I remember watching this project as it was getting started. It was a replacement to all those PHP forums, like PHPBB & Simple Machines BB. This claimed to have more modern features. It’s also open-source, and you can self-host or pay them for hosting. (I recommend the latter)
And since we’re on the subject, has Beehaw considered using an old PHP forum, like I mentioned earlier? They’re really basic and quite nice, IMHO.
Yes. Discourse and Forem have been top contenders, but for different reasons. Main points against them both are the lack of federation and ‘forum based’ more than aggregation style based. (Like Reddit and Lemmy formats). Discourse also has a very strict developer contribution requirement.
Developer contribution requirement?
This outline and this documentation and their developer license agreement.
CLA signing is always a redflag for me
Lack of federation? My understanding was that Beehaw planned to migrate away from Lemmy altogether. Has that changed?
That aspect hasn’t changed, in so much that we want to keep federation aspect of the community. We don’t want to deal with Lemmy, and they don’t want to deal with us. Lemmy ~= federation.
Yes, I see the tension have become worse. I just found and read this beehaw document on the matter.
For what it’s worth, I want to continue to be a part of Beehaw. I really appreciate the value that they stand for.
I created this alternate account and stopped using my Beehaw account because it seemed like they’re departure from Lemmy was imminent. Today, it seems they’re departure is still on the horizon, but not anytime soon. I guess one can only watch and see.
As far as I know, Discourse now has an ActivityPub plugin that allows it to federate, but I don’t know much about it besides that, or what that would be like to use in practice in comparison to the aggregator styles.
The ActivityPub plugin is very early and has many quirks at the moment. Can’t edit, weird text limit things and I believe it is just a one-way federation?
Ahh, good to know. So pretty much only good as a standalone forum then 🫤