Q2A and Discourse represent two completely different ends of the spectrum.
Q2A is small, efficient, quick and resource-friendly Q&A platform that is similar to Stack Overflow and its beauty is in simplicity. It took less than half hour to install and it worked out of the box. It looks like easy to maintain and love the fact that it is simple.
Discourse is completely different story. It is mammoth web app. You need separate cloud server to host it. Setup is complicated and lenghty. Each change (like installing plugin) takes 10/15 minutes to rebuild container.
Looks like pain to maintain.
BUTā¦ it is beautiful. And powerful. There are so many options for both admin than users alike that it easy to get lost. But no doubt it is most powerful forum software available. Quite franky Yahoo should throw away their own ādevelopmentsā and start hosting Discourse.
So, what is your opinion, which one you prefer
Q2A
Discourse
I like both - they serve different purposes and complement each other
There are many cool features that I have already added by means of plugins like polls (see above), voting (in all categories except Announcements), āsolvedā - marking given post as āsolutionā,
replying to posts by email (like mailing list)
By the way code button (toolbar) or three ` marks starts code section that gets syntax colorization,
sample:
SetCustomBacktestProc("");
/* Custom-backtest procedure follows */
if( Status("action") == actionPortfolio )
{
bo = GetBacktesterObject();
bo.Backtest(); // run default backtest procedure
for (trade = bo.GetFirstTrade(); trade; trade = bo.GetNextTrade())
{
_TRACE("Symbol = " + trade.Symbol );// Use Trade object here
}
for (trade = bo.GetFirstOpenPos(); trade; trade = bo.GetNextOpenPos())
{
_TRACE("Symbol = " + trade.Symbol );// // Use Trade object here
}
}
Can Discourse function as a Q&A website?
Are there guidelines for how to ask a question?
Can questions be tagged and searched by tag?
Can Discourse automatically display similar existing questions when composing a new question?
Is there a way to view a list of unanswered questions?
Is Discourse able to send out a digest email, listing recent posts and their content? Thatās the main interface I use to access the forum on Yahoo and find it invaluable. I can then click through to the posts on the web if I need to reply or see an attachment.
Discourse is flexible and can act as Q&A site although it is not dedicated strictly to Q&A as this software http://ask.amibroker.org
that has all those features available out of the box.
But Discourse supports adding tags and searching by tag
It supports marking answer as "solution"
It can display topics without answers
But Discourse will not display āsimilarā questions when composing new.
What I am afraid of is that Discourse would be maintenance headache. It is nice and dandy but very large and complex, and as life shows complex things tend to break.
Q2A is very simple, does one job well and I like the fact that it ājust worksā and does not consume my time on babysitting it.
Discourse ālook and feelā is better by a wide mile compared to the Q2A - but the thing is - if the trade off would be less time spent on actual maintenance and dev. on Amibroker itself then I would say itās not worth it. The main question is how big is the difference comparing Q2A and Discourse (or any other forum) maintenance time ? Of course if we assume that the email client solution is not a option and a forum has to be chosen anyway,
Q2A is a very clear, easy to read, and easy to navigate piece of software.
It is uncluttered, great for those with diminishing sight, and takes little effort on the part of the developer to retain control and keep on top of it. Somewhat the antithesis of the Yahoo offering.
Discourse is also clear and easy to read. Posts and responses are clearly defined and set out without quantities of extraneous blurb tacked on for no purpose other than to use the scroll.
The former has a āKindergartenā look about it.
The latter looks and feels more professional and capable of promoting Amibroker to good effect.
The former comes across as a quick, effective and efficient, and up-to-date fix
Whereas the latter, for all its complexity, looks to be able to cope with not only the current forum requirements but also taking Amibroker into the needs of the coming decade.
I forgot to add: Tagging is allowed only for user with trust level >= 3
The thing is that Discourse uses trust levels to enable certain functionality. New users who just signed up get trust level = 1. As you post more your trust level grows and then you get ability to add tags. This is to avoid situation when newly signed users start adding new tags everywhere (ātag spamā).
I am used to receiving yahoo posts in my gmail account, this is the focus of most of my communications and this is where I read the Yahoo posts. I only go to the Yahoo page when I want to reply or make a new post.
Can the Discourse Forum be set to forward all posts to my email so that I donāt have to check the discourse site every day just to read the posts?
Perhaps there should be a āTestā category where we can make a post to test Discourse Forum behavior, verify email notifications, see formatting, etc.
Info on how to use the site is rather scarce. I canāt find a Help button, FAQ on how to use the site, or Search window that searches the Discourse Forumās Help files (if there are any). But perhaps I miss somethingā¦
Discourse has extensive settings about email. You can watch individual topics, entire categories or all categories. This means that you will receive email on each new topic and each new reply. By default you will be only notified if someone mentions you (@SpinTrader) or if someone responds to a topic you participated in. Every user may change this behavior on their own.
Also Discourse would send you automatic digest e-mails if you don't visit the site. Digest emails contain subjects of new topics, most discussed topics and so on.
Sure click on upload button in the toolbar and it will allow you to place picture. Or if you are using modern browser you can drag drop image files (png/gif/jpeg) onto reply.
after a quick tour, agree with others that Discourse look&feel feels more professional. But also agree that if it will be a pain to maintain, then time could be better spent elsewhere. Ditching Yahoo will be a gift itself.
At the risk of introducing yet another option, there is something called PunBB, which is used for support by one of the things I use at work. See: https://www.wolfssl.com/forums/
No idea on what this would be like to install or maintain. It seems a bit between Discourse and Q2A. I think it is PHP -based.
