This forum software is terrible

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1

hey, i was just having a look at cachy os and this forum
this forum software is the worst i have ever seen
just some things i noticed:

  1. side menu categories only shows “general” and “all categories”
    click on all categories, only have of the page is actually categories, the other half is latest posts, that is not what is want to see if i click on “all categories”

  2. want to see how many topics are in a catregory, only get sh*t answer like “35 / week”… and thanks to infinite scrolling i will never know

  3. search feature opens a popup with only a few results, useless…
    have to click “more” to get a proper search

  4. a page with a loading bar… seriously mybb is better than this

  5. create topic is a effin popup, half of it is a preview… why???

just my 2 cents after 10mins on this page

2

The software (Discourse) is used by almost all bigger projects, so it can’t be too bad, right?
Maybe you first have to get used to it.

  1. If you hover above the “Categories”, you should be able to click a pen icon, that way you can customize which categories are always in that section.
  2. When on the startpage, click on “Categories” in the top left corner. In the popup window, you can see the total count for each category.
  5. You can expand the popup with one of the icons in the top right corner and hide the preview.
3

Just because a lot of projects use it, doesn’t make it good, it just makes it more irritating :smiley:

I particularly hate the ‘pseudo’ social media elements of discord, they are irrelevant to a technical forum like this.

4

i dont like discuss too.

But nvm. we have to use it. Would suggest to close this Thread, because this is a POV issue.

5

News Item:
A person encounters Discourse for the first time.

As mentioned above - this is used by countless projects.

So maybe the discovery deserves some kind of award. :trophy:

7

Agreed. I strongly refuse to use Discord for any kind of use-case.

8

That was a typo - I mean Discourse :blush:

10

Why you expect privacy (from the mods) on a technical forum only, i have no idea.

11

As an IT security & privacy student I can only tell you that this here is not a private messenger, but a public forum.

If you want to securely message someone you should rather use something like Signal or Matrix.

12

Also when you’re using resources you’re not being billed for, expectations should be low.

13

Mods HAVE to be able to see private messages; example, someone complains of harassment via private messages, the mods need to be able to confirm this.

For Discourse (or any forum software) to enable truly private messages, people would need to upload their private keys, which is not something that I’ve seen anywhere.

14

No such correlation was made.

Simply pointing out its a tad amusing for the assorted pieces of information to be combined.

Like

On a somewhat niche linux distro forum. And one that uses what is probably the most common forum software in use among similar and larger projects.

It is a little odd to be encountering it for the first time and to have such strong opinions about it while apparently not having any familiarity with its code or how it works. Its all just a bit .. unusual I suppose?

Its like a self-described ‘foodie’ or ‘chef’ going to some upscale kitchenware store and throwing a fit over some display showing an electric mixer. Having apparently encountered one for the first time in 2025.

Even if I dont use one, or see some justification for preferring a manual whisk, this would still be an odd outburst for various reasons.

15

I actually love this forum. I first met with discourse on EndeavourOS 's forum a year ago and I found it very interactive and joyful. I’m glad that after I made the upgrade to the most awesome distro on the globe which is CachyOS obviosuly and this team also uses this kind of forum I got used to, so cachyos is double superduper! :slight_smile:

It’s even showing who’s actually typing at the moment in live, pretty awesome. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses: