Upgrade Storageforums badly need to be modernized
The forum front end is not good and the search is inefficient. With the userbase increasing there are just too many threads to try and search through. Zotero should migrate to Discourse (discourse.org) which is immeasurably better than the current implementation. Discourse also has discounted pricing for non profit organizations. If there’s just no room in Zotero’s budget then at least something else that’s better and free like phpBB.
Cost should not be an issue as the discourse folks offer free hosting for open source projects: https://free.discourse.group/
If this is the case, I am offering my help in figuring this out. I have previously helped two other software forums to migrate to Discourse and I am running two (small) forums myself. It's been a while since I have been very active on meta.discourse.org (the discourse forum about discourse), but I would probably still find it rather easy to find and ask for relevant information.
This is of course my subjective opinion.
Of course there is always room for improvement, and discussing potential improvements might be of use to the forum admins if/when a migration gets added to their roadmap. I'm reading a lot of hyperbole in the opening message of this thread and not much useful information, perhaps we can make the discussion more constructive? For example, would you like to elaborate on the features that you are missing, or that do not work well in your opinion?
Alongside the aforementioned way to mark Zotero staff, or maybe even subject-matter experts for particular topics.
Main barriers I see:
- backlinks
- ability to reply to specific comments
- ability to select text that you want to respond to which will automatically be quoted in your reply
- quotes from forum posts include a link to the source
- ability to quote posts/comments from a different thread than the one you are currently posting to.
> we have pretty specific needs (even down to the way the notification system works), and the current forum software generally meets those quite well.
@dstillman Could you elaborate how the needs of the Zotero support forum differ from the needs of other software support forums?
I disagree that the current notification system works well. Take this thread as an example: I am subscribed to the thread and I received a notification email for https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/449978#Comment_449978 but not for any subsequent posts. Not to mention that the notification messages are difficult to read.
Edit: Another flaw in the notification system of the current forum: I just saw that, half a year ago, I was @-mentioned in a comment (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/430193/#Comment_430193) but I have never received a notification about this.
To make sense of this, my hypothesis was that the reson for this is that I had already received one notification from that topic so that no subsequent notifications would be sent, but this is not the case. I did not receive any notification for that topic even though I'm subscribed to it.
So, I don't know what's going on, but it seems evident that the notification system does not work. (And by "work" I mean "serve its purpose of notifying the user about relevant posts")
The problem is that I didn't get an email. When you say "notification", do you mean "notification without email" or something?
If you are saying that the system sent me an email for that @-mention then please double-check your logs. If you really find that the email was sent, please provide me the details so that I can check with my email-provider why the email wasn't delivered to my inbox.
I don't doubt that some notifications get sent some times. But in order to say that the system works, we would want to make sure that every notfication gets sent every time. I assume that this minimum requirement is non-controversial.
The question then is, which events should trigger notifications, and there is obviously room for disagreement there, but I wouldn't say that a notification system "works" when it doesn't reliably notify users about relevant posts, especially not when it doesn't even inform the user that it will stop notifying until user has visited (or posted in?) the topic.
Beyond that, we could consider a thread-specific opt-in option to get a notification for every post, but the way notifications work now is the only way they could work by default — we need people to get notified of the first reply, and we're not going to send hundreds of emails by default every time someone posts to a thread with many participants.
I don't delete any emails and none of the notifications that I get from the Zotero forum have so far been classified as spam, so it is very unlikely that I received the notification. If there are no logs, we can't check this and it doesn't matter. I would be wary, though, of ruling out the possibility of a bug in the forum software.
If you can add an option to be notified about all replies, that's great, but why re-invent the wheel when there already is a very powerful and free software that does this (and so much more) out of the box?
Do I understand you correctly when you say that you can add a particular feature to the forum, you mean you (or someone else on the Zotero team) can program it? In that case I would consider it a better strategy if the Zotero developers did what they are best at, i.e. develop and provide support for an excellent reference manager, and leave the development of forum software to those who are good at that.
Regarding the current limitation of notifications, I would suggest as a quick workaround, that you include a line at the end of every notification informing the user about this limitation. Here is an example of such a sentence that another forum with such a limitation includes in their notifications:
"There may also be other replies, but you will not receive any more notifications until you visit the forum again."
Anyway, I've explained that we haven't been set up to make many changes to these forums and now are, so maybe we can drop this until those things are available? This really isn't a good use of anyone's time.
I do not know whether forums are part of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship and Zotero's core competencies, and if it is, I understand the focus. If not, I think it wise to consider other solutions as ultimately maintaining your own could prove expensive. The pain of migrating might well be worth it.
I respect your decision, but since I have not been partaking actively as much as everyone else, I want to just list how Discourse may address some of the things mentioned already (These requests, annoyances and features were taken from the other thread (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/104391/suggestion-question-improve-the-forums#latest)
1. Enhance forum features to support extended discussions.
(Timeline sidebar, and also Jeff Atwood (founder of Discourse and also Stack Overflow)ideas on this here, and here)
2. Implement tools for sorting and organizing threads for better discoverability.
(categories, tags on discourse, the user Rameh has some good ideas)
3. Resolve historical issues with categories causing confusion and overlap.
(Strong moderation suite, user levels)
4. Improve the search system, considering suggestions for simple Boolean terms and a thesaurus of synonyms.
(Discourse are investigating adding semantic search)
5. Introduce additional forum structure, including a section not explicitly for problem-solving.
(Categories and Marking solution answers via The Discourse Solved plugin)
6. Implement changes in the forum system, addressing the lack of features like markdown.
(Discourse supports this)
7. Consider marking discussions as closed and allowing tags, maintaining the current moderation system.
(Discourse supports this)
8. Introduce identification badges to establish credibility and address concerns about new users.
(Discourse supports this)
9. Enable the ability to reply to specific comments.
(Discourse supports this by showing a thread under the replied-to comment)
10. Allow users to select text for automatic quoting.
(Discourse supports this)
11. Include source links in quotes from forum posts.
(Discourse supports this)
12. Enable quoting from different threads for improved context.
(Discourse supports this)
13. Introduce "featured answers" to enhance knowledge discovery.
(Supported via The Discourse Solved plugin)
14. Implement features for marking discussions as closed and allowing tags while maintaining the current moderation system.
(Discourse supports this)
Lastly, for whomever is working on the forum upgrades, potentially opening a communication line with someone at the Discourse could be helpful to get ideas around problems they've solved and their reasoning. Just as you are experts in bibliography and library management, so too Discourse are experts in discussion and conversation management. If there's any way that I can be of service to facilitate this connection please let me know.
I don't think anyone is in doubt about whether the people running this forum like discourse or not. They don't.
Another question is what this judgment is based on. We have thus far not seen much of their reasoning or the criteria they applied in their evaluation of alternative forum software.
> or decide that they are incompetent in doing so, which has the same implications, namely that continuing to lobby for it is a waste of everyone's time.
I don't think it is good practice to decide that someone is incompetent unless that person has clearly demonstrated that they are. And when that happens, I don't see why disengagement should be the only possible reaction to their incompetence. Everyone is more or less incompetent in most areas of life and many people are interested in learning new things about areas that concern them so that they can make informed decisions and potentially improve their competencies.
The Zotero team's decision-making process regarding forum software is important to us as users because it directly affects how we interact with the community and the product itself.
It's understandable that the team has preferences and insights that might not be immediately apparent to the rest of us. However, I believe it would be beneficial for everyone involved if there was a transparent and open discussion on what specific aspects of Discourse, or any other forum software, did not meet the team's requirements. This way, users can better understand the decision and even offer constructive feedback or alternatives that might not have been previously considered.
I think we should focus on fostering a collaborative environment where concerns and suggestions can be addressed in a constructive manner. We all share a common goal of wanting to make the Zotero community as effective and user-friendly as possible. Let's work together to achieve that goal, keeping in mind that the requirements for a good forum experience might be different for members of the Zotero team and Zotero users.
- Markdown
- mark Zotero staff, or maybe even subject-matter experts for particular topics ("badges")
- better search
- image uploading
- featured answers
- thumbs up
- add a line to the notification email saying further notifications won't be sent until you visit the thread
- thread-specific opt-in option to get a notification for every post
Here is what has not been addressed yet:
- backlinks
- ability to reply to specific comments
- ability to select text that you want to respond to which will automatically be quoted in your reply
- quotes from forum posts include a link to the source
- ability to quote posts/comments from a different thread than the one you are currently posting to.
- Enhance forum features to support extended discussions
- tools for sorting and organizing threads for better discoverability
- additional forum structure, including a section not explicitly for problem-solving
- marking discussions as closed
- tags
And here is one that hasn't been mentioned yet:
- reply by email
It's good to see that some improvements are planned, but I'm still having a hard time seeing why the Zotero team would want to spend resources on developing features that are already available for free (and probably at a higher quality than a "home made" solution will ever be).
+1 Forum Migration
Zotero devs should focus on developing the app and extension, the forum should be maintained mostly by the community