IMPORTANT! Considering a 'big change' at WB, new system, etc - POLL ADDED

POLL ADDED

I’ve been spending a ton of time looking at options in changing up the forum, from tiny interface changes to massive overhauls into an entirely new system and format. With all the calls, presentations, demos, and research, I’ve narrowed it down to a few options, each has its own benefits and/or drawbacks. I’ll go through each, from least change to most, and really want as much feedback as I can get, here or privately (email or PM). The goal is to preserve the ongoing growth and spirit of the community but also to attract new blood, re: Millennials, as they expect to be communicating on a site that is similar to how we’ve all been trained lately with social media - ‘reactions’ instead of smilies, spacing, lack of colored background, formatting, embedded articles/pages, etc.

Option 1) Retain current system and just change the theme, try to modernize it a bit, making it more like the other systems I’m looking at (listed below, with samples, if you want to know the new look and feel goal).
Benefits: No major changes, more contemporary feel
Drawbacks: Smilies, topic icons, and features all quite dated. I’ve added a few features that are imitations of what exists in the ‘upgraded’ systems, but still the interactions, main feature set is outdated, even with updates.

Option 2) ‘Newer’ forum software, current leader being Invision. You’ll see similarities between it and phpbb as it is still a forum software, but a more modern interpretation. More features, easier access, upgraded overall from phpbb. Here’s an example https://linustechtips.com
Benefits: Newer, more modern interface, ‘reactions’ on posts (not just our ‘thumbs up’ vote, so very similar to Facebook), better messenger system, highlighted posts, hot topics, recommended posts (curated content), profiles show much more info including recent activity, ability to change your own interface when viewing the forum, condensing or expanding it with a click, embedding hyperlinks that show as mini-windows within the post from all over the web (super cool, it’s called 'external links rich embed, sample here External Links Embed [Rich Mode] - YouTube)
Drawbacks: Still similar to phpbb, but improved, not entirely ‘new’, so making a change like this one has to consider are the above benefits worth the hassle of changing?

Option 3) Significantly new format - Discourse. this is the most commonly used format for discussion communities that start now, from scratch. Feature-rich, minimalistic in design. Full feature list here - Discourse features | Discourse - Civilized Discussion sample forum here https://foodtalkcentral.com or many others here Discourse customers | Discourse - Civilized Discussion
Benefits: Most contemporary formatting overall, best mobile feel, most feature rich.
Drawbacks: ‘Change is bad’ and it will be a more significant change from what we’re all accustomed to here, might lose a few pieces of what is here in the process of migrating all the data over, minor things like losing the ‘likes’ and such. For those with GC and MC subscriptions, you’ll likely have to restart that process, as that data won’t transfer over (payment info on the subscriptions) and I JUST had you do that a year ago

My guess is that the ‘older’ crowd won’t want the change and the younger crowd will neener

I need to preserve the vibrancy of this community while bringing new features, abilities to interact, and general enrichment. Want to find the best fit for all of us, current and future.

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I’d vote for 3. Why make a change if it’s not meaningful?

I vote for 3

As long as every single conversation and post count is ported over I have no preference

and Brett Favre.

I’m a Millennial, but I’m not a big fan of change when it comes to websites and software, so I vote for #1. If it’s not broke, why fix it?

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I vote for 3. Make the change worthwhile and long lasting for the future. Some hassle for us older folks but we will adapt.

Brodie

As definitely one of the ‘older’ crowd, I don’t mind change as long as there are tutorials where needed. As long as the topic indexes are well organized, I don’t see a drawback to dramatic change. All I want is to be able to quickly locate the topics of interest to me so the search engine needs to be robust and flexible. One of my pet peeves with searching is a lack of flexibility. A good example of that is searching for a wine in CT. I never know how much information to input. CT often requires more exactitude than I am prepared to provide. [scratch.gif]

Make it simple. Make it flexible. Make it meaningful. Make it fun. Make it number 3. [winner.gif]

Change is bad, Neal Mollen gonna be pissed! And I’ll be calling you for help everyday, and not just for reverse searing, changing toilet flappers, dance tips, furniture recos, etc.

To note - I have been pushing for 3. I use discourse on a number of other forums and it’s a great. It looks fantastic on desktop and mobile. It’s speedy. Media integration is fantastic and link previews are amazing.

No one will ever complain on victor’s blind links ever again

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What if Victor complains that his blind links are no longer blind?

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3

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I’m very open to big changes, but I personally find Discourse painful to use, at least on the sites I’ve used it on. The visual design is more modern for sure, but I don’t find the UX to be very well-designed for single conversations that can go on for weeks, months, or years, and people want to be able to keep contributing to them as well as reading back through the history and learning from it. It seems much more optimized for the use case of posting a question or idea, having conversation on that thread for a short period of time, and then moving on. I can’t say whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it would be a big change in the way people participate here.

I think the real value in this site is and always will be the community that is here. It’s good to bring in new folks, but only if it doesn’t come at the expense of driving away the existing people. And by “driving away” I don’t necessarily mean people proclaiming that they hate it and leaving. It’s more about subtle things that add friction or discourage types of interactions that keep people coming back. If a new system discourages or disallows the kinds of things you find in the “Hall of Fame” thread, I worry that it might change the nature of this place irreversibly (and not for the better).

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Honestly it took me a year before I started using WB because of the old school style. I’d go with 2 or 3, no major preference between the two. 2 might be more intuitive for a lot of people.

3 is the way to go for the long-term, but 2 is a really good intermediate option. As a borderline millennial (I’ll never willingly admit to being one), these changes don’t seem that significant at all. The learning curve should not be that steep, and I think most people should be able to adapt relatively quickly.

Fantastic insight, Sean, as this is something I have to research carefully. As I mentioned above, a forum is DIFFERENT from social media, its setup differently to allow for contributions current, past, future, etc, as you pointed out - social media has a tendency to be focused on ‘now’, quickly going away. From what I’ve seen (I haven’t used any Discourse sites) it does seem to be setup, or CAN be, rather, as a forum, with subforum topics (Wine Talk, etc) and discussions/threads within it. I will definitely look further, but for you it seems like 1 or 2 is your choice given your issues with Discourse, your experience.

As for the community, trust me that’s the most important thing for me as well, and no matter what I do - if it’s nothing, if it is significant - every design and feature I implement will have that in mind. From what I’ve seen in Discourse (not referring to Invision at the moment as it’s very much ‘standard’ but updated forum software and interface) things like the HOF thread would be there, and utilized just the same, but I’m happy to hear more. That’s why I opened this up to the whole community - I need this feedback from personal use.

Max, that’s precisely why I want to make a design change, at minimum, but if I’m doing that…why not something more? I don’t want people to come on here and ASSUME it’s outdated because the UI is, as the data is absolutely current and on fire daily.

Open to change, but just taking a look at your #3 example (food talk central) it seems very large in terms of screen presence. I like coming on here, hitting “new posts” and having almost the entire 1st page in view at a glance. Looks like a lot of scrolling with the example site.

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Yes, 2 would be very little adjustment period for most, it’s just a consideration of going for a big change or a huge one

I participate in 600 comment threads on discourse. Not really any different than here other than it doesn’t segment by page.

I, too, use ‘New Posts’ almost exclusively - that’s my bookmark! I scarcely use the index page. On some of the Discourse options, like this one - https://twittercommunity.com you have latest already there on the right, and a way to click ‘latest’ or ‘top’ easily right at the top of the page