Delimiter Forum: Take #3

24

hey everyone,

I just wanted to invite you to start beta testing Delimiter’s new forum, which we have implemented over the past several weeks. You can find it by clicking here!

It’s safe to say that we’ve had a bit of a botched history with forums. Delimiter first launched a forum back in May 2010, however it was quickly overrun with spam, and we were forced to close it. At that stage we were using the venerable phpBB forum content management system, which turned out to be a nightmare to administer and vulnerable to the viagra-touting spam hordes.

After that experiment failed, a few months ago we launched a much lighter and more flexible forum based on bbPress. That forum also failed, but not because of the spammers; the bbPress forum software has reached the end of its life as it is being discontinued as a stand-alone forum package and re-integrated into WordPress as a plugin. We tried this plugin out over the past few months, but the truth is that it’s not yet ready for commercial use.

With this in mind, we went back to the drawing board over the past month or so, and tested about a dozen different forum software packages out. The one which stood out in the end was vBulletin. It’s a mature package used by a number of other major forums, both in Australia (MacTalk and Overclockers, for example) and overseas, it’s flexible and powerful and easy to administer.

So why implement new forum software on Delimiter, when we already have a pretty good commenting system on articles?

Basically, the discussion on Delimiter on a number of key issues (the National Broadband Network, for example, the Government’s Internet filter project and even more traditional IT issues such as enterprise email platforms has grown too big for WordPress to handle. You guys need to be able to create your own threads and control the community more yourselves — so we need a forum.

Over the next few weeks you’ll see an increasing level of integration between Delimiter’s WordPress site and the Forum. The top Forum posts will be highlighted on the WordPress site in dedicated articles, and we’ll also be bringing the designs of the sites together a bit more so that each refers to each other.

As with Delimiter’s existing discussions, there’s only one real rule for the Delimiter Forum: No personal attacks. Posts which purely consist of personal attacks will be deleted or censored, although you can include mild personal insults in otherwise informative posts. And of course, no porn, no spam and so on.

With that, I leave it up to you. Go and check out the beta of the Delimiter Forum!

Cheers,

Renai LeMay
Delimiter Editor + Publisher

PS: A number of you have also requested that we implement the Disqus commenting system on Delimiter’s WordPress site. Rest assured this is coming as well — there is a small CSS formatting error we need to work through first, but it’s on its way. This will bring improved commenting to Delimiter, including the ability to login with your social networking profile, ‘like’ comments and so on. Stay tuned!

24 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks Renai. It will be nice to have a place that is not run by fanbois or a censorship regime. Whirlpool has become such a dive because anything you say about something seems to just end up in the deleted basket if it doesn’t meet certain agendas or put some people/companies in a bad light (even if there is justifiable evidence).

    • Heh no worries. I like Whirlpool personally, but I think there’s definitely room for a fair degree of variety in this area. Certainly Delimiter has a different flavour to Whirlpool. It will be interesting to see how the forum develops over the years :)

    • Well tubsta if you do something silly like post on Whirlpoop then you should expect that sort of thing.

      Basically you have two choices if you want to present an opinion there, post it in an existing thread and have it deleted for being “off topic” or start a new thread and have it deleted because “see existing thread” The forum as a whole and the majority of the users are far too sensitive, I call them crybabies (oh noes “personal attack”!). The rules are convoluted and insanely (control freakishly) long… I hear the government is modelling their censorship filter after Whirlpoop btw.

      As for this new Delimiter forum I will sign up, it’s basically the only way it will be a success, without my input it will fail as the hapless anti-NBN crusaders hang off my every word.

      • The problem you run into of course is duplication of topics and duplication of comments across both sites, or the WordPress site still holding the bulk of conservations and is still the main ‘active’ one because that’s where it is all happening with comments because of the trigger caused by one of your lead articles in that site leaving the other new site relatively dormant.

        • i wouldn’t bother posting in those dedicated forums. i only post in response to stupid comments below articles.

        • I’ve been grappling with that problem a lot over the past year, alain, but I am confident I’ve worked out how to get the balance right :)

          • i reckon the commenting system works fine as it is.

            i especially like the clean look, white background, not too many flashing ads, etc. the tree structure is a massive advantage on WP (i presume the VBulletin forum is just linear like WP) b/c individual arguments can branch off separately.

          • Well, Disqus is more of the same in terms of the existing WordPress structure, plus a few enhancements such as ‘likes’, logging in with social networking profiles and so on. vBulletin does have threads as per WordPress, but they don’t seem to be that popular. Overall I find it much quicker and easier to comment on vBulletin, but WordPress also has its strengths.

            I think they will be used for different things as well — as I mentioned, there is no way currently for readers to post their own threads on Delimiter itself — which is a weakness of the system etc.

          • *enhancements such as ‘likes’*

            why bother – i can already predict the outcome.

            comments such as, “NBN is a very risky project” will have -999,999,999 dislikes

            comments such as, “NBN will pay for itself before 2020” will have +999,999,999 likes

            so predictable.

          • Gee already making excuses as to why people will shake their heads, say WTF and vote for you accordingly…!

            Look all you have to do is like your clone did over at ZD, where he masquerades as advocate, and blame me for logging in/out constantly and voting “against him” that would explain it…LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          • I think you’re underestimating the Delimiter audience Tosh ;) Actually, I personally share many of the views of the anti-NBN commenters, and I appreciate the work you guys do on the site. I believe it’s important to have balance in all things.

          • i forgot that youtube links would open up into a video frame.

            it’s all .01’s fault.

          • Renai, I think even the most ardent NBN fan (such as myself) can appreciate what the anti-NBNers are saying, because in some aspects we all agree… after all the “NBN IS NOT” perfect as we have been saying… but it is the best option by far, imo…

            What irks me is the unwillingness of the anti-NBNers to give any credit and want to fight over every fkn letter, not just word, anyone else writes which opposes their negativity, because they simply refuse to give any ground, what-so-ever!

            Just yesterday and the day before they were arguing over supporter vs. supporters – one letter! Then the word degradation and refusing to accept that very old and very wet, even from Turnbull, is possible grounds for degradation… then they argue over the word most…sigh!

            These guys ask for examples and when given those very examples, instead of saying ok touche`, they pedantically argue over semantics and one word or even letter, within a complete post…ffs.

            I believe there can only be selfish political and financial reasons/agendas for them doing so (and as they have clearly demonstrated imo) which is sad… But as such, those few who do so, will receive nothing but the ridicule they so richly deserve…!

  2. how long does the registration email normally take to be sent out?

    i registered about 4 hours ago now and still haven’t received my confirmation email (yes i have checked the spam folder).

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