I’m not really a fan of that type of forum layout. The thread list only fits about 4 threads on a page, posts are treated like news articles or blog posts with reply comments at the bottom. It’s more of a social networking site, not really conducive to technical discussion.
I’m thinking phpBB or IPB or similar. One line of text per thread, small fonts, efficient use of vertical space. Most people are already familiar with the interface.
mmalmi@cc.hut.fi wrote:
I made a ning.com site for testing: bitcoin.ning.com. At least it’s there to get Google hits, even if we didn’t use it.
Now that the forum on bitcoin.sourceforge.net is catching on, we really should look for somewhere that freehosts full blown forum software. The bitweaver forum feature is just too lightweight. I assume the “Forum” tab on the homepage can link out to wherever the forum is hosted.
I’ve seen projects that have major following just from forum talk and pie-in-the-sky planning without even having any code yet. Having a lot of forum talk gives a project more presence on the net, more search hits, makes it look big, draws new users in, helps solve support questions, hashes out what features are most of wanted.
It would be a big plus if it could support SSL, at least for the login page if not sitewide. Multiple people on the forum have expressed interest in TOR/I2P, and those users need SSL because a lot of TOR exit nodes are probably password scrapers run by identity thieves. A lot of the core interest in Bitcoin is going to be from the privacy crowd.
Any ideas where we can get a free forum? Maybe we should look at where some other projects have their forums hosted for ideas where to look.
Source: Published by Martti Malmi on GitHub in February 2024 as part of his testimony in the COPA v. Wright trial. The full correspondence archive is available at mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/.