Should forums be in core or not?

-1 from me. If you drop forum from core, it's less likely to get attention from developers. There isn't exactly a line up to work on forum in contrib. Having it in core makes the core devs at least make sure we have a functional forum at the start of each release. Let's face it, the only one that has consistently cared about Drupal's forums for the last 3.5 years is me. And I'm usually lagging quite a bit behind. I haven't even downloaded D7, yet. If getting core forum ready by D7's release was on my head, we'd be sunk. As it is, I'll be lucky if I can get AF out for D7 by Christmas.

Sorry this is ranty but I'm getting tired of people saying drop forum out of core with no plan in place to take care of it once it's in contrib.

Michelle

#1: this is the kind of thinking I do not understand. "Let's keep X in core to ensure it's maintained". The reason why forum is in a bad state is because you can't do any reasonable time investment in it without waiting for up to 3 years for its release.

I suggest to move it to contrib. I do not particularly care about forum itself, but I can't understand why we continue to believe in maintaining high level modules like blog, forum or aggregator when this process has been failing very clearly for more than 4 years now.

@alex_b: Are you volunteering to be the contrib forum maintainer? Is anyone? As long as it is in core it is guaranteed to be updated to each new major release. If it's dropped from core then there is no such guarantee. Core forum isn't that bad. It's just basic. It's functional and serves as a foundation for contrib to build on. That's all the core forum really needs to do and it does that.

Michelle

- Drupal is thousand times more more useful and attractive if its core contains forum out of the box
- Drupal with forum has made it popular - do not back stab for the sake of any reason
- There are really more important issues than this to clog future dev/works with
- What happens to those massive number of sites who upgrades to D8 from D6/D7 with fourms
- If forum is dropped why not the blog? It is poorly developed compared to wordpress, for example
- If forum is dropped why not the book or wiki? It is poorly developed compared to mediawiki
- If forum is dropped why not search? Drupal already recommends use of Solr search

Best way to gather opinion is having replica of this - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ (Drupal has already adopted such replica in Code of Conduct, "essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu" - http://drupal.org/node/897616)

BTW

Component: forum.module
Category: feature request
Request : Drop the forum ...

This is the most novel and unique "feature" "request" I have ever heard, dropping the entire thing :)

I'm not sure this title is better, to be honest. There are already many issues for improving core forum. If there are ideas that aren't covered, yet, there should be issues for those. If you want to have a general discussion, http://groups.drupal.org/forum-improvements is a better place for it.

Michelle

I still sure that if we start working on dropping then more people could be involved in process of improving.

And I'm still sure you're deluding yourself. :P

But, whatever. Doesn't matter to me if this issue sits open. It's not my queue. :)

Michelle

http://buytaert.net/8-steps-for-drupal-8 does not specifically asks to drop forum - even if it does so it is not written in stone.

Please start the best way to gather opinion by having replica of this - http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ for Drupal 8

Forum should be in core. Else the issue should be: strip core of blog, books etc and just keep user+security+?node

Please see Forum should be in core.

at andypost

I still sure that if we start working on dropping then more people

I see the above statement as a non-constructive, emotional statement - where is your constructive data in support of your claim? Has there been enough issues in issue lists/requests/feedbacks in forums by common users asking to drop the forum ? Please provide links to those.

+1 for forums should be in core.

+1 on #4 and @alex_b - I also can't understand why blog, forum and aggregator are in core.

One major disadvantage of them being so that has yet to be mentioned in this issue is the inability of those modules to take advantage of non-core modules. One example is the blog module which provides a splendid API, but can't take advantage of all of the work in Services in doing so.

The only reason for modules like blog, forum and aggregator to be in core is to make core a better product. I think that distributions like OpenAtrium should be those good products and that Drupal core shouldn't. An official community backed distribution that included all these now core modules as well as already essential contrib modules like Views could perhaps be a good idea as well.

The less modules in core the better:

- the modules can be updated independ from core
- the maintainer of contrib-modules must not be core maintainers (easier to establish and to change)
- core is easier to manage: more than 50 modules were added to core (D6-> D7), so everything that could be removed sould be removed.

- Drupal core is not a Drupal distribution

I think the biggest issue with forum is that it doesn't really look like other forum software like vB or phpbb. Most of the features that forums have are available in Drupal contrib: BBcode, Smileys, Privatemsg, etc...

I think forum module would become far more useful If

1) node-forum.tpl.php and comment-forum.tpl.php were given a generic "look and feel" similar to the Author Pane module.
2) A UI setting to change where the Author Pane theming is shown: left side of nodes and comments, right side or on top.
3)An ability to easily move forum posts around. Some of this is solved by the Comment Mover module. But it doesn't move nodes. Merging, splitting, making comments into new forum topics, etc... Personally, I think this would work better in contrib because I can't see it being used on anything but forum nodes and comments.
4) A few signature changes: If user changes signature it changes past nodes and comments, disable signatures per post, only allow to show signature once per topic.

Also assigning view/edit/delete permissions for containers and forums. This would allow moderators to be assigned by role.

Not in Core = Only few maintainer determine how it looks, what features, and no guarantee for upgrade & releases.

With #1262360: Add larowlan as forum maintainer this question is moot for the moment. With all the small core / snowman / onramp / etc talk maybe some day it will get moved out of core. For now, though, it has a caretaker in core and doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Michelle

#23 good point - but who is in charge to decide?

Well, Dries makes the ultimate decision but larowlan, as maintainer, will have a lot of input into it. I closed this issue because it was starting to turn into an OT FR discussion and even the on topic discussion is moot as long as there is someone willing to maintain it in core.

Michelle

This conversation has been had at #1255674: [meta] Make core maintainable as part of a larger discussion on future directions for core. I'm with @michelle on this - all of the small core / snowman / onramp work has to run it's course before this decision can be given due consideration.