Hello everyone. I am here to propose that we change the software of the forum from DjangoBB to Discourse

First of all, what is discourse?

(quoting from their page) “Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. Use it as a mailing list, discussion forum, long-form chat room, and more!”

Here's a demo of discourse if you want to see what it's like

Why do I propose a switch from DjangoBB to Discourse?

Discourse has a much more friendly UI. It's very easy to tell where everything is, and users would figure things out much quicker on a more friendly UI.

To better understand this, let's come up with a Pros and Cons list for switching to discourse.

Pros

• The more friendly UI
  

• The tags (a lot like how inside of the “Making Scratch Projects” topic, their are subcategories for Show and Tell, Help With Scripts, etc)
  

Cons

• It will be a huge adjustment, maybe making scratchers decide to quit (just like 3.0 did)
  

• The scratch team would have to port MANY topics onto the new software, which would be a lot of work
  

• Instead of a numbered list to each part of a topic, it has infinite scrolling. So, it will take longer to find certain posts
  

Now, this is how we can solve these cons.
For Con #1 (The adjustment) Scratchers eventually got used to it. Since over 1000 scratchers were able to make the jump to 3.0, we can do the same with the new software.

For Con #2 (Porting all the topics) The scratch team would really only need to port the active topics. There's no reason to port a topic from 2014 with 1 reply

For Con #3 (Infinite Scrolling) This is really the only problem that can't be fixed. Then again, scratchers should eventually get used to the infinite scrolling.

If you want to see discourse's website, go to here
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Anyway, hopefully I posted this in the right category. If not, can a moderator move it?
Thanks for viewing this

It will definitely take a while for Scratch to implement this. Besides, what about the scratchblocks plugin?

scratchastroLOL wrote:

It will definitely take a while for Scratch to implement this. Besides, what about the scratchblocks plugin?

Oops! I forgot about that. I think you can use plugins, but I'm not sure

Badges should in fact be a negative as they are rejected by the Scratch Team.

Ah. Looks like my small brain skipped over that while reading the rejected suggestions. Sorry!

I also notice that it shows videos which aren't even allowed in links.

fdreerf wrote:

Badges should in fact be a negative as they are rejected by the Scratch Team.

To solve this, the Scratch Team could make a fork of Discourse and remove/disable that feature.

geometric_ghast wrote:

Instead of a numbered list to each part of a topic, it has infinite scrolling. So, it will take longer to find certain posts

For Con #3 (Infinite Scrolling) This is really the only problem that can't be fixed. Then again, scratchers should eventually get used to the infinite scrolling.

I could be wrong, but wouldn't this take a lot longer for pages to load?

I would imagine that separate pages would be more helpful in organizing posts than infinite scrolling would be, especially for topics that have thousands of posts.

You can remove the "The scratch team would have to port MANY topics onto the new software, which would be a lot of work“ part from the cons since there will be a new ”Operation Cleanup"

Support!

LankyBox01 wrote:

You can remove the "The scratch team would have to port MANY topics onto the new software, which would be a lot of work“ part from the cons since there will be a new ”Operation Cleanup"

Could you elaborate on this “operation cleanup”? The last time we changed forum systems (from 1.4 to 2.0), we just archived all the forum topics. Either we'd do the same here (where then users would have to recreate topics they still want) or we port them all over, which again, would take quite a bit of work.

Za-Chary wrote:

LankyBox01 wrote:

You can remove the "The scratch team would have to port MANY topics onto the new software, which would be a lot of work“ part from the cons since there will be a new ”Operation Cleanup"

Could you elaborate on this “operation cleanup”? The last time we changed forum systems (from 1.4 to 2.0), we just archived all the forum topics. Either we'd do the same here (where then users would have to recreate topics they still want) or we port them all over, which again, would take quite a bit of work.

eeh.
I guess you can just choose what's easier
1.Let the scratch community help by archiving them in archive.org, so you can just move on.
2.Save only the important topics such as ITopics and stickies
3.Let the scratch community choose what you would save
4.Port them all over, which.. you probably would not want to do.

Za-Chary wrote:

geometric_ghast wrote:

Instead of a numbered list to each part of a topic, it has infinite scrolling. So, it will take longer to find certain posts

For Con #3 (Infinite Scrolling) This is really the only problem that can't be fixed. Then again, scratchers should eventually get used to the infinite scrolling.

I could be wrong, but wouldn't this take a lot longer for pages to load?

I would imagine that separate pages would be more helpful in organizing posts than infinite scrolling would be, especially for topics that have thousands of posts.

You're probably right.

No support. Sounds like a big change, and I’m used to the UI. Infinite scrolling would indeed be annoying and could slow down loading times significantly. Additionally, porting topics and the change from DjangoBB to discourse would take a very long time, weeks, even months. Also, there would be server downtime. Even if it was just the forums going down, think about the shops that would be unable to receive or complete orders, they could even shut down. The ST would be unable to post announcements easily, and users would find it hard to help others or get help. Essentially, we would be shutting down 50% of scratch.

Personally, Discourse is something I'd have to adjust to as well.

I don't know if this will necessarily force people off of Scratch, but it's certainly something that people will have to get used to - it's the first of any forum that has had so many perks, though it might be much suitable for younger audiences due to it's UI.

Za-Chary wrote:

geometric_ghast wrote:

Instead of a numbered list to each part of a topic, it has infinite scrolling. So, it will take longer to find certain posts

For Con #3 (Infinite Scrolling) This is really the only problem that can't be fixed. Then again, scratchers should eventually get used to the infinite scrolling.

I could be wrong, but wouldn't this take a lot longer for pages to load?

I would imagine that separate pages would be more helpful in organizing posts than infinite scrolling would be, especially for topics that have thousands of posts.

The current system also seems to load all posts, even though you can only see one page (judging by the fact that loading time is almost directly proportional to the post amount). It could be some other reason, but if this is true then there won't be much difference.

geometric_ghast wrote:

For Con #2 (Porting all the topics) The scratch team would really only need to port the active topics. There's no reason to port a topic from 2014 with 1 reply

what about inactive topics that have lots of discussion on them? or would it only be the ones with few replies?

geometric_ghast wrote:

Here's a demo of discourse if you want to see what it's like

The Snap! forums might be a better example.

Maximouse wrote:

geometric_ghast wrote:

Here's a demo of discourse if you want to see what it's like

The Snap! forums might be a better example.

i agree

No support, sorry. I'm used to the current UI and this would also take a while to implement.

Za-Chary wrote:

geometric_ghast wrote:

Instead of a numbered list to each part of a topic, it has infinite scrolling. So, it will take longer to find certain posts

For Con #3 (Infinite Scrolling) This is really the only problem that can't be fixed. Then again, scratchers should eventually get used to the infinite scrolling.

I could be wrong, but wouldn't this take a lot longer for pages to load?

I would imagine that separate pages would be more helpful in organizing posts than infinite scrolling would be, especially for topics that have thousands of posts.

No, pages load super fast on Discourse. I use several forums which use Discourse and they are awesome. You could just try out Discourse here. And their official forum is here. Also, it is free software meaning you can change anything you want in it.

Discourse has a way better way of combating spam with Trust Levels than the sixty-second rule.