissiva, are you writing a migrator? Or just moving the info with queries?

dude, quit pimping it, you're gonna make me want to book a plane ticket to Canada and steal your computer just so I can toy with it now :D

Mark - that is so hot....No, seriously.

minisweeper - Re: THWB - I once did an English translation of the software - and fully modded part of it (called the THWBoardX project), but realized that development was slow (there hasn't been an upgrade for 7-8 months). So, the modded version sat around on my compy until a major crash. Didn't bother to restart the project.

As for the database - because of the lack of users and posts (I shut my site down for months and just restarted it), I'm doing it all by hand. Heh.
I'm not a big coder. More into styles and whatnot.

Well, my wife is going away towards the end of October for two weeks. I imagine that during that time all of my spare time will be spent working on vanilla (and other lussumo projects). I'm aiming to get it out then.

You're including nasty things regardless?

mean!

End of October sounds nice. Thank you Mark. It is probably best you sleep a little in those two weeks. Working two week straight could (I think it actually would) kill a man. :P

Koso: Get rid of the nasty things. How could you?

:P

cyan? that's more like baby/sky blue, hehe, get off the laptop and check it on a crt :D

hynes, the funny thing is, I think Vanilla makes sense to people who have never used a forum before. Its just simple and easy. It is the people who have used conventional forums for several years that have a hard time with this.