One of my club's members that has a lot more technical know-how than I do just emailed me regarding my plan to use nodebb (more so the node.js platform) as our replacement forum engine. Below is what he said. Please be aware that I do not know what most of it means, only that it sounds very negative towards node.js.

Does he know what he's talking about? Here goes...

Migrating from vBulletin5 the posts will be a nightmare from hell, if it's possible at all. Probably not since node.bb doesn't even use a relational DB so that means if exporters/importers aren't available we can't even use SQL scripts to move the stuff over (since those node loving dummies did away with the database, durr).

• the old forum already has working mechanisms by which we can take memberships in PayPal and translate that into membership. This is all custom plumbing you'd have to recreate with the new system

• node.js is insecure crap written by children with no clue how the world works, I simply cannot dissuade you enough from running any of it in production. I base this on 25+ yrs experience in internet programming and hosting, I'm not just being a grouchy old prick (but it's true I am also a grouchy old prick). The inventor of node (Ryan Dahl) is literally a moron, he spouted off loudly about how it was the greatest most efficient thing ever to his legions of javascript fanbois, only thing is he has no clue about computer science really and he was soundly debunked, but too stupid to even accept it or realize it. Then their poor choices fucked it up so badly none of the Linux distros would even allow it in their packages... they made it so horrendously insecure (with statically linked dependencies like OpenSSL and the V8 javascript library) that he had to "resign" (after < 5 years! nice job Einstein, LOL!) Finally joyent has managed to have a team of less stupid people make it unsketchy enough that the distros allow it again in their package managers... But it's a hell of a long way from "good" or something I'd sanely run in production. I pretty much (along with most experienced programmers and admins) feel this way about it, what the little cartoon guy said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzkRVzciAZg
  It would be the easiest thing int he world to DoS a node.js powered forum, despite the hipsters spouting words like "scalable" (a subject they don't know much about or they wouldn't be replacing perfectly good relational DB's with object stores). But I digress.....

• as for the nodebb itself, While some more modern features like a responsive theme would be nice, we should investigate if we can get that from the existing vBulletin software? Changing the forum platform now is something we'll be stuck with forever... anything written in node.js is unlikely to last that well over time, the node ecosystem is alread one of crumbling infrastructure and it's not even 10 years old yet. Not encouraging is fact the DB doesn't use MySQL but uses an object cache (redis).. major red flag. IT's a forum, that's the very definition of a relational database. What kind of idiot would implement that without SQL? Oh right, a node.js person! Ah I could kick node.js puppies all day, they are just that deserving of it.

So yeah, I mean you could do all that stuff, it will likely take a while to get everything right, you have to deal wit migration (likely impossible thanks to them not using a database), you'll have to deal with the membership and payment stuff (ecommerce is always a pain and the club is large enough that you want to be doing as little manual babysitting of the paying -> forum membership process as possible,

As for the hosting, if you're hellbent on hosting it yourself, you're going to want to at least proxy the node.js stuff via Apache or nginx or some other reverse proxy webserver, but that still won't stop it from being easily DoS'ed because node isn't actually scalable to the moon like its lamer creators claim, it's super inefficient and will take down the droplet in no time flat if you beat on it at all. I run some custom hippy activist node.js stuff for ForestEthics out of san fran and even the simplest service written in node.js+redis eats as much resources on the server as 10 busy websites, and the thing ticks over and does nothing for the most part. It's appallingly bad. DigitalOcean doesn't provide swap so bad things happen if it overloads on RAM, ie. the kernel will kill something using lots of memory (probably redis, or your mysql server if you're also hosting wordpress on there).

@Kowlin thank you very much for that. The community here is a big reason why I walked away from Discourse.

I noticed there's a NodeBB app in the Android app store. I sideloaded it onto my Blackberry but it won't run. I will have to wait for the wife to get home to look at it since she has an Android phone.

Anyway, what is this app, exactly? Will it allow users to access my NodeBB forum via app instead of web browser? That would be awesome if it is true!

Thx for offering to help! I prefer not to use PM so the solution is available to others, too!

@pichalite Sorry I was not as clear as I could've been. Yes, basically private groups whose discussion can only be visible to members of the group. I am not sure if I want to allow this option. Some members want it while others do not.

I am torn between enabling user groups or not. I like the fact that is gives users another means to interact/communicate and thus spend more time on the forum, but I do not like that group discussion is not on the forum.

Has anyone enabled groups after running their forum for some time without groups, and did you notice a decrease in forum activity?

Voted. Looks like the "last post I read' option is kicking arse!

@pichalite Thanks for the reply. I did not know about Shoutbox, but see it is still in development. I will stick with the default chat setup for now until Shoutbox is ready for production.

Is it possible to breakout the chat feature from its current position in the nav bar and have it in plain view like the sidebar?

Also, would it be a lot of work to be able to option it to be more like a chat room where members could hop in and out as they pleased?

@AOKP THx for your help -- I have a new instance of NodeBB (on Ubuntu 14.04) up and running.

The testing continues.

@soulz2003 I also explored migrating from our current forum (vB5) to Xenforo. While I did really like XF, I moved it to the 'no' pile simply because I don't consider it modern software that would keep users engaged for say the next 5 years. XF is pretty much like all other old-school offerings out there.

The only 'next generation' forum engines I'm aware of are NodeBB, Discourse, and Flarum, but there might be others.

Funny story: I setup a small Slack channel to discuss future forum ideas with a few members. After using Slack for only 2 days NO ONE wanted to go back to a 'traditional' forum (NodeBB included). If Slack was free and included a 'Posts' feature I would not be here at all. I emailed the team at Slack about adding these features and also offering a self-hosted version and was told they were already evaluating some of those options.

Ok I don't think I explained myself very well. If you take a look at the original poster's screenshot you will notice there are 4 Categories without posts. In my experience I noticed that once all Categories had posts then the Categories kind of 'settled' and (most of) the white space was gone.

What happens if you add a description for your 'Questions and responses' Category and then add a post or two in that Category? Then do the same for the 3 Categories at the bottom

I don't have an answer for you, but did notice a similar issue. It seemed to partly correct itself when each category saw some activity and the posts would sort of fill in the white space you're seeing.

@Peter-Zoltan-Keresztes @pichalite Just wanted to say THANK YOU to the both of you for all the help -- it was really appreciated. I have destroyed the DigitalOcean Droplet because spending my evenings and weekends with with my face buried in a terminal is not very appealing.

Unfortunately, It doesn't look good for me + NodeBB. That fact that I can unknowingly and easily nuke the forum simply by playing with settings in the frontend with little to no chance of fixing it has given me a lot to think about.

I need to make a decision on forum software within the next few months, but NodeBB is scaring the shit out of me. It's too bad Flarum is still some months (or a year) away from production.

Now I'm not sure what to do.