The decision came down to an integrated suite of components more than anything (IP.Content for articles, the forums were quite good, blogs, etc). It provided a lot of flexibility and was more up-to-date than our old ASP technology. Migrating our custom database to this software took a ton of work figuring out what table was responsible for what.

At some point Invisionpower switched over to use CKEditor, an example of an open source editor coming to the rescue in lieu of their own in-house editor. What a total nightmare that has been and CKEditor still continues to not behave as well with IPB as we'd like. They tossed it for the newest version of their software.

To be honest, we looked for a total package rather than parts because cobbling together a system with a lot of parts that weren't originally intended to work together can get messy very very quickly. The editor is such a small example but the more parts you have that come from different vendors, the greater the potential problems that can creep up. There are certainly downsides to a single vendor (like when they completely rewrite the software from the ground up) however.. but the nice thing is that someone else goes through the tough job of making all the "stuff" work together.

but I've actually started a project in my spare time to rewrite the whole thing based on a lower level framework rather than a prepackaged forum software

How about instead of rewriting everything write only a mod to the existing forum (to fix/upgrade of the editor, since it's the most annoying part)?

If the owners are on board with it I actually think going open source so the community can contribute fixes and improvements might be a good idea; we often get offers of help, but frequently haven't been able to take advantage because of the current setup.

Hmmm, I think with the community size it would actually make sense...
Also, considering the notorious & regular website going offline (like 3 times per month? :D) I don't think people would mind hickups and temporary site unavailability. The key here is if it can be done with minimum attention and workload of the owner required. Anyway, I'm for exploring this option.

I'm not privy to the inner details of the site's administration, but I've been involved in web sites since the beginning, and other sites (like gopher sites) before that.

While that idea of the community running the software of the site is interesting, the logistics of that seem difficult. Consider the millions (billions?) of database entries that need to be migrated, who would do it and validate it and ensure it goes smoothly? Who would manage the day-to-day builds? Who would run and manage the QA effort for a site this size? Who would coordinate the integration of new features and ensure a consistent design?

While the forums are the main area, the site has an enormous range of features.

Back in the early days of the site, when it was all custom software, features were slow to develop and often took a long time to shake out the defects. While the Invision suite certainly has its drawbacks, the fact that it is already written, mostly debugged, gets updated regularly for both maintenance and security, and generally works okay is an enormously valuable set of benefits.

As a parallel, there are many things I hate about big suites of software, with MS Office being chief among them. But it would be foolish of me to think of cobbling together new versions of all that software on my own and imagining it could suitably replace it.

Unless the site is interested in entering the marketplace as a developer of its own suite of software (which I don't imagine is the case) I don't think that is a wise business decision. Far better with the present funding to stay to the core competency of a discussion board, education, and information site.


MAYBE we could crowdsource the efforts of building a replacement editor or tiny piece of the system, and maybe someone would want to get all the legal work done to collect copyright other IP assignments for the parts as they are built. But anything more than that is probably too much.

So this is a slightly(?) customized older version of Invision forum software - no wonder it's been falling apart. (I was guessing Wordpress with way too many plugins, lol)

I think GDnet is too big and long-term to entrust to any canned software suite. I would go for a modular architecture with a few custom modules, something like this:

- Divide into independent parts: Articles, Books, Forums/Journals, Gallery/Screenshots, Comments, Chat, Store, Stats/analytics...

- Throw away all the unused/useless parts (have no mercy .. for example, who needs emoji graphics? use friggin' ascii)

- Guideline: KEEP IT SIMPLE, oldschool, semi-fugly, not particularly mobile-friendly
- Goal: JSON APIs for all database access, with server-side templates for SEO and NoScript users
- Possibility: generate static HTML pages (like NeHe..) for Articles, Book lists, etc (anything not prone to rapid change or obsolesence)

- Goal: JS-based auth, comments, chat, stats (helps to minimize backend integration headaches)

- Goal: common user account/authentication system for all parts that require login

- Goal: use "de facto standard" components (eg. CKeditor?, Markdown?, PLupload, Jinja templates)

- Goal: 100% self-hosted open source code (to simplify maintenance & IP issues)

- Automate the migration process

- Redirect old article/forum/journal/user URLs to new structure

- Migrate, test, and repeat until all essential functionality works
- Cutover and stand by to debug

One thing to watch is the JSON API that Wordpress is rolling out. It's not ideal *but* it'll make it easy for people to write drop-in replacements for parts of WP, which unlike WP could actually be decent. So that could supply the missing pieces, for example, a standalone self-hosted comment system. It might be worth waiting like 6 months to see how all that develops.

I don't know about you guys, but I have very low expectations for web stuff. Makes it easier to build it "good enough", go live, and move on.

Guideline: KEEP IT SIMPLE, oldschool, semi-fugly, not particularly mobile-friendly

Probably the second most common request we get (after fixing the post editor) is a site that works well on mobile. Mobile accounts for such a huge portion of visitors that whatever we choose needs to make at least some improvement in that area; not particularly mobile-friendly just isn't a viable option.

Oh ok, I'm only a little surprised. No big deal though.

1. Keep it simple, no frills, clean layout... a few CSS @media blocks
2. No battery-wasting JS bloat, CSS animations, or 3rd party tracking/sharing/ads/iframes

3. Minimize bandwidth usage & http requests... mainly, combine+minify js/css

No need for the cheesy "mobile friendly" look of the reviled new Invision https://community.invisionpower.com/. They haven't done a very good job of the above, either.