Have some kind of real-time interface. The chat-like style Spectrum.chat used was great for this (apart from Spectrum (source linked) being slow as hell).
Provide plenty of single sign-on. IndieAuth on by default could be a big help.
Have a cheap/free (at least sponsor open-source projects to be free), dead-simple way to host your own
Other nice-to-haves:
Fediverse support of some kind.
Integration with Discord (hell, using Discord's forums, and bi-directional! It's possible with Discord's API, last I checked).
I'd like NodeBB to do this but since it's built on plain NodeJS it's pretty much impossible right now to cheaply shared-host it the way PHP CGI can. Everything else should be not just possible but almost easy to do¹.
It would also be really rad if the front page of some of these forums showed the general chat of a Matrix or Rocket.chat room as it scrolled by. That might give it a sense of life that forums on their own just don't have.
¹ okay I guess apart from ActivityPub. Which is why I said "Fediverse," maybe it would use FeatherPub or LitePub instead.
@blake never say never! I've seen lots of interesting projects take on the whole "host Node.js on the cheap" aspect (@cloudron being one).
I won't bore you with details on why #nodebb fits the bill for the other parts of your post, because you explicitly mentioned it.
PHP hosting wasn't always simple either. I remember messing around with php-fpm for far too long. Node will get there (still waiting after a decade though 🤔)
@devnull@thisismissem I know there are a couple services like Heroku and Pikapods that are pretty cheap (or even free) and might be able to handle it pretty well. I think it's just a matter of streamlining that setup, and although this is probably way out of your power, hosting platforms sponsoring non-profit/open-source projects for free hosting since they often have trouble affording it.
Add comment