Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there?

#11

Post by ddorian43 » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 10:52 AM UTC

mneil wrote: post #2

Have you checked out Muut https://muut.com/ ? It's completely customizable with CSS, uses a lightweight javascript client, minimal design and focuses on the conversation (text). You can also use it privately. That requires a subscription. It's a hosted service. Disclaimer: I work there.

It's so trendy you can't even rightclick-newtab with it.

Why haven't you guys customized the scrollbar ? It would be way COOLER. Probably change the speed, so it can be personalized for your forum.

And why not an infinite-scroll ? Who needs pages anyway.

No javascript? Are you a scraper? Fuck off neanderthal!

You need a link of the thread? Go search for it dummy.

Only thing left to do is to break the back button.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there?

#12

Post by mneil » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

ddorian43 wrote: post #11

mneil wrote: post #2

Have you checked out Muut https://muut.com/ ? It's completely customizable with CSS, uses a lightweight javascript client, minimal design and focuses on the conversation (text). You can also use it privately. That requires a subscription. It's a hosted service. Disclaimer: I work there.

It's so trendy you can't even rightclick-newtab with it. Why haven't you guys customized the scrollbar ? It would be way COOLER. Probably change the speed, so it can be personalized for your forum. And why not an infinite-scroll ? Who needs pages anyway. No javascript? Are you a scraper? Fuck off neanderthal! You need a link of the thread? Go search for it dummy. Only thing left to do is to break the back button.

It's hard to read get your actual points through your comments but I'll try to address what I can.

Right-click new tab is available when you click the link icon available from the burger when hovering a title. That burger holds sharing options. That also holds a link to the thread.

Click the bubble with the number of posts at the bottom to keep loading comments. We've found most people don't need or want pages. The search is typically good enough and new/active threads are bubbled to the top so you're not constantly searching for that active thread you were on last night.

We also send email digests while you're away from the forum to keep you informed on new replies. You can watch/unwatch any post or subscribe to all new posts.

Muut combines forums and commenting and works really well for aggregating comment threads on blogs, for example. Many of our users use it support as well. It also works great as a standalone forum. Is it vBulletin? No, but that's on purpose and in an attempt to make online conversation better. So no, it doesn't look like the traditional forum of the 90s.

As for c2prods updated response I'm not sure how much profile management c2prods needs. That's one of the areas we're currently working hard on along with ACL. Muut isn't the right fit for everyone; but it is a legitimate suggestion to the original post.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there?

#13

Post by c2prods » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #5

doug1001 wrote: post #4

so i believe one of the StackExchange founders left full time work at SE to build a start-up directed to here. ( http://www.discourse.org/ ). i I think this was maybe two years ago--no idea about their product.

Jeff Atwood created Discus. The poster is explicitly looking for alternatives.

I quite like discuss but I need a better user management…

Re: Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there?

#14

Post by brudgers » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

c2prods wrote: post #13

brudgers wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Atwood created Discus. The poster is explicitly looking for alternatives.

I quite like discuss but I need a better user management…

What user management tasks do you anticipate?

What I've gleaned from listening to the StackOverflow/StackExchange podcasts is: If you can a build a community, community members will be inclined toward handling a lot of user management as part of their engagement in it.

There's also the implication that if you're not trying to build that sort of community, it's unlikely to be successful.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any simple, clean and well-designed forum solution out there?

#15

Post by mneil » Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

ddorian43 wrote: post #11

mneil wrote: post #2

Have you checked out Muut https://muut.com/ ? It's completely customizable with CSS, uses a lightweight javascript client, minimal design and focuses on the conversation (text). You can also use it privately. That requires a subscription. It's a hosted service. Disclaimer: I work there.

It's so trendy you can't even rightclick-newtab with it. Why haven't you guys customized the scrollbar ? It would be way COOLER. Probably change the speed, so it can be personalized for your forum. And why not an infinite-scroll ? Who needs pages anyway. No javascript? Are you a scraper? Fuck off neanderthal! You need a link of the thread? Go search for it dummy. Only thing left to do is to break the back button.

I forgot to mention that a static index is generated under the /i/ prefix https://muut.com/i/moot of each forum for SEO and reading when there is no javascript available. But, to contribute on the forum you will need to have javascript enabled.