Discourse – This Year’s New Student Community
In August of 2021, the Mother of Divine Grace student forum, MODG ProBoards, was moved to a new forum, MODG Discourse. The same spirit of fruitful conversation and the same standards of behavior are transferred with the community to Discourse. The forum rules have not changed. The new forum also has the ability to be integrated into the MODG family site. The move was successful and there is an active community on Discourse.
Our students have both positive and negative opinions on the move from ProBoards to Discourse.
There has been an increase in activity since the move from ProBoards to Discourse, as Lily Ruth C. (Grade 12) comments on.
“I like how it was announced more prominently, which gave us so many more members. The feeling of life on the community is fantastic! I feel like there is less antagonism between members. All in all I think Discourse is great! I’m glad that we made the change, and I’m thankful to the mods and everyone who is working hard to establish it well.”
There are mixed opinions about certain features that were unique to ProBoards and are not on Discourse
“I wish we had the ability to follow people, and I liked that we had signatures, too. I also wish that you could tag more than 10 people, and I liked that everyone could have their own bio,” says Susannah C. (Grade 11).
Lily Ruth has a different perspective on these features and considers it a positive that they are not present on Discourse.
“I also think Discourse does not facilitate as much comparison as ProBoards did. On ProBoards, you could see how many views your topic had, and how many views other people’s topics had. On every person’s post, you could see all sorts of information about them: how many posts they had made, and how many likes they had. There was also a rank for everyone based on how many posts they had made. I just found this so much more conducive to comparison. On Discourse, all you see immediately is the person’s profile picture and their name. If you want to compare your amount of likes to theirs, you have to go to the list of members. It’s easier to just enjoy the community and discussion without being tempted to comparison. I think that’s a really good message to send, especially for a Catholic community!”
Zoe P. (Grade 12th) favors ProBoards, but she sees good in both forums.
“I think I like ProBoards better than Discourse. But just by a little. They each have their perks, but I think ProBoards is extra special because it was first. There are several aspects to ProBoards that I like more. It has signatures that are visible with each post. I loved the “status” each person could use if they wished, and that the profile picture was larger. Its sections are more neatly organized. And I liked the clarity of the system of counting posts and activity. It was much easier to see and know someone because the information was attached to every post whereas in Discourse, you have to go to their account to see much of that information.
Zoe continue, “Discourse however is nice because the removal of signatures does make reading posts simpler. I also like that you can see the recently active topics from every category, not just from whichever section you are in such as creative writing or sports. I really like that so many people are on Discourse. I think changing from ProBoards to Discourse influenced that. It’s great to see so many people I know joining now!”
Lily Ruth also appreciate some of the new features that come with Discourse
“One of the things I like best about Discourse is its updated feel. Of course, this is personal taste, but to me it has a sleeker look and a smoother, cleaner feel. It’s more colorful—as soon as you open you see the different colors of the categories and the different colors in people’s profile pictures. Bright colors make me happy, so I appreciate the colors. Then there are little things…I like how the new messages update immediately, so you don’t have to refresh the page to see if someone answered while you were typing your reply. That eliminates a lot of confusion. I like how it is so simple to quote people, and that you can reply to a specific person.“
What are your thoughts on the move from ProBoards to Discourse? Let us know in the comments!
Kaity Rose Gallagher is a News Production student and a senior at MoDG. She has plans to attend higher education and major in theology.
Lucia Viloria • Aug 31, 2022 at 4:57 pm
About a year after the switch, I still do miss PB, but that’s mostly because of all the archives that were lost to us when we switched platforms. I really enjoyed reading through all the past threads and debates. Something else I miss is the ability to follow people and how its in some ways better organized than Discourse.
That being said, I’m really enjoying Discourse. It definitely has a much cleaner look to it, and the influx of new people since the switch has been astounding.
Overall, I miss certain aspects of PB, but I think it was a smart idea to switch platforms.
ELEKTRA (Marjena H.P. Tautkus) • Apr 5, 2022 at 11:04 am
I miss ProBoards only because you could upload videos. But other than that, Discourse triumphs it by FAR. It also has the ‘social media’ feel to it. Because I’ve only ever seen glimpses of Facebook and what not. And on discourse, it feels like WHOO! I’M ON A SOCIAL MEDIA THINGY!
Even though I’m kinda not. 😉 😛
Patrick Buehler • Feb 15, 2022 at 4:54 am
I wasn’t that active on ProBoards so I don’t have an opinion on which is better. I first heard about Discourse when the election began and decided to run. Since then I’ve been very active on there. I think Discourse has it’s pros and cons.