(2013-02-05) Atwood Discourse Forum Software

Jeff Atwood has formed a new Start Up named Civilized Discourse Construction Kit (Discourse). They've built a new Discussion Forum app (Ruby On Rails, PostgreSQL) that's Open Source, and apparently they'll make money by hosting it. Some nice features. Very JavaScript driven (SEO problems?), using EmberJs Javascript Client Framework.

• update: solution to the SEO issue.

Rands In Repose is on the board and gives some historical context to the problem. There were healthy discussions about that particular message board’s subject, accompanied by a distinct sense of smallness. And then Everyone showed up. It was a good thing — the everyone — but message boards, which were now becoming known as forums, were not built for Everyone. Everyone is a lot. It’s the people who care about what they say and those who don’t give a shit. It’s the ones who carefully choose every word and people who find joy only in finding flaws... Forums didn’t keep up.