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Rails Forum - Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum » Other Rails Programming » rorBB - the Ruby on Rails Bulletin Board
Just an observation, could you (the rorBB team) consider in going in to a similar direction with Vanilla not necessarily re-create the board, but applying some of it's design ideals to yours, if so, you got yourself another team member.
We've actually been discussing this. I guess it might be nice to know what the public thinks.
There seems to be a void where people want the same functionality of punBB, phpBB, vbadvanced, etc, only written in Rails. However when we started thinking about building something new, ideas just started flying around like crazy.
We've got some ideas that would kind of go against the traditional forum model, but don't want to ignore the people that just want yet another BB.
What does everyone else think? Stick with the old and reliable, or shake things up a bit?
Vanilla looks very interesting. It reminds me somewhat of a tagging-based idea we were discussing internally. We may stick with the original plan of building a more traditional BB app with innovative features on top of that. However, we are taking a look at Vanilla and gathering some more ideas. We are still in the brainstorming process, so any ideas are welcome.
Because Rails Forum will hopefully be one of the first adopters of rorBB, I would be especially interested in hearing your opinions of Vanilla.
I'd probably prefer something that is more traditional forum software. I'm on enough phpBB-based boards that its nice to have very similar interface -- same tags allowed, same location for search, new post, etc buttons.
However, I personally don't even understand the need to have a Ruby/RoR based forum. Why spend time building yet another forum when there are so many decent ones out there? I understand some people slam the various RoR community sites for not using an RoR based backend, but I think those complainers are just a variety of troll. I'd rather be writing my application, or working on extensions for others than cloning something that already works...
That's a good point. I think it's mainly for the sake of it. However I think that having something written in Rails, with the power of rails development behind it, will lend itself towards new ideas. I wouldn't want to go back into phpBB, and try and extend it's functionality.
On the other hand, maybe this is a case for creating something different.
I agree with NielsenE to a point where I don't see the NEED for a Ruby based forum, ESPECIALLY when there are some very good php ones, that being said, it would make more sense to make it with what has become Rails (or web 2.0 it's your choice) idioms on community control, tagging and such, if you make traditional forum software just translated to RoR, it's like employing contemporary NASA hitech to just fly to the Moon when we have technology to go to Mars.
I'm hoping we can build something that is much more than an everyday phpBB copycat. We already have several innovative ideas brewing, and more on the way I'm sure. I doubt they will all make it into the final release, but IMHO implementing just a few of the features will greatly improve the forum experience.
Last edited by ryanb (2006-06-19 15:18:36)
Aim higher, copy vBulletin. 
In all seriousness, though, I would prefer a more traditional-style bb. I find that the punBB/vB/phpBB style is the easiest and most effective way to organize information.
And in further seriousness, vB is truly incredible forum software--nothing is more powerful and easy to use, in my opinion--and the inline moderation and AJAX elements in their new versions are gorgeous. PunBB is also among my favorite php-based forum software. I'd say you can't go wrong drawing inspiration from EITHER of those two systems. 
It's fun to think that RoR community is a progressive community allways bettering themselfs and being proud of the achievements like Odeo and Basecamp that manage to break the traditional thinking.
But I guess that forum is just one community tool.
In my opinion, there is a real need for a well written RoR BB system. I personally run a number of communities such as www.djforums.com. I only use vBulletin, but it really is the lesser of the evils. The code behind all BB systems that I have explored is mediocre at best. Poor coding practices, a pain to integrate into a greater site, and a pain to seriously mod (for example, replace the entire user system). vbulletin is the best solution so far, but I find it slow and bloated.
A lot of the PHP forum solutions are also old and don't implement many of the newer web paradigms. vBulletin is trying but it's just patched on and feels like an after thought. Vanilla actually seems really nice, but with a search function implemented with "SELECT ... WHERE ... LIKE", it would kill my forums with close or over 1 million posts.
So yeah, I would really like to see a good RoR message board solution.
Good to hear you are interested in the rorBB project!
I'm curious though, what do you mean by "replace the entire user system". Do you mean having more control over the permissions a user can have (admin, etc.)?
In my opinion, there is a real need for a well written RoR BB system. I personally run a number of communities such as www.djforums.com. I only use vBulletin, but it really is the lesser of the evils. The code behind all BB systems that I have explored is mediocre at best. Poor coding practices, a pain to integrate into a greater site, and a pain to seriously mod (for example, replace the entire user system). vbulletin is the best solution so far, but I find it slow and bloated.
I agree. vbulletin is awesome from the front end, but the code is a nightmare. I've spent many hours racking my brain over that crud.
I like the idea of this! Are you still looking for more help? Sign me up if so!
hey everyone we have a concept up for the site (not much yet) and are wondering if there are any changes that you think we should make. thanks
I really like this idea, If I wasn't so busy with my other projects I would sign up. Here are some reasons I think this would benefit the Rails community and the web as a whole:
1. The php alternatives aren't really that good to begin with especially if you take a look at the code. Security is a big issue here as well as testing.
2. If you ever want to mod anything with a php BB you have to learn the way they do things (which is usually fragmented and confusing). In ror you just have to know ror conventions to mod stuff. A good example would be the most common modification: design/layout. Have you ever looked at the way phpBB uses templates? it's hideous!
3. With a ror BB, there are bound to pop-up new hot innovations for forums that the php, jsp and .net bb's will try to copy. This is a good outcome no matter what language or framework you develop on.
4. Not only will the ror community benefit from having a well designed BB app that can be modified without headaches, but having a rorBB that is better than the alternatives will cause a wider adoption of RoR by hosting providers because of a wider demand by website owners.
As for the tradition vs. innovation, I would say that innovation is the way to go as long as the end user doesn't have undo their thinking just use your BB. for example, I would use the traditional (categorical) way a forum is laid out as far as the forum, subforums and posts are related but tags would be cool if it worked so each user could tag threads or posts for future personal reference.
rorBB: Really just a header, but it looks like a nice start. By the way, have you seen this thread about what people are looking for in a forum? Some interesting ideas and thoughts there.
I'm interested in this - especially as the OS Rails CMS I've been working on seems to have faded away.
I agree vBulletin is the best of breed at the moment but see little point in just duplicating it. Its overall structure is right but if we aim to make something that can be more easily integrated with other elements of a site, we should have a winner.
Not sure if this thread died out but if anyone is interested the project is getting underway so now is a good time to get involved. Shoot me an e-mail to mdmurray+rorbb@gmail.com and ill give you access to the project so you can have a look around.
I was wondering if I could tag along through this project. I used to study PHP, but have recently gotten into RoR. Building a bulletin board really interests me, and I'd like to see how rorBB is going about doing it.
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