Table of contents
TL;DR / Geek Summary:
- Tech History: Nostalgic look at the evolution of BBS and web forums (XiuNobbs, Discuz, PHPBB, DvBBS).
- Platform Review: Highlights XiuNobbs for extreme minimalism and Discuz for its vast (though cumbersome) plugin ecosystem.
- Geek Take: Valuing the high openness and information density of forums compared to closed modern social networks.
# What is a Forum?
A forum is a place where many people can chat together, but it lacks the real-time nature of apps like WeChat. Back around the year 2000, early forums were those black-background BBS systems. Everyone used dial-up internet, which was very slow, so all sessions had to be cached locally, replied to, and then uploaded to the server. Today’s forums, such as V2EX and various domestic forums in China, mostly retain the classic thread-based style of those early days with almost no changes. The great advantage of forums is their high degree of openness. It is much easier to find valuable information openly available on the internet through forums. Often, we realize that forums are as old as the internet itself.
# Software Needed to Build a Forum
There are various types of software for building forums; only a few are listed here.
# XiuNobbs
This forum software is extremely lightweight. It requires almost no configuration after installation and even supports running on shared hosting (virtual hosts) where restrictions are usually tight.
# Discuz
I believe those of you who frequently browse the internet have noticed that Discuz often powers various old forums. Because this forum software has been around for a very long time, its plugin ecosystem is incredibly vast, and many paid plugins even have cracked versions available online. However, the configuration is quite troublesome. If you have a lot of free time, you can give it a try. It is also friendly to shared hosting environments.
# PHPBB
This is also a veteran forum software. I haven’t used its plugins much, so I won’t comment on its plugin ecosystem. However, this is another shared-hosting-friendly forum software, though its support for Chinese localization is relatively poor.
# DvBBS (Dongwang BBS)
This is a “tear of an era”—a forum software based on ASP. Today, we can still download the installation package for DvBBS, but their official company no longer develops forum software.Official Website Archive on the Internet Archive CS1.6 sorpack Forum
# Afterword
Many forums will eventually disappear, so cherish these still-existing forum software and active forums. I believe the internet will continue to thrive and prosper.