Forum:New forum design

The other day I was looking through Special:WikiFeatures and saw that the new forum design has been added to be able to use on a wiki. I don't know how long this has been there for but I figure I may as well bring it up since I've seen no discussion on it. What I'm asking is everyone's thoughts on it and if we should enable it.

Personally, I prefer the current system but I don't hate this one. So, if I don't like it, why bring it up? The answer is simple: to me, since it seems considerably simpler for new users and, as most admins know, we have somewhat of a problem with sustaining a userbase. I know everyone will likely write it off as useless but remember that the same thing was said about chat and its now a productive part of the wiki. So it comes down to whether we want to try our luck with this or just stick to the old system.

Here's an example of the new forum on my test wiki, feel free to play around with it, make posts, etc. And yeah, I realise this will probably get shot down before it lifts off, but w/e

Thoughts?

Discussion
Honestly, I don't hate those forums. My only concern with them is regarding which aspects of the forums, of forum posts and threads, are editable by users and administrators. Right now in our forums, any user can (technically speaking) edit any thread, any post and any page. Would that same versatility exist in the new forum design? Another issue which you bring up is the matter of ease-of-use. Certainly the forums as they exist now are easy enough for experienced wiki editors to use, and the discussions are set up in a way that is familiar (at least for those of us who used to edit on the CPTP). Whether the current forum design acts as a suppressor of new user activity, I couldn't say.

Ultimately, I'm neutral to this idea. I'm not opposed to changing over, but I also don't see many valid reasons to change the status quo. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 06:44, March 21, 2013 (UTC)

I guess it was almost inobligatory that I showed up for this...

The new extension wouldn't work at all with regards to community discussions primarily because of the way everything is structured and that was essentially the main, if not the only, reason we recently gave the forums a fresh coat of paint in the first place. In fact, the new forums are based on a very similar extension, known as the Message Wall, which is designed to replace talk pages and from established users across Wikia, that got a lot of criticism. While it may potentially attract new users, I'd personally lead towards the opinion that for TSW specifically, it will do either absolutely nothing for us, because regardless of what we do we have issues with sustaining and encouraging community involvement, or possibly alienate longer standing users. We also can't just enable it for say just the Off-topic forum and leave Community discussions as it is; the new extension archives the current namespace completely. I can see that this was brought up with good intentions but given that, like the Message Wall, it is more aimed at social rather than constructive interaction, I can probably never support changing something that's integral to the future growth of the wiki to something that's probably going to break everything.

If this forum does pass however, time will tell if I'm wrong but I still believe that "dumbing down" to more of a social foundation to bring in more users would be more of a headache than it's ever worth. 11:13, March 21, 2013 (UTC)

It's been there for quite a while. I didn't remember when, but I thought we had a discussion about this? We've just re-implemented this new forum system, so I don't feel like relocating our discussion systems again. It's not a good point, I know, but I don't see how that forum design would be better anyway. That "message wall" system the forum design is using isn't appealing either. (I'm being subjective on this, but I just wanted to say what I think about it)  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  13:06, March 25, 2013 (UTC)

Vote
As this has been dead for almost a month with only four users giving input, notably mixed, meaning that whatever consensus there already is doesn't speak for the community as a whole. Therefore I'm going to call a week long vote to settle this. For anyone who doesn't know what the new forum system is, here is an example.

Please use VoteFor, VoteAgainst or Neutral to cast your vote. Please backup your vote with the reasoning behind it to strengthen the validity of your argument. (for example: Support - reason here. ~ )

Do we want to implement Wikia's new forum system?

''To avoid formatting issues, include clr in between every line of your vote. Countdown: ''

Oppose - As I've already made clear, I feel it will be more detrimental in the long term than helpful. 14:14, April 20, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - I like the current forum system we have here. The new design might make it simpler, but I still prefer it this way.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:09, April 20, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - As I've stated before, I don't think the change-over would be catastrophic or have a large negative impact. But I also don't see much of a reason to change when we already have a decent system. So whatever the community decides is alright with me. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:14, April 20, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral, leaning towards Support - I really like how this system is simpler to use. For this reason, I believe it could draw more users into using the forums. However, I also like the current system we have now. -- Bleeh (talk) (blog) 15:40, April 20, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - Per Nikel and LiR. 15:57, April 20, 2013 (UTC)

Support I don't know what I'm voting for. *smirk* Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 01:24, April 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * Care to at least give some actual reasoning behind your support vote then? You're welcome to your vote but as stated, you really need to have a valid argument for voting. 16:16, April 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the way it looks. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 01:01, April 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * Neutral - The idea is alright but I think that the forums are fine as they are. Jason [ Talk to me! ]  06:59, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - I don't really like or dislike the new format, but I don't see any strong reason to adopt it. Dharden (talk) 13:24, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - Per Dharden, I too don't see any strong reason to adopt the new forum design. HanaGoth96 ( Neight...? ) 19:16, April 23, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - I like the system we currently use, since it looks better (in my opinion) and is more user-friendly (again, my opinion). This one doesn't look bad either, I just don't see why we need a new design.  Cavia (  wheek  •   speak  )  19:31, April 23, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral - I really don't mind. I think they both would have their positives and negatives about them, but right now I don't see why we should change something that works well enough! ~ Waikikamukow  ( Anyone wanna chat? )  10:17, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion
After a week of voting, no consensus was reached for or against activating the forum feature. Since the feature is currently inactive, it will remain inactive, pending any future discussions on activation. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 16:15, April 27, 2013 (UTC)