Radical changes coming

Originally Posted by mikeroq To me it seems like traditional forums like this one (vbulletin, phpbb, ipb) are just past their time. [...] Hopefully some radical changes can do something. [...] It almost might be a better idea to just wipe the slate and start fresh. You could take this vbulletin install and keep it in it's current location, but make it read only/archive

Hey @mikeroq! I am glad to hear some concrete suggestions. I am not sure if you had the chance to read through this thread where I explained what we've already done and what needs to still be done, but we are basically going along these lines.

Discourse has been a bit of a pain in the butt (we had to attract an expert in the software to help with certain things), but we are going forward. We have a test server with Digital Ocean running. I find Discourse to be an excellent new platform we can confidently work with.

We have also removed nearly 10,000 accounts (and still removing) and plan on repositioning TalkFreelance to certain markets only. We are likely to launch with no Marketplace.

Finally, there is a solution to archive all existing forums to prevent them from spilling back into conversation. Since Discourse flows differently than a traditional forum, old conversations will serve as nothing more than seeding ground for search engines and organic traffic, while only fresh new content will be served first.

I can't tell you exactly when the new forum will kick into action, but I know we aren't that far from it either.