[hamburglar]

I think discourse handles this impressively, and I thought of them for almost every point on this list. They're almost all fairly minor technical obstacles if you really want to solve them. Discourse really wanted to solve them and they did it masterfully.

But the funny thing is...I still don't like using infinitely long pages, even in discourse. The scrollbar is a very capable control that works exactly in a way we are familiar with, and we're accustomed to it in ways that the little progress widget simply can't compete with. And we're not going to get accustomed to the widget in the same way unless it really is universal and behaves in a very standard way (like a scrollbar does), so until that happens, I wish people would stop insisting that a page with a goofed-up scrollbar can be just as good because, hey, magic widget!

EDIT: just to give discourse a chance to prove me wrong, as it had been a long time since I looked at their widget, I went and looked at a 1000 post thread on try.discourse.org and I'm sorry, but the experience completely sucks compared to having a real scrollbar. There's no way to tell how long the thread is at a glance (the widget just says "2" and the scrollbar indicates maybe 40% is visible), there's no way to scroll to somewhere in the middle (say, you know you're looking for something around post 200) without incredible tedium, there's no fast scrolling. Their solution is technically gorgeous, but it's just jaw-dropping to me that anyone could be so stubborn as to suggest that this is a reasonable replacement for a scrollbar for content that is of a very long but known length.

[Dolimiter]

Agree completely. For long threads, Discourse is a usability disaster. phpBB is awful software, but everyone in the world can click on page 20 and know where they are. Jumping 2/3rds into a long topic using Discourse is essentially impossible for the average user.

But I love Discourse for at least trying something new and different - thats how progress is made. But some of their UI/stack decisions seem to have been made with no thought for normal people/web admins.

[EvilTrout]

Question: Why do you need to jump to page 20?

In a long topic, what value does it give you?

We have found that the vast majority of users either link to a single post or scroll downwards. For mega topics, we have a summarize option that shows the "best of."

[Dolimiter]

"We have found that the vast majority of users either link to a single post or scroll downwards."

Well they don't have any choice do they :D

I think that the summary tool of discourse is fantastic. So are the membership management tools/spam tools. A generation above phpBB. Just to balance out the criticism.

But the infinite scrolling is a deal-breaker (for me).

[hamburglar]

> Question: Why do you need to jump to page 20?

Question: why do you assume that an end user's lack of ability to articulate a need negates it?