Flarum Complaint Thread #2

As shitty as Flarum is, I don't think we're switching anytime soon, sadly.

But holy hell, everything you said makes perfect sense, like the entire concept of having everything as 'extensions' (mainly shit that should be included with the software) is just sad and makes even setting up a basic forum a nightmare. And yes, it does indeed take a whole lot longer to load the page.

Fuck Flarum.

@Panther#7250 I suspect that might be a geographical thing more than anything else. Things tend to load pretty quickly for me, but equally I'm used to things not loading that fast due to shite internet...

Wild has said it himself that there has not been any testing of new software since he last announced that there would be. It is not high in his priority list.

This software is terrible, but we're going to have to deal with it until he decides to do something about it.

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@videogamesm12#7248 The modular aspect of Flarum means that we have to wait until each extension is updated before we can actually update the forum itself.

@Alco_Rs11#7251 ...the entire concept of having everything as 'extensions' (mainly shit that should be included with the software) is just sad and makes even setting up a basic forum a nightmare.

The purpose of "extensions" is to offer a forum software centered around extensibility which means that undesired features "in" (or in this case, "with") Flarum can be easily disabled. The advantage of this is that "features" will not continue to leave remnants when disabled, as some attributes tend to do in forums, and in all varieties of software.

When Flarum receives an update, core extensions are updated in unison, as they are maintained by the same development team that handles the forum software's mainstream growth. Third-party extensions must be updated by their respective developers, as is the case with any forum software, regardless of how extensible its core features are in terms of design.

I'm personally a fan of this approach, but others are welcome to their own opinions. That being said, some posts in this thread do not accurately illustrate the distinction between the first and third parties. Some updates to Flarum are more substantial than others.

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And yes, it does indeed take a whole lot longer to load the page.

Nothing has shown that the speed of this forum has been on account of Flarum. You're welcome to look at their own community forum along with the regularly updated "nightly" forum, both of which are not hampered in terms of "load time." Blaming these issues on the forum software would be unattested.

I feel like the capability to message on the forums is a key feature that we need back. I'm not too sure if following / adding friends would make any difference since our forums isn't Twitter. As for the rest of the suggestions / comments, I completely agree.

@videogamesm12#7248 Here is a linear response to your "complaint thread" as you put it:

1. Complaining that something is in its beta stage of development is not a valid complaint unless you believe that because it is "beta software" that it has not fulfilled its purpose, to which I would disagree.
2. These are two individual complaints. Firstly, the capacity to privately message others has been made possible through well-integrated extensions, and the forum software's developers have voiced their reasoning for designating private messages as something in the realm of the third-party. Secondly, the scope of Flarum has always been to construct a modern forum software, and again, the capacity to "follow" users is something for an extension.
3. This is a legitimate complaint because the functionality for original posts to be "previewed" in their endmost form is something which used to be possible in Flarum, however is no longer part of the software for reasons unknown. Regardless, there is an extension which replicates this feature, and perhaps the forum administrator should add it.
4. See above. Modern forum software. Yada yada yada.
5. It's common professional etiquette for e-mails to begin by addressing the recipient. For example, an e-mail I received from a local office just last week began with "Dear Mr. Mosley, [...]" which not only is traditional, but helps users sort between "formal" messages and those pertaining to different accounts.
6. I have always found falling threads to be deceptive, and I personally understand the forum software developers for not wanting this functionality in their base software. That being said, extensions.
7. This has nothing to do with the forum software. See my previous post.
8. I feel as if your "Flarum complaint thread" is more or less a "what I want on this forum thread" in that you do not seem to understand the distinction between what belongs in the core software and what Flarum's developers encourage their community to fulfill using third-party extensions, many of which have already been made.
9. Perhaps I'm missing something, but letting users rename their own threads defeats th
10. While there are some legitimate objections to infinite scrolling, it's much better than having to navigate between pages, and has been preferable for mobile users. Flarum's implementation of infinite scrolling is one of the more comfortable examples I've seen, from the perspective of someone who uses Chrome.
11. I presume this is a complaint about whitespace, which is valid, however whitespace is unavoidable on forums due to the nature of discussion boards being nothing more than walls of text. ProBoards did the same thing, however laid threads out from left to right, whereas Flarum tends to center threads in a more unified fashion, which I find easier to read. It's not really a "mobile-focused" look, but takes on a different approach to organizing threads and posts.
12. This is hardly a user-level issue, and while things may have changed since I created my forum four(?) years ago, I had no particular issues with the "permissions in Flarum." That being said, this server has a lot of hierarchy, and perhaps that's the real issue here.

This forum's implementation of Flarum is far from perfect, and the same goes for the forum software itself, however both have been far better than our "old" forum. I believe that nostalgia and the brume of disinformation are playing large roles in fueling the bandwagon on this thread.

@fssp#7264 for once I fully agree with you. Honestly when I made the boycott forums I remember the reactions were extremely positive. I've personally been a big fan of flarum, so yes I'm biased and that's going to be my first choice in forum software. Honestly this specific install has made me hate this forum. It really is unbearably slow. I set up a test forum about a week ago and I forgot how fast flarum actually is. I think we have to realize that because this specific install is so slow, it wants to make everyone hate it, and naturally blame flarum. I mean, you can go to https://forums.telesphoreo.me and see. Even though it only has one thread it's still way faster than TFs ever was. I challenge anyone who wants to to spam create threads and I can guarantee it'll still be way faster than TFs. Wilds promised a fix but hasn't followed up other than we're switching forum software and then it'll magically be better. I've noticed database problems have been plaguing the server from flarum to CoreProtect. Caleb, you have a bad problem of only scratching the surface level and not recognizing patterns that may indicate an underlying issue. You can switch software as much as you want, but if the database software or server has problems, you're not fixing anything. Similarly, I can buy a brand new house, but if I have sheets with bed bugs and use them in the new house, they're not going to magically dissapear because it's a new house. That's my problem with what I think is flawed thinking. I feel you have a bad problem of creating threads like this. You can get salty and file a permban request because you're salty I'm telling you the truth but I don't care. This place is in the dump as far as I'm concerned. That's my two cents.

So to cover some points here.

The fact the software is classed as beta is absolutely relevant. There as big warnings on their own website telling people not to use it in production, the fact someone decided thst was ever a good Idea is super stupid.

Extentions sound great but for core functionality are stupid. There's no easy way to update all of them, and every time you do version upgrades things break, had exactly that happen in the last upgrade and had to uninstall and reinstall most of the plug-ins. Basic core functionality should be able to be toggled yes but also part of the core stack. The fact I have to downloads third party add-ons to do things like private messaging polling and splitting threads, many of them lacking the rich features of other software.

On that, the error handling is shite, I've tried to enable the private messaging add on in multiple versions and there is no detailed error to tell me wtf is going on.

In terms of this forums specific implementation, it's literally an install of flarum fresh out the box. Nothing weird or special, so other than potentially the current now legacy server that it is hosted on not being as powerful as their own forums, I couldn't tell you why we get poor performance. I think a lot is geographic because it runs pretty well in the UK here.

Permissions are a major issue and do impact users, it's impossible to effectively setup permissions using the system they've developed and it means we end up with weird behaviour in order to try to deal with other stupid shit like not having a structure to tags with multiple levels.

Were moving to new software soon because flarum ultimately never met the requirements this community have... And isn't fit for purpose... We need software that is actually supported and remedies a lot of the issues in this thread and previous ones, flarum might be great software in the future but right now it lacks a lot of fairly important features for us.

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@wild1145#7271 The fact the software is classed as beta is absolutely relevant. There as big warnings on their own website telling people not to use it in production, the fact someone decided thst was ever a good Idea is super stupid.

There's a difference between something being relevant and a valid complaint. "Flarum is in its beta stage of development" is not a valid complaint because it does nothing to demonstrate any sort of discontent with the forum software. Something isn't automatically bad if it is revealed to be "in beta."

I fail to see where their website tells people "not to use it in production." Here is what Flarum's documentation says about using the server software in production:

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Beta is all about fixing these issues and improving Flarum. Please don't use Flarum in production unless you know what you're doing. We can’t support you if things go awry. Upgrading to subsequent versions will be possible, but might involve getting your hands dirty.

I would personally argue that "features" such as private messaging and polling do not belong on a forum, let alone one without two-factor authentication. Discord already supports direct messaging, is a platform with mobile applications, and better security features for its users. As for polling, I'm sure you can determine how I feel about how polls stupidify the democratic process and allow members to lapse into clicking on a button instead of articulating their opinion.

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Were moving to new software soon because flarum ultimately never met the requirements this community have... And isn't fit for purpose... We need software that is actually supported and remedies a lot of the issues in this thread and previous ones, flarum might be great software in the future but right now it lacks a lot of fairly important features for us.

If "we're" already doing this, then what's the point of defending (or attacking) Flarum? It seems like you've made up your mind already.

i like probards

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@videogamesm12#7248 Email notifications incorrectly mark who replied to your post in both the email title and the message itself.

That's nothing to do with the implementation, that's native Flarum AFAIK... All we did was give it a mail server to use.

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@fssp#7303 There's a difference between something being relevant and a valid complaint. "Flarum is in its beta stage of development" is not a valid complaint because it does nothing to demonstrate any sort of discontent with the forum software. Something isn't automatically bad if it is revealed to be "in beta."

I fail to see where their website tells people "not to use it in production." Here is what Flarum's documentation says about using the server software in production:

In this case, your quote says it for me. "Please don't use Flarum in production" - Yes, it clarifies "Unless you know what you're doing" but I'm not a flarum developer, and frankly unless you are or you're otherwise an experienced web developer, you probably don't know really what you're doing... I haven't got time for every minor version uplift to work out why something stupid has fallen over in their upgrade scripts, that aren't even documented in a working state as I found recently.

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@fssp#7303 I would personally argue that "features" such as private messaging and polling do not belong on a forum, let alone one without two-factor authentication. Discord already supports direct messaging, is a platform with mobile applications, and better security features for its users. As for polling, I'm sure you can determine how I feel about how polls stupidify the democratic process and allow members to lapse into clicking on a button instead of articulating their opinion.

Private messaging and polling are both fairly basic features that make up a message board... While it's all good and well saying there are other platforms, they are just that, other platforms. We shouldn't be mandating members have to sign up for multiple accounts just to contact someone in private. The forums have always been our primary way of communication, and the fact their private messages are a module that I've yet to get to work at all makes it frankly infuriates me.

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@fssp#7303 If "we're" already doing this, then what's the point of defending (or attacking) Flarum? It seems like you've made up your mind already.

Apologies was half asleep this morning figuring I should write something before people start tagging / otherwise poking me on this topic, didn't spot the typo clearly when I posted. But yes, the intent fully is to move to something that isn't beta, is supportable and meets the requirements I see the server having. I'm certainly not here to do anything more than give my personal view on Flarum from someone who has the misfortune of having to support it...

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@wild1145#7315 ...but I'm not a flarum developer, and frankly unless you are or you're otherwise an experienced web developer, you probably don't know really what you're doing...

I simply can't agree on the basis that "unless you're a developer of Flarum, you probably don't know what you're doing." I've managed several forums using this particular forum software, and have never encountered any problems either requiring the assistance of a developer or not having been solved by clearing the cache. As for experience, yes, it's expected that system operators and web administrators have some experience in their field. This isn't exclusive to Flarum, and for this reason, there are hosting services designed to simplify the process of starting your own forum. There's a forum host called "FreeFlarum" (freeflarum.com) which does just what you'd expect.

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Private messaging and polling are both fairly basic features that make up a message board... While it's all good and well saying there are other platforms, they are just that, other platforms. We shouldn't be mandating members have to sign up for multiple accounts just to contact someone in private. The forums have always been our primary way of communication...

I am willing to concede that private messaging is considered a "basic feature" of any message board, however Flarum does not aim to emulate message boards and has the stated goal of creating a "fat-free forum software." I beg to differ when it comes to polling, as I know of several forums and traditional message boards alike that do not support (or go so far as to discourage) polling for reasons stated in my previous post.