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By Effortless on
vbulletin 4 was released late last year and there seems to be a consensus that it's a disappointment. Jelsoft (the company that brought us the original software) was bought out and the current developers are, imo, more concerned with quick turnover than delivering a solid project. This thread is not to bash the current programmers, as I'm sure they work very hard. But since vb4 comes with a CMS (a buggy, feature-anemic one at that), now seems like the perfect time for Drupal to take the charge.
There has never been a fully functional integration between vbulletin and a robust CMS. If a webmaster wants a great CMS and a great forum, we have to settle for a buggy bridge/plugin/module (Drupal/Wordpress to vbulletin). If a webmaster wants true user and content integration with no bugs, we have to settle for the inferior forum (Drupal). A complete solution has been in high demand for years, but I suspect it's never come to fruition because it would require months of hardcore coding to duplicate the functionality of vbulletin. Maybe programmers feel their time is better spent developing paid services, or contributing to an open source forum like phpBB.
It's 2010 though. After using Drupal to develop a variety of sites, I'm convinced it can be used to build or improve any web application. If you're here, I'm probably preaching to the choir, so moving along.
A few years ago, Michelle made the single-most important move in creating a true CMS/forum a solution, by developing the Advanced Forum module. It's now on its second generation, and while it's more than enough for a small community based site, it's not an acceptable solution for a large forum. Webmaster-Forums is probably the nicest example of Drupal's forum at work, and there are less than 10 online users every time I've checked. Sony uses Drupal for the CMS and forums of quite a few artists; the designs are nice, but the features can not compare to vbulletin.
This is a great article explaining just a few of the advantages Drupal has on vBulletin, but unfortunately this all pales in comparison to vbulletin's inherent advantages for managing giant forums. Since Drupal's core is already suitable for giant sites (even more than vbulletin is actually), it should be a piece of cake to get a forum module to catch up to vbulletin.
From what I've read and seen, the default drupal forum system uses threads as nodes, and posts as comments. I'm not a module developer, but I think the key to really using Drupal's power for forums is to treat each post as an individual node. This will make dozens of administrative features easier to develop, and allow individual posts to take advantage of modules that are currently only available to threads. According to this guy, it shouldn't have a great impact on server performance.
I've composed a list of features that Drupal/Advanced Forums needs before large forum webmasters can make a smooth transition. Some of these features may currently exist in Advanced Forums, but I have not seem them readily enabled. In any event, I'm suggesting that they each become a default feature with Advanced Forum, since they are extremely popular features in vbulletin, phpbb, Invision, etc.
Crucial Features- Jump to Last Post
This almost sort of works on forums where there are no multiple pages to a thread. I have yet to see it work properly on a large forum, and it's been a basic feature in message boards since 2002-2003. Millions of message board users are accustomed to reading a large thread, browsing, then coming back to new replies by clicking the link in the "Last Post" column. - Modern Thread Sort
At the bottom of a vbulletin forumdisplay, users have the option to sort threads by Thread Starter, Replies, Views, and Last post. You can do this in Drupal, but there is no where to input a date range to sort. On large forums, threads can go back a decade or longer, so it's not very helpful to search the entire history of threads. - Threads Split into Multi-Pages
I've actually seen this on one Drupal forum, and it seems like it should be easy to achieve with Drupal's inherent pagination. The majority of Drupal forums seem to have long threads on one long page though. - Pagination on Forumdisplay
On vbulletin forums with large threads, there are small number links under the thread titles, giving users quick access to jump to page 2, 3, 4, or the last page. - Merge Threads and Split Threads
On highly active forums, moderators and admins need to be able to split a thread into new one, or merge two similar threads into one. - Thread Ratings
Nodes can be rated, so I don't see why this can't be easily enabled for forum threads. - Multi-Quote
Using javascript, users can check multiple posts before going to the reply page. I've seen a patch for this here but it doesn't seem to work for D6. - Modern Mass Prune
Again, on a small forum, managing threads manually may be okay. But a large forum needs robust admin sorting functions. The most vital are: delete threads Date, Number of Replies, and per Forum. The vbulletin admin control panel allows you to input a minimum and maximum, and only deletes within that range.
- Skin Select Dropdown
Drupal's theme system is awesome. There should be a simple way for users to switch them from a dropdown on each page. - Search in Thread
Self-Explanatory - Permalink for Posts
Right now, since posts are comments, the only way to link to them is to use the URL of the node with an additional pound. If a post is moved, the URL will become void. Also, if someone wants to link to a single post, it's impossible. As I said earlier, treating posts as nodes will make them easier to give their own URL. - Link Back to Permalink in Quote
Since vbulletin 3, quoting a post includes a small icon that links back to the post it's quoting. This is an extremely useful feature for long conversations on large forums, especially flat threads. - Inline Post Editing
Moderators and admins should be able to edit multiple posts and threads with checkboxes next to each. This is a standard vb3 feature and makes moderating large forums a lot more convenient than vb2. Moderating a highly active forum with Drupal would be a nightmare, plain and simple. Even if your users don't notice a difference between Drupal and vbulletin aesthetically, I'm sure you (the admin) would regret migrating to Drupal as soon as the threads really take off. Rules need to be enforced, and moderation is only as good as the tools you give your moderators .
- Favorites
Users having their own bookmarks for posts and threads. This would require posts have their own permalinks of course. - Announcements
Admins should be able to easily create board-wide announcements, and moderators should be able to make forum-specific ones. This function could also be achieved with "sticky" threads that can be site-wide, but they would need a separate css id than the rest of the forumdisplay threads. - Usergroup Management
Drupal's default permission system is actually quite robust, but there are quite a few forum-specific roles that Advanced Forums could streamline. This includes limiting titles, searching permissions, themes, avatars, custom bb codes, smilies, etc. to specific usergroups. It would also be useful to have automated promotions from one usergroup to another, based on post count and number of days registered. I'm aware some of this is possible now, but it's not in one system. Paid subscriptions are also another module entirely. All of this needs to fall under "usergroup management" for a realistic replacement for a large vbulletin. - Multiple Login Detector
There is a vbulletin mod that logs cookies and informs the admin when users log out and back in with another user name. This is great for large forums, as dozens of users tend to use multiple handles to partake in shady behavior.
I realize this is a lot to take on, but there is a huge demand for a true CMS/forum solution for large sites. No buggy forum bridges, no overpriced buggy CMS. I'm not much of a programmer, but I have a decade of experience administrating large forums on dedicated servers, editing and contributing custom modifications to vbulletin, and optimizing MySQL for large processes.
I know if we can get a few vbulletin developers on board, and some disgruntled customers to donate, we can easily raise the funds and programmers needed to get this done.
Developers and Forum Admins
I'm trying to get together a list of developers willing to help bring Drupal's forum capabilities into 2006 at least, as well as a list of forum owners willing to help donate to these developers. For a fraction of vb4's price, we can build a nice pot for these guys and hopefully get the ball rolling. Drupal's open source community and the modular nature of the software have so much potential for any community website. vbulletin's new direction and bulky code will make it less and less attractive for serious developers in 5 years. If you run a large forum, please post your thoughts. If you know someone who does, please spread the word.
Comments
Good luck with this - I
Good luck with this - I support it fully. Drupal is lagging in it's forum. Everything else about it is amazing.
My thoughts
First, the problem with lists like these is that not everyone has the same priority. I've asked many times in the past what people want in a forum and I get as many different answers as people I ask. With your list, there's some I think would be useful and others I'd have no use for. Second, it would be good to familiarize yourself with what's already available before trying to re-invent the wheel. Many of the things you're asking for can already be done.
Jump to Last Post - AF 1.x already has this. 2.x doesn't, yet, because it was lost in the Views conversion but I'll be adding it back in. 2.x does have it at the top of the thread, just not from the topic list.
Modern Thread Sort - I'd have to try it and see but adding an exposed filter on date probably wouldn't be hard.
Threads Split into Multi-Pages - You can set the post count per page to whatever you want. This is part of core.
Pagination on Forumdisplay - AF already has this.
Merge Threads and Split Threads / Modern Mass Prune - This should be part of the forum moderation module that we're waiting for merlinofchaos to have time to write. If he doesn't get to it, I might tackle it, but probably not for a while.
Thread Ratings - There are multiple modules for doing this. On the AF end, I need to make a Views field for it to show on the topic list.
Multi-Quote - There's a patch for the quote module that does this. The downside is it doesn't work with WYSIWYG.
Skin Select Dropdown - There's already modules that will let the user change the whole theme. It probably wouldn't be hard to make a style switcher for the forum style.
Search in Thread - Already in AF.
Permalink for Posts - If you're using comments, use the comment page module. If you're using nodecomment, that's built in.
Link Back to Permalink in Quote - This would be nice and something I might write since I could use it on my forum.
Inline Post Editing - A candidate for the moderation module.
Favorites - Flag module
Announcements - You can already do per forum with sticky and they do have their own CSS. But forum topics can only be in one forum, which makes site-wide announcements difficult unless you make them not forum topics and use a separate view.
Usergroup Management - This is out of scope for AF but would make a good separate module that AF could make use of
Multiple Login Detector - I know there's some modules that will show if there's multiple users on the same IP and stuff like that. I haven't really looked into it, though.
As you can see, most of what you're asking for already exists. The biggest issues for large forums at this point are the lack of solid moderation tools and some performance bottlnecks like forum_get_forums().
Good luck rallying people. There have been many failed efforts. While I'm certainly not the only one that's ever done anything for forums, I seem to be the only one that is consistently working on it and no one is paying me for it. Lots of people complain about the forums but it's pretty rare for anyone to help or put up any money for it.
Michelle
Given that this list is
Given that this list is incredibly intimidating for beginners (only an advanced drupaler would even attempt to put all of that together), what about creating an installation profile that the community can get behind? Perhaps include all the relevant maintainers so that it's on their radars that all the included modules should work nicely together?
Then maybe at some point this could be a polished item that could be showcased on drupal.com, where those less initiated could just pick it up and run with it...
Anyhow, REALLY like the direction of this thread, as the drupal forum movement could really do with a cohesive vision! I know there are some great people working on it, but it seems to be in the background in terms of the grand drupal roadmap.
After posting my bazillionth student ad on my vBAdvanced launch page (with the requisite back-and-forth for getting an appropriate image, formatted text, and the desired ad run-time), I can't tell you how wrong it feels when everything inside me is screaming "Why can't they just do it themselves?? All I need to do is give them permission to create the ad content type! Hasn't imagefield_crop been invented?! And why can't they just select the run-time from a date field??"
Oy... I can't stand working outside drupal anymore!
Thanks for putting that post together, effortless :)
Install profile
An install profile is definitely a possibility. Just needs someone willing to put in the time to do it. DruBB is a start in that direction but it needs someone who's not already bogged down with other projects to turn it into a full fledged profile / distro.
Michelle
Thanks
Thanks for the quick and thorough response, Michelle.
Agreed, we can all add specific functionality to our own forums. The purpose of this thread is mainly to replace vbulletin's capacity for running large forums, which shouldn't be difficult given Drupal's flexibility. It seems like the only roadblock is funding and time, not any limitations inherent to Drupal.
Any ETA on this? It's really a very common feature.
Great.
Nice.
Great, do you have an example URL of this?
Who else do you know that could help, and how much would it cost to sponsor a robust moderation module? This is probably the #1 most important feature for an active forum.
See above.
ETA?
Virtually any large forum would have one of the WYSIWYG's enabled. This means a real solution needs to be developed.
Great.
Do you have a URL of this on a live forum?
Good. Does AF depend on one method or the other, and if so, would it be easier to continue development by picking just one? If this is a development roadblock for you, you can force AF users to use one type, and webmasters can create other content types for non-forum pages.
This would be sweet.
Just checked this out. It looks awesome.
Separate view is fine, or even a panel displayed right under the header. I know it's "possible," I guess I'm really asking for commonly used vb functions to be grouped together under one AF module. Not the fancy stuff, but certainly functions every admin can use.
I don't see why any community-based site couldn't benefit from this.
This is a specialty feature for me, as one of my forums has a lot of misfits. It doesn't need to be a top priority.
Yes, but these aren't just issues, they're serious deal breakers for large, highly active forums. Right now Drupal's forum is a dream car with a perfect engine, nice finish, comfortable interior, but no breaks. You can drive it, but not on a real street.
Do you have a rough estimate of what it would cost to get you and some other competent developers to tackle the moderation issues? Large forums make money, so it shouldn't be difficult to find large forum admins willing to cough up a few bucks. I'm not prepared to finance this all myself, but I'll definitely contribute. If you get me an estimate, I'll head to vbulletin.org and start recruiting webmasters to chip in. We'll build a pot and get this done. Webmasters of large forums are also more likely to install and modify hacks, so they may even be willing to help code (the Misery module was inspired by a vbulletin hack, for example).
Let me know what you need.
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You can see examples on my forum.
I don't have ETAs on anything. I work on it as much as I am able but lately I've been spending time working on my own site, which I pretty much put on hold for 2 years while I worked on these modules. I'm going to put more time into them soon since the queues are getting weedy but my own site is going to be my focus for a while. To be perfectly blunt, I'm burnt out on making other peoples' sites better for free while my own site sits neglected. So items that don't help me will have a lot more chance of happening if people provide patches.
I don't think Drupal's forum is lacking breaks in your analogy but rather the perfect engine. Everything is functional and it drives fine on the streets but it's not suitable for a racetrack.
As for nodes or comments for replies, you get the most benefit from AF if you use nodecomment. It will continue to function with core comments but will lack features.
Michelle
I'm not asking you to work
I'm not asking you to work for free. I'm asking you what you need to make this happen. And if you know of another developer who can help lighten your burden, I'd like to know what he/she needs as well. This isn't supposed to be a one-man operation.
If you don't want to develop the moderation features because your forum doesn't require them, I can respect that. Do you know of a good module developer who might have interest in it? (again, not for free)
I didn't post this in the paid services forum because 1) there are a lot of development issues to work out before money comes into play, and 2) thousands of forum admins can benefit from this, not just me.
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The comment about working for free was in reference to the past. That's what I've been doing for the past couple of years. I'm not abandoning my modules by any means but am shifting focus away from them probably until Spring.
I actually could use the moderation module and may end up writing it if no one beats me to it. I know it's on merlinofchaos's plate but so are about a zillion other things.
I don't know of anyone who's not busy that has an interest in forums. Maybe someone will read this and jump on it.
Michelle
what's next?
I was reading one of your posts in the paid services forum, and you mentioned that the best developers often have their plate full, so some of the less experienced programmers take on new tasks and do a poor job.
I want to develop modules for the benefit of the community, not just my site; so I don't want a rushed, specialized solution for one site, but something everyone can use. Before I make a thread there, how would you recommend I proceed? Should I hire someone to make a general "moderation" module, or build on an existing one? I'm not sure what's better in terms of producing efficient code.
Also, can you make a to-do list of features you intend on working on this Spring? I don't want to pay someone else to do something you're going to make for your forum, especially if they will do an inferior job to yours.
Thanks
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The best bet for the moderation module is to build off Views Bulk Operations as much as possible.
My to do list is the issue queue, which will hopefully be less messy soon. I've been busy with my own site and not tending to it for the last few months so it's rather weedy right now.
I appreciate your enthusiasm but I just don't have a lot of time for forums right now. I got it to where it works well enough to be usable and am now focusing on other areas of my site.
Michelle
Those who use forum software
Those who use forum software are living in the stone age, blog style with comments and facebook type sites are becoming more standard these days. The drupal forum is good in that it's just another content type and can be styled anyway you like or not. I think if there ever was such a thing as a true cms forum, drupal already has it built in.
That's not really true. It's
That's not really true. It's a matter of preference. Some people like blogs, some people like forums (and some like both). To say that forums are the stone age is ignoring the fact that there are literally MILLIONS of forums out there.
A blog requires someone write a blog post in the first place, which generally means the site owner, or main members. Forums allow for any member to start a post on anything. They serve different purposes. And facebook is the same - some people don't care about the social networking thing. They aren't looking to post tweets about themselves or what not, they are looking to discuss topics in detail.
Agreed!
The term, forum, is often used wrong, and it gets confusing, but forums have not been around for every long, and they definitely weren't as good as they are now when Windows 95 was my operating system. Forum systems are often quite watered down and simple, but that's because the people installing them don't want a lot of features or don't know what they're doing.
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I have created and maintained countless Drupal-powered sites and have made heavy modifications to modules on a site-by-site basis. I am an illustrator, a game developer, and a web developer. I also stream on Twitch in my spare time.
Popular forum scripts are already using social profile
Interestingly, the popular and well-coded forum scripts vbulletin and invision have adopted social profile and profile commenting already. These are available as part of their forum suite, and has excellent social profile comparable to facebook or orkut - the profile commenting is easy and integrated. They also have social groups like OG in drupal but probably needs no additional installation. Interestingly the bundled suite for both vbulletin and invision comes with blog and CMS too. The invision blog is fantastic, perhaps even better than wordpress. Increasingly, the participants in forums (where forum is powered by vbulletin or invision) are also participating in social profile, profile commenting and even groups.
Except Drupal, all other prominent blog/cms/forum scripts have a single module to install for social netting, for example buddypress in wordpress. Joomal, phpbb, xoops all have a single module for social netting, just install and ready-to-go.
Eh, that's like saying people
Eh, that's like saying people who use landline phones are still living in the stone age and mobile phones are where its at these days. Fact is everyone uses landline phones and mobile phones. People using landline phones are not living in the 'stone age', it's just another medium of communication. The same with forums and social networks. Forums are just a medium of communication and they are more suited to discussion than facebook which is suited to short messages among people you know. I would also imagine that there are more people using forums than facebook/bebo/myspace. Just about everyone is a member of some forum or other whereas not everyone has a social networking profile.
=-=
continuing your phone analogy, how may people are still using rotary phones? versus touch tone?
I view the medium as the internet. The form of communication is that of discussion. I don't have any figures but based on my experience with the internet over the past 15 or so years, I would venture that forum centric websites may have stagnated in growth of marketshare. There was a time when most every site used a forum as the centerpiece of its community for providing central discussion. That doesn't seem to me, to be the case today. I think I see more of a shift in forum centric scripts to be more like CMS's or CMF's than I do the reverse.
I guess that may be part of the Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0 buzzword class. (or I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle together incorrectly)
On the other hand...
... you've got sites like mine where I can't get people to use anything but the forum. LOL!
I think it depends a lot on the type of conversation. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are very slanted towards broadcasting. You put out your status and people can comment on it but there's not normally a lot of conversation between the commenters and it tends to be people piling on agreement or sympathy for the original poster.
Forums, though, are very much geared towards discussion by multiple people. You write a forum post with the expectation that people will respond and get involved in the conversation. It's a central space that's not really "owned" by any one participant the way that a Facebook wall is. Unless there's some strange permissions, the person starting the conversation generally doesn't have the right to remove any response that s/he doesn't agree with. This sort of set up is better for discussions where not everyone agrees.
I think forums are on the downtrend because we've moved to a very "me centric" internet. Wherever you look there's people posting their stuff and the engagement of the audience is of secondary consideration to having their say or displaying their wares. While that's not all bad, I don't think it's necessarily a good thing. I think we're all talking at each other, each on our own podium, yelling out to whoever will listen, and losing a bit of depth and community in the process.
Michelle
=-=
I don't disagree with reference to societal shift. In an evolution of techonology class, I've had to take a deeper look into how technology is changing society and vice versa.
Many have always had a strong desire to be individual and express that individuality. Individual expression is/was encouraged. We all have a voice of our own and we are unique as the andecdotes and such go. The internet provides a blank canvas to anyone who wants it, at a realitively low cost and with increasing ease. There are pros and cons to the digital revolution/age as there has been with the revolutions/ages before it.
I guess I just don't see much of a difference between say: a blog post with comments, and a forum post with comments. Forum's have their display for visual reference and navigation that have pretty much become 2nd nature and therefore expected by great deal of the population during the birth and maturity (even for the immature like myself) of digital connections and communication.
_
Precisely. While I do think twitter and facebook can serve a useful and productive purpose (i think immediately of twittered news of disasters or other world events), the level of narcissism this has encouraged, evolved into, or given showcase to is actually quite frightening. Sorry, but I just don't care that humbug456 just ate a bagel with lox 1 hour ago or that beautyboy72 just had an intestinal virus while on vacation 2 hours ago -- and I wonder about those that do. But I wonder about those that twitter or wall about such things far far more.
imo it's just given a platform to the 'its all about me' attitude that is running rampant in modern society.
=-=
I think I agree. Much of what many share seems to be of little real value in the microblogging/status updating movement. Including, in my case, when limiting the display of information from family and friends. It is nice though, to find the occasional enlightening or positive statement. Though it does seem to be getting increasingly difficult to see through the static to find these diamonds in the rough.
Signal to noise
In small doses, I think posts like that are like small talk and can help you get to know people better. But if that's all that's posted, yeah, it's just noise.
Michelle
forum vs blog
there is a place for both...
A great informative and analytical post.
A great informative and analytical post.
Keeping myself subscribed.
One thing that both vbulletin and invision has adopted for the last few years are nice-out-of-the-box social profiles exactly like any standard social network. Something close to this can be probably done by Advanced Profile Kit in Drupal but that is not as close as what they have done in vbb or invision board. They also have out of the box better per user blogging capacity. The recent spike in sales of vbb and invision has been for this out of the box social profile and blogging capacities (along with Social Groups like OG) inbuilt and integrated with the forum.
Blogging?
Drupal's user blogging is a lot more powerful than vbulletin's, but I don't think Drupal will ever be an "out of the box" solution for complex community sites. This goes against the purpose somewhat. I think the forum is the only area it's lacking.
Although I don't have time to
Although I don't have time to give my full input right now (lots on my plate) I wanted to get this thread in my tracker so I can follow along and chime in as soon as I'm able to. I don't have much in the way of funds at the moment, but if a budget for paying a developer is determined, I'll certainly put in some funds.
small world
This is extremely off topic, but I've had your site (www.absolutecross.com) bookmarked since Netscape Navigator 4. It helped me to learn Photoshop years and years ago. Thanks
building a better forum
add me to the list of folks willing to add to the pot to hire a productive developer
Add me to the list
Add me to the list of people willing to throw in a few bucks to get the forums up to par.
Count me in. I have a popular
Count me in. I have a popular Vbulletin forum and have been building the drupal side of things for many weeks. I am faced with bridging. I have considered going with advanced forum but worried about making a mess or losing some of the moderation abilities I have with VB. I may forge ahead and go for it.
Next step
If anyone is serious about running with this, get with merlinofchaos and talk to him about his plans for the moderation module. He's very busy and it would be great if someone else could dive in and make it happen.
Michelle
I think from a end user point
I think from a end user point of view forums are easily the most important part of community sites. Michelle has done great work with Advanced Forum and it is ideal for many sites. However there are sites where forum software of vbulletin standard is required and bridging just isn't satisfactory. I was considering using a bridge myself but it is just too much hassle, can bring loads of unforeseen issues, will never work 100% smoothly, and you are completely dependent on the bridge author to keep it up to date or it could break when you update drupal/vbulletin.
I might be interested in working on the extra features for advanced forum but it will have to be for cash as I have rent/bills to pay and I can't afford to just stop doing my regular job for several weeks.
Can we get a list of the most important features that vbulletin has that advanced forum doesn't? Ill start with the ones that are most important to me
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Of those, the only important one to me is the quick reply/edit. I have no objections to the others being in AF as long as someone helps with support but they aren't something I'd use on my forum. That's the trouble, unfortunately. Everyone has a different idea of what's important.
Michelle
"As for nodes or comments for
"As for nodes or comments for replies, you get the most benefit from AF if you use nodecomment. It will continue to function with core comments but will lack features."
Hi Michelle, I have some questions on nodecomment -
1). So is advanced forum 6.x-1.1 intended to be used with nodecomment?
2). Is there any performance loss in turning comments into nodes?
3). What benefits does using nodecomments bring to the advanced forum module?
nodecomment
from the module page http://drupal.org/project/nodecomment
Also I do not see any D7x pledge for this module or any dev version for D 7
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The project page hasn't been updated for 2.x, which was pretty much re-written, so what it says there is irrelevant.
Michelle
Some answers
1) No, only 2.x works with Nodecomment.
2) Not much. Nodecomment takes advantage of Views' caching. I know catch ran some benchmarks and it wasn't bad at all. Sony uses it and they have some pretty active sites.
3) Aside from being able to use fields on replies (which is moot in 7.x), there's also the "my posts" view which combines starting nodes and reply nodes into one view, the ability to search in just the forum, and the ability to search in a single topic. I think that may be it... It's been a while since I looked at it and merlinofchaos wrote that part.
Nodecomment is rather sketchily maintained at this time since merlinofchaos isn't able to continue with it but it will be ported to D7 at some point. If you plan to be an early adopter of D7 you'd want to avoid it, though. But, then, you'll want to avoid Advanced Forum, too. I expect we'll be some months into D7 before it's ported.
Michelle
Sounds good, I'll have to
Sounds good, I'll have to give 2.x alpha a try so. I won't be using D7 for my site so I'm not too worried about that end of things.
I fully support the thrust of this thread
My question is how are you coming at getting to critical mass.. I think their would be lots of folks like ourselves that would contribute $ or talent to see this come to pass. It looks like Michlle is ahead of the curve and we should consider building a team around her. Michelle comments?
We run a large phpbb forum http://forum.bible.org and we like the admin features of phpbb. However, vb looks like it as more features and my forum admin wants to move to vb.. I am interested in seeing a good drupal forum module with good admin features where moderators can discuss problem posters etc
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Well, it does make sense to go with what I've started rather than re-inventing the wheel. Being sponsored would help give me more time to work on it, too. Getting my husband to watch the kids while I go off to the library to do paid work is a whole different ballgame from asking him to watch the kids while I go off to work on my hobby. ;)
And there are discrete parts where someone could jump in, like the moderation submodule. Really, someone could just devote their time to working on that without having to coordinate with me much because it would be in a separate area. I've got most of the user facing stuff covered, either finished, in the works, or on the roadmap. But moderation / administration is an area that is lacking badly and could use someone to champion it. The issue for it is here: http://drupal.org/node/841038
Michelle
Support
I want to see this happen as well.
I too will support this with funding.
I am still running VB3.8.x
I am still running VB3.8.x which is a good product. What a shame that VB seems to be in a bit of disarray because of problems with VB4 - http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?360187-Fabians-Post&p=2027441
My gut feeling is that they will get passed by someone who comes up with a good CMS/forum product or a solid and intricate bridge.
To vB and to not vB.
All of the outlined features are available as Drupal modules already. Sometimes even with the same name, sometimes you need to think abstracted. But there's little to nothing that doesn't exist yet.
However, what Drupal will never ever ever never ever achieve is the performance of vBulletin, regardless of how hard you try. Drupal 10 or 12, maybe, who knows. Once you've seen the page generation times of vBulletin of pages containing specific/tailored content for the currently authenticated user, you know what I mean. In a metaphor, that's like comparing a bicycle with a Porsche. That's just natural when comparing single-purpose software with modular multi-purpose software, but when comparing dedicated forum systems on their own, vB clearly beats most others in terms of performance (and features being delivered in that time).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of vB. Quite the contrary.
Daniel 'sun' Kudwien
makers99