General Do you tend to join/avoid sites that use a certain forum software? (1 Viewer)

For discussions that don't fit other prefixes.
(talking about myBB) It’s awful on mobile too. It’s the only software that isn’t fully optimized for mobile phones and that’s a bad thing.

ProBoards should offer an option for forum owners using their free hosting to transfer their forums to another provider if they choose, especially since they built the forums themselves. That's one thing I don't like about ProBoards.

I disagree. myBB can be adapted for mobile relatively easy, and I use several myBB forums that run absolutely fine on mobile. "Optimization" for mobile phones generally requires the admin to do a bit of work, and I don't think that's too much to expect, especially for a free software.

Instead of being jealous or hating on different software, we should embrace forums otherwise we'll kill it all off in the end.

I'm fine joining any forum using any software.

This sums up my feelings pretty well.

I don't know what it is about phpBB, but I've never been fond of sites that use the software. Maybe it's the layout, the theme, or the lack of some features, but I've never been a fan of it.

Nowadays, in comparison to other softwares, phpBB looks quite outdated. 15 years ago, phpBB was the forum software to beat imo, and it's simplicity (both user, and mod/admin wise) was it's number one selling point.

I tend to not see what software a forum uses, only that it's easily navigated through and is active. A lot of times through is a certain "flavor" in that forums seem to take on. A large number of categories that many newer forums tend to go with instead of the oft-suggested to not do that.

The not-so-often-used software like Flarum, NodeBB, or even Discourse has been growing in use lately, but not as much as Xenforo or IC. I think many dismiss a forum when they use phpBB or MyBB as something lessor than what is out there or even antiqued.

Just as a footnote, I've come across some MyBB (and one phpBB) forums lately that you wouldn't know are using those softwares if you didn't look in the footer for the credits. Again, I go back to the forum admin - if you have a little technical knowledge, and some patience/time, these platforms offer great customization options for free.
 
When did you last use SMF? 2.0 is definitely out of date, but good thing 2.1 was released a couple of years ago.
I didn't say I used it... I just said that as someone who was on an SMF forum and saw the comparisons.
 
I do enjoy being told that my work is outdated compared to a platform that's still mostly 20 years old, though.
 
Nowadays, in comparison to other softwares, phpBB looks quite outdated. 15 years ago, phpBB was the forum software to beat imo, and it's simplicity (both user, and mod/admin wise) was it's number one selling point.
I don't know how customizable phpBB is, but if they got the layout and theme looking representative enough, I think I would find myself more willing to register and participate.
 
I don't know how customizable phpBB is
It's inevitably self-hosted, so you can go nuts with it.

If I didn't tell you this was phpBB, you'd almost certainly never know - https://hogwarts.io/ - and this is just the front page.

Heck, my roleplay stuff started out life as SMF. When you're in the self hosting pool, the level of customisation becomes your imagination - subject to dealing with patches from the core software, and sometimes figuring out how to make them play nicely.
 
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I don't really see the big deal as to what platform. My bigger concern is rather it's cluttered with ads. I mean, unless I got a strong interest in the site otherwise, the ads can be a real turn-off.
 
It's inevitably self-hosted, so you can go nuts with it.

If I didn't tell you this was phpBB, you'd almost certainly never know - https://hogwarts.io/ - and this is just the front page.

Heck, my roleplay stuff started out life as SMF. When you're in the self hosting pool, the level of customisation becomes your imagination - subject to dealing with patches from the core software, and sometimes figuring out how to make them play nicely.

This is an amazing example of what a good administrator can do. I'm still not sure if I quite believe it's phpBB!


9d257d.jpg


Edit: Epic fail, realised after I posted the meme that it does not work. xD
 
Many years ago I went travelling around the US with a friend of mine. We made a travel blog using SMF - and a WordPress theme I ported.

The reality is that most of the time people just don’t go far from the default because maintenance discourages them from doing so.

Not looking like a typical forum isn’t actually that hard, but you do run the risk of maintenance issues. It is one of the interesting asides of Jcink that because it doesn’t move much functionally that people tend to customise it visually more (but then run into maintenance issues with customisations)
 

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