@macfan I would posit a few reasons:

1. The requisite expertise to do things right requires knowledgeable care and feeding.
2. Acquiring said knowledge requires a substantial investment of time and energy.
3. Ditto monitoring, maintenance, customer support, and all the other things that go into hosting anything well.
4. Said investments take time away from other things, among which include earning income from other means.
5. Life is expensive. People need to eat, feed their families, etc. NodeBB staff are no exception.

NodeBB itself, is free. Real Free and Open Source Software, a.k.a. "ROSS", and not some crippled, dual licensed bullshit that has become all to common in the "FOSS" sector over the past decade or two. Hence, you are able to self host the real deal for the price of a fairly minimally provisioned virtual machine at your provider of choice. If you lack the requisite knowledge to do so, then you have a choice before you: Either invest the time to learn such knowledge and skills or pay somebody else who has. NodeBB has pretty darn good documentation and exemplary community support here from both the larger community and NodeBB staff.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.... In summary, I am reminded of one of the key Laws of Ecology: "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

Good luck!

@rallydarkstrike Hot damn! Before you posted this I had never even noticed that it changed. And I am not color blind. Hence, I did not miss the lack of such visual feedback. Only that if one tries to upvote something they've already upvoted, then the vote count decreases. Easily remedied by some additional clickery.

So it is a minor issue. But one that could also easily be rectified?

Peace.

@phenomlab said in 20i FOSS awards - Why no NodeBB ?:

Curious to understand why NodeBB didn't make it to the list. It easily blows Flarum and Discord out of the water !

@yariplus said in 20i FOSS awards - Why no NodeBB ?:

They had more money.

Nah.... They just wanted it to be "competitive" so voters would take the shinny click bait. If NodeBB were in the mix there would be no contest. And that would be rather boring.

@scottalanmiller said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:

@Joykiller said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:

I personally hate Discourse due to their docker wrapper. but thats me.

Oh gosh, that would pretty much turn me away right there. Docker is great for devs, but makes little sense for production operations. Tends to come from shops that are run by devs and have little operational knowledge or experience. We just had a discussion about that last week in our forum: https://mangolassi.it/topic/19577/docker-for-production-use-of-third-party-software/

Docker is for lamers who don't know how to be system admins

And, of course, rapid development. When Docker first started making it's appearance I embraced it but was later aghast when folks started routinely deploying to production, and predicted to some buddies that some security nightmares were just around the corner... And they were.

But enough Docker bashing. I looked at Discourse long, long ago, in a far away galaxy (well, in Internet time, anyways). Ruled it out right away for following (admittedly highly opinionated) reasons:

• Docker centric: Now that I am primarily only on my own projects, I am free to abandon Linux in favor of what I consider to be superior OS's like FreeBSD and SmartOS. Nothing personal but platform lockin equates to vendor lockin. And that just ain't freedom enough for me

• Rails vs. NodeJS: Are you kidding? Was an early adopter of Rails back, circa 2003/4 or so? It rocked at that time as an alternative to then php stuff sporting the serious security hole of the day/week. Or so it seemed - php was pretty sketchy for a while there. Fast forward a decade and a half and it's freakin' no contest! Rails is all but history/legacy, at least in my mind.

• Main Dev Heads: Cool vs kind arrogant asshats (sounds like that may have changed). This was immediately off putting and I was kind of surprised Discourse became so popular, but I guess that's one thing fame will help you with.

So... note to the NodeBB devs:

Please do keep doing what YOU do best and do not worry too much about feature parity w/what, in my view, is an inferior, non starter platform just because they've got a few extra bells, whistles, and/or mindshare. Popularity more oft than not does NOT equal technical superiority but rather merely demonstrates whos' the better con men. Err.. marketing team....

Now obviously I do not mean to preclude a bit of cross pollination when it makes sense. But I have been around long enough to observe FOSS project loose their vision in the quest for "Feature Parity" with some perceived competition. So, just weighing in w/my $0.02 to encourage you to stay true to your vision. Cuz it's been workin' pretty good fer' me ;D

And finally, in closing, the astute may have noticed I enjoy making tongue in cheek comments from time to time for the humor value. Don't get yer' beak too tweaked, eh? It's not a religion for me.

Ya' gets what yer' gouged fer' .... if'n yer' lucky!!!

In this instance, looks like I was. Sad days for the Internet in North America, eh?

Spot on Julian. You have discovered something many have known for decades but lacked the discipline and/or capability to practice in ever increasingly hectic world full of deadlines, phb demands, etc. Be interesting case study to observe uptake now that it has a cool name. Seriously.

I shall echo your sentiments wholeheartedly. Wanna really bend yer' noodle? Go smart phone free for a few days. Then a week.... Semi retired here and not carried one for a few years now. Very liberating to be free and I have had more than a few confide that they envy me. Having recouped more time you now have time to make plans, think creatively, etc.

It has long been a personal mantra of mine to read some print material regularly. Internet only tends to make one's concentration a bit too hyper after a period. Yer' brain needs longer articles and chapter books.

Try it. You might like it.

Initial draft for gotwf nodebb email how-to two cents worth. Confusion over email seems to be a recurring issue so I thought I'd take a stab at culling and consolidating the salient bits. Caveat emptor.

tl;dr: NodeBB recommends using a third party emailer like Sendgrid because they have better deliverability. And so do I. At least if you're coming at this looking to get NodeBB sending email with the least amount of effort.

NodeBB Email Options

NodeBB Offers Several Ways to Send Email:

1. Emailer plugins: There are a few plugins like the MailChimp plugin which operate directly with various email providers. I'll leave configuration of such to their respective plugin documentation.

2. SMTP transport: NodeBB has built-in support for SMTP, so you can use a Gmail account for instance to email your users. This is pretty self explanatory. Season details to scratch your provider's itches.

3. Sendmail: NodeBB supports using sendmail on Linux to send emails. To do this you just turn off the SMTP transport and make sure no email plugins are enabled.

   sendmail, the executable, will send mail via a variety of transports.

   man sendmail(8) speaketh thusly:

   Sendmail sends a message to one or more recipients, routing the message over whatever networks are necessary. Sendmail does internetwork forwarding as necessary to deliver the message to the correct place.
   .....
   ..... snip, snip.....
   .....
   With no flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to an end-of-file or a line consisting only of a single dot and sends a copy of the message found there to all of the addresses listed. It determines the network(s) to use based on the syntax and contents of the addresses.

   If the recipient is not known locally, i.e. a local user/domain, then the server's resolver subsystem should, (contingent upon configuration) return the MX record for the domain at hand and attempt a delivery. Whether or not that MX accepts your mail is at the mercy of their assessment of your server's legitimacy. At minimum you will need matching forward and reverse DNS enteries, and likely an SPF record, for example. Others will automatically put you on their blacklist even if your stuff is squeaky clean and require a near act of god to be removed.

   Handling of refused, bounced, etc. mail is, once again, contingent upon configuration. One should ensure their mail queues do not become constipated to the extent undeliverable mail exhausts disk space, thereby effectively creating a DOS.

4. One may also run a MX daemon such as Postfix on their NodeBB host. Running as a daemon has advantages for certain use cases. In which case, I recommend deploying Postifx as a Null Client. Quoting from preceeding:

   A null client is a machine that can only send mail. It receives no mail from the network, and it does not deliver any mail locally.

   One must therefore have some OTHER, supplementary MX that will receive mail for your domain. Else opt for a more complex Postfix configuration.

   Example screenshot NodeBB side utilizing Postfix Null Client running on the local host and listening on port 25:

   

   Selecting the Custom Service pull down may seem counter intuitive but this is the option you need to populate parameters for your localhost null client.

   Connection security should be None. Else if you invoke STARTTLS NodeBB side then of course Postfix will endeavor to oblige (depending on config). I am of the opinion that if you need TLS for the localhost to talk to itself then you likely have much larger concerns. Username and Password should not be necessary for local submission.

   Conversely, it is highly advisable to use TLS when talking to external SMTP servers. Free certificates are available thru Let's Encrypt. Numerous Acme Clients are available. I favor Dehydrated Boulders

   This approach also requires configuration of additional cogs and widgets such as matching forward and reverse DNS enteries and likely an SPF record, for example, that are beyond scope of the present discussion.

Note: Postfix was designed to be a drop in replacement for Sendmail and many Linux distributions include it as part of their default installs. In which case the sendmail executable mentioned above may be Postfix's version, or perhaps be a symlink. This can cause confusion with Options 3 and 4 above so if you're running into issues please clarify when running as a daemon.

Something seemingly simple at first blush can pose more than a few sticky wickets and why I recommend following @julian et.al.'s advice and opt for the low hanging fruits offered by the first two options. Unless you have a clear use case not to. Learning how to do all of this stuff is a legitmate use case. Just be forewarned that you may experience a bit of trial by fire if you are learning the zen of email administration on a production system.

@rivalite said in nodebb allows users to change the skin and save this appearance?:

.. snip...

Hello, I just discover nodebb.
I have a few questions:
1.nodebb allows change the skin like Discourse?

Admin Control Panel -> Appearance -> Themes/Skins.

Four themes shipped. Sixteen or so skins.

2.Also, I just realize nodebb uploaded my image attached to this post, to imgur. I have to pay on imgur or somewhere for this feature?

No. You can host your images locally. Offloading to imgur is a possibility, but not necessity.

3. is there a free spanish translation?

No clue.

4.how many free skins are available?

No clue. Sixteen included w/default install. At least on 12.x

5. Is it possible migrate from xenforo 2.x ?

Probably. But likely to be a headache for the uninitiated. You may want to explore contracting some expertise.

6.I just signup here using an email from https://temp-mail.org/ . Is there a spam filter to don't allow users signup with https://temp-mail.org/ ? This spam filter is free?

No clue w.r.t. temp-mail.org. NodeBB does include some more generic protections. See e.g. nodebb-plugin-spam-be-gone.

Thanks so much!

You're welcome. Enjoy!

@julian

Excellent and very well composed, Julian. I have been out of managing community spaces for a while and took a pass on social engineering, errr.. I mean networking, sites in general. Hence a bit out of the modern loop, so to speak. Your blog post was timely - elaborates and illuminates a related discussion I was having on irc just last night (private chan, not nodebb).

Good stuff, particularly w.r.t. the ephemeral. Another fall out I am noticing that I ascribe to sites like NitWit and Facebark is that folks no longer seem capable and/or willing to even post up actual sentences, much less string them together into coherent thoughts. Serial "post whoring" seems to be more the order of the day. I don't think these people realize such, but has actual coherent conversation and discussion become a lost "art", displaced by what essentially amount to click bait posts?

This forum obviously attracts a more technical audience so, no, I am not dissing anybody here.

Deserves a Hooray!

@omega said in automatic temporary ban of a troll user with minus X votes:

@gotwf said in automatic temporary ban of a troll user with minus X votes:

First off: Lot of good discourse in this thread. Lame pun intended.

@omega said in automatic temporary ban of a troll user with minus X votes:

....

Disagree w/above though. Too much added complexity. KISS.

Tough crowd, always with the tomatoes... try this one:

Let the Mods be Mods, let the Users be Users and Admins be King & Queen, forum developers could be Heros!

Granted it's more BOWIE than KISS but you get the point right?

Oooh, la, la!!! Good one. Yeah, I'll take Bowie. Had the good fortune to see Bowie live way back in the day. Spectacular showman. Indeed. Followed Stevie Nicks. But I digress....

Maybe you missed that I got your point. At least w.r.t. the root causes of the issue. My point is that AI is not the solution for all things because AI, by its very nature, lends itself to becoming gamified and one consequently finds themselves in a never ending bot arms race.

A community needs to behave like an actual community and help the good guys do their jobs policing the bad guys. We need the human factor because we need the human touch and human oversight. And hopefully some human hard won wisdom as well.

The larger the community the more mods, etc. required. We all get that many lurk, fewer post, fewer yet are active contributors..... But hopefully.... on a prayer and one wing... good mods and helpers emerge. And it seems they will, in my experience, but it takes time - needs to develop organically and no real short cuts.

In the meanwhile... are we able to make a knob that actually works for that? With us rather than against us? Tough cookie, for sure.

Oh and can we have a better grammar-typo bots for my posts...

No.

@oplik0 Heh, I was about to respond but before I hit submit... things refreshed and looks like @baris is already on it! Must have been a very refreshing vacation.

Rock on NodeBB!

Edit: Lol! I misread that date....

@Sampo2910 For whatever it may be worth, I brought up a fresh instance of 2.4 a couple days back and it just worked. At least to the extent I played around with it. So maybe something w/the update process went amiss?

I have "used" this feature, years ago, when first testing NodeBB and it did work at that time. I'll check again in a moment....

Update: Yes, works fine for all of profiles, posts, and uploads on ... version... uhh... been so long... Yikes, v.1.12, fwiw.

Good luck! o/

@Teemberland To my knowledge, not at the topic level. Post level only.

On related note: I don't think this would be a good idea. I DO, however, believe that revisiting the algo by which thread popularity is tabulated could use some revision. Prime among which, would be to in some way take into account the number (and frequency/periodicity?) of upvotes received for posts under the thread, as on longer running threads most folks do not bother to scroll to top and upvote the starter post from the OP.

@julian Yeah, haw! Fingers crossed!!

Oh, snap! No "fingers crossed" emoji? WTF is up with that, eh?

Oh, snap, snap!! Whilst autocompleting on "middle finger" I found this on the menu:

Rock on!

@Mothership This has come up before. Partly the issue is privacy, since private chats would no longer then be private. I think the consensus at the time was that bad actors can be reported to moderators via chat itself but then you need to know who the mods and admins are. Otherwise I think they can just block offending (ab)user(s). Be that as it may (or may not be cuz my recollection is hazy on this): Seem like a "Report Abuse" button could be useful if it can be worked into the UI.

@julian said in Password protect access to forum:

@phenomlab one could argue that there is nothing cleaner than basic auth from a web server

@phenomlab said in Password protect access to forum:

@julian true, yes, but cleaner in my view at application level

Certainly both can be argued as true. My understanding of security best practices is generally speaking to block the bad stuff as far upstream as operationally feasible. Hence, if asked, I would recommend enforcing at the web sever level.

Additionally, in keeping with best practices, had I cause to be extra paranoid and/or protecting some "higher" value asset, I would recommend also enforcing/checking the policy once again at the app level. Layered onions, and all that.

So, like many things, not a simple either/or. Unless you want it to be? Seeing the simplicity in the complex is also desirable trait cuz your security posture also needs to be maintainable. For you and your resource commitment levels, eh?

Have a groovy day.

@Sampo2910 I see. Well. It was a long shot, after all. Moreover, I neglected to inquire whether "old skool" or SSD. The later are far less susceptible to shipper thumps and bumps.

I was unfamiliar with GSmart Tools. Quick gander and it seems to be a nice GUI wrapper for smartmontools for those less comfortable with the command line and/or otherwise preferring a gui. Good to know.

As for your actual module error... heh... I am so far off the bleeding edge to even know where to start.... I am confident you will eventually get it sorted. Lots of good helpers hereabouts.

Good luck!

@Sampo2910 said in Discord Notification:

It is a brand new hard drive

Perchance have you run a smartctl long test? It is not uncommon for hard drives to be abused during shipping and packing. Long shot, but worth a shot, if only because it is very low hanging fruit to rule out.

Good luck!

Ya' gets what yer' gouged fer' .... if'n yer' lucky!!!

In this instance, looks like I was. Sad days for the Internet in North America, eh?