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phpBB vs xenForo

Which forum engine should RPGCodex use?


  • Total voters
    38

Ion Prothon II

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
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Ołobok Zdrój
Users choosing a crucial technology, instead of administration? :retarded:
Democracy in the worst form possible.

Voted for xenforo, 'cuz it's here now and it works as it does.
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
why wasn't vB a genuine contender? Too mainstream? :smug:
They got bought out and now there's a fair bit of :retarded: in regards to vB's licensing.
You can probably find a bunch of articles about it relatively easily.

The main guys left and basically found XenForo.
I very much doubt the non-renewable license is the issue. It was only ever an issue for users at the time of change.
No really, Hirato is right. The VB guys were bought out by a company called Internet Brands. Sometime after that happened, the programmers decided it was time to do a completely new coded from the ground-up version of VB into modern coding standards for VB 4. Internet Brands did an EA and said "No, just update some shit and slap a new version number on it and it'll sell like hotcakes", so the programmers left to found XF instead. Basically, XF is pretty much the next version of VB - built by the same guys that built VB.

And today, VB4 is a complete piece of shit with a wide range of problems (bugs in updates, updates that fail, slow and clunky). As Hirato said, google it. There's an entire history of stuff about it.

There are now some current rumours about XF being in trouble though - with some guys leaving and some sort of personal shit going on between the programmers, hence the possibility of IPB.

You guys really should keep up with the happenings in the world of forum software. It's quite drama filled.
 

IDtenT

Menace to sobriety!
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Joined
Jan 21, 2012
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South Africa; My pronouns are: Banal/Shit/Boring
Divinity: Original Sin
Interesting. I always figured vB was the most reliable, since it is used everywhere and as a user haven't encountered any problems with it apart from a security flaw - as is with all things popular - but that was patched within a short span of time.
 

Taluntain

Most Frabjous
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vB's gone to the pits and I've told DU as much back when he was considering what to move to. Given phpBB's lack of features, XF was the most sensible choice because while feature-light, it would still be a definite improvement over phpBB and the code base was the best of all by far. The only nagging concern was the impending lawsuit, so it was a gamble... but you can't really predict the future of any such software more than a year in advance.

I use vB on my own site and it's pretty obvious that after sticking with 3.8.x for this long, at best we'll be upgrading to 4.2.1 once they finally release it - if not switching to XF or IPB. The first reports are all saying that v5 is another bug-ridden, incomplete mess. But I fully expected history to repeat itself. You can't have the same incompetent leadership and coders and expect a different result the second time around - while still at ~1000 bugs in the previous version 3 years after release.

So, in short, the pre-4 versions of vB are good and reliable. Anything after that - corrupted by IB's meddling. It's only now that vB4's become barely worth considering upgrading to, but, of course, they dumped v4 now so that they can sell v5 for $250 to the remaining 50 fanboys.
 

Taluntain

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If you want to go to the effort of doing it, sure... everything's modifiable, it's just a question of how much time you're willing to put into it.
 

Revenant

Guest
I wonder what features phpBB3 is lacking, considering the Codex ran phpBB2 for a long time and everyone (at least the users) was happy.
 

made

Arcane
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
5,130
Location
Germany
Given phpBB's lack of features
What features would that be?

The only actually useful feature we got since the switch is the alerts when someone quotes you. Everything else like ratings or the tag cloud (wtf does it even do?) is just unnecessary clutter and probably strain on the server.

I checked some of the other forums I visit that have a clean design, are fast to browse, have a working search - turns out they use phpBB.
 

IDtenT

Menace to sobriety!
Patron
Joined
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South Africa; My pronouns are: Banal/Shit/Boring
Divinity: Original Sin
Given phpBB's lack of features
What features would that be?

The only actually useful feature we got since the switch is the alerts when someone quotes you. Everything else like ratings or the tag cloud (wtf does it even do?) is just unnecessary clutter and probably strain on the server.

I checked some of the other forums I visit that have a clean design, are fast to browse, have a working search - turns out they use phpBB.
phpBB, SMF, etc are not optimized for large communities. At the very least, that is my understanding.

My biggest problem with phpBB has always been their administration control panel, which is terribly designed and lacking in features.

phpBB also lags quite far behind when it comes to new technologies. I remember them struggling to get phpBB 3 out of the door years after SMF had the same functionality and stole much of their market.
 
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
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Location
Ottawa, Can.
The biggest forum in the world, Gaia online, is run on phpbb.

Also, at some point, what more features do you need? It's a message board to post messages to, not a mini Facebook clone, which makes you pay for the privilege of editing your own titles and show you've edited your posts. And it's forever free, not to mention enriched by the biggest add-ons community.

I never had any trouble administering the PHPbb 3 board used by my Canadian university group.
 

Taluntain

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What features would that be?

The only actually useful feature we got since the switch is the alerts when someone quotes you. Everything else like ratings or the tag cloud (wtf does it even do?) is just unnecessary clutter and probably strain on the server.

I checked some of the other forums I visit that have a clean design, are fast to browse, have a working search - turns out they use phpBB.

I was talking about phpBB2 that Codex ran on, not 3. Naturally the current version is much improved. Also, most of the big boards running phpBB (like Gaia) have rewritten large parts of it to suit their needs, so their versions aren't comparable to default installs.

As for extra XF features, mainly features on the admin side that none of you ever get to see but make the mods and admins' work infinitely easier. And the whole code base, which isn't stuck in the prehistoric era and actually plays much nicer with big boards without needing a dedicated developer to rewrite half of it to be still usable. There are also probably at least a dozen other worthwhile user-side features that XF has and phpBB2 didn't, but of course, each one will be considered "useless" or "unnecessary clutter" by a certain percentage of people who don't use them.

XF was purposefully built to be light enough that even large boards could run on it without needing a cluster of servers to support it.

The biggest forum in the world, Gaia online, is run on phpbb.

Also, at some point, what more features do you need? It's a message board to post messages to, not a mini Facebook clone, which makes you pay for the privilege of editing your own titles and show you've edited your posts. And it's forever free, not to mention enriched by the biggest add-ons community.

I never had any trouble administering the PHPbb 3 board used by my Canadian university group.

Relative peace of mind is a good start. While "forever free" sounds great on paper, phpBB2 was mass-hacked every few months. Thousands of forums have been completely wiped out during these (and plenty of other) exploits. And all forums needs must adapt a certain amount of social features simply because they're what the generations today have come to expect and like to use. It's then up to every forum's admin to limit the social stuff according to their vision for their community. The important thing is simply that there's an on/off switch for everything.
 

Revenant

Guest
And all forums needs must adapt a certain amount of social features simply because they're what the generations today have come to expect and like to use.
This argument is 0/10 from the viewpoint of what the Codex ought to be.
 

Taluntain

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This argument is 0/10 from the viewpoint of what the Codex ought to be.

Forums as in forum software. Though you'd be hard pressed to find any active message boards today that don't utilize any social features whatsoever.
 

Revenant

Guest
Funny, all the other message boards that I participate in have zero social features whatsoever. The Codex was the first place where I encountered all this social faggotry. One more aspect of universal decline, apparently.
 

EG

Nullified
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
4,264
I don't personally care about the social features, but the layout is relatively clean, the alerts feature is most useful (compared to spamming "show recent posts"), and it scales to my levelresolution (or zoom) just swell. Quick Reply and automatic quotes are a plus (particularly when it comes to defacing someone else's words -- users can still go and find the real post).

If not for these few token items, I wouldn't give a shit between the two.

Hey, does this thing support nested sub-forums on the main page? That is visibility being able to see Surf Solar's little project if it were in Workshop on the main page (that foolish little arrow and a popup doesn't count). It seems phpBB hasn't pulled that one off yet . . .
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
Funny, all the other message boards that I participate in have zero social features whatsoever. The Codex was the first place where I encountered all this social faggotry. One more aspect of universal decline, apparently.
The Codex is avant-garde.
 

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