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Discourse - A discussion platform by StackExchange's Jeff Atwood

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urlwolf:
You can try it here: http://meta.discourse.org/popular/more

What I like:
- Tech stack is better; Rails + ember.js
- The team really understands communication, having made a big product in the area

Mouser, would you be brave enough to move DC to discourse? :)

wraith808:
Conversation already going on here.

IainB:
Talking about it will only get you so far. Why not join in for a trial "suck-it-and-see" exercise?
As it says at: http://www.discourse.org/buy/
Our immediate plan is to find three great partners willing to live on the bleeding beta edge and run forums with us, so that we can be confident we've built a discussion platform that works for a variety of different communities. We promise to do everything we can to host your forum and make it awesome for two years. In return, you promise to work with us on ironing out all the rough edges in Discourse and making sure it scales successfully – both socially and technologically – to those three very different audiences.

Once we've accomplished that, which will take anywhere from six months to a year, we want to make it super easy for anyone to start a Discourse forum, at any scale, for any reason. Let a million discussions bloom!

--- End quote ---

tomos:
Why not join in for a trial "suck-it-and-see" exercise?
-IainB (February 08, 2013, 06:24 AM)
--- End quote ---

Iain, do you mean for dc?
(If so) I thought the same initially but wonder how the showing full threads would work. Something I definitely wouldn't like is that replies to a post are collapsed under that post. Under the post is maybe okay if marked new - but collapsed as well means very little chance of being read except by the author of the post.

40hz:
Talking about it will only get you so far. Why not join in for a trial "suck-it-and-see" exercise?
-IainB (February 08, 2013, 06:24 AM)
--- End quote ---

My sentiments exactly.  :Thmbsup:

So I did...

And so far, I don't really like it.

Although maybe once it gets out of sandbox mode and gains some persistence it will be better? I don't really see how since their design is what it is. But hope springs eternal.

FWIW I have yet to see anybody handle community building or discussions better than The WELL.  :-* Which is somewhat amusing in that they were the first to do it. And not much has really changed since it began. It's still all text and no bling. And it's still all about substance.

In many respects, I think the people doing Discourse may be seeing a problem that doesn't actually exist and are now in the process of reinventing a wheel to address it.

getting us out of the 1999 design rut we're stuck in.
--- End quote ---

Seriously?

Most people who are habitués of forums don't have problems with the so-called 90's look of standard forum platforms. As long as it's not constantly getting in their face, they usually won't care. Which in turn means - the more minimalist it is - the better. At least as far as most will be concerned.

Today's forum software has a default FAQ that tells you how to make bold text, but absolutely nothing about how to moderate your forum, deal with trolls, appoint moderators, or even how to get people to visit your forum in the first place. The hard-earned sociological lessons of these 10+ year old forum communities are not being baked into their forum software at all.

Right now when you install a brand new forum, what you get is a virtual tin shack in a wasteland. It's up to you to build up civilization from scratch every single time. Of course most fail miserably, which actively makes the web worse, turning into spam filled ghost towns.

But with better forum software:

    100% free and fully open source.

    All the sociological and technical lessons of 10+ year old forum communities baked into the design of the software.

    Sane, safe out of the box defaults, but a million dials and knobs to tweak.

    A built-in immune system from trolls, spammers and bad actors.

    A comprehensive forum culture support hub at discourse.org.

We could build something closer to a Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, freely available to everyone in the world.

Wouldn't that be nice?
--- End quote ---

It would.

They have.

It's called The Well.  ;D

A "complete" membership will set you back $150 per year or $15 per month. That gets you access to an incredibly vibrant and long established community; access to all non-private conferences (some may require an invitation to participate); and the ability to start and host your own conferences - which can either be: private, by invitation, or open to the Well's membership at large.

If you just want to participate in the discussions and not host your own conferences, an "essential" membership will get you access for $100yr/$10mo.

I only mention the above because I think Discourse's proposed $19-$99/mo "small business" hosting price is a little on the steep side. Especially considering how I don't see that much else being put on the table that the current incarnation of Discourse has a sufficient enough USP to charge premium prices.

I could go on and on...

Oh well...I wish them the best in their endeavor. Hopefully they will eventually create something truly unique and usable. Genuine innovation is always welcome.
 8)

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