Forum Coding

I’m very disappointed in Kongregates forum system. To me it seems that trendy AJAX has taken priority over functionality. A nonstandard markup using character symbols instead of proper tags is a sign of unprofessional design. These poorly defined symbol tags are further useless considering they’re only mentioned on an invasive lower-third AJAX reply box (Which I’m willing to bet breaks smaller windows). There is no tag reference on the new thread window, and both quote and image tags aren’t explained anywhere (Quote is mentioned in a long formatting guide, I guess). There are no quote buttons on any of the posts, either. When the tags are finally discovered and used, they break the following return, requiring a double return for a single new line.

I’m not sure why Kongregate has chosen to ignore BBCode and other forum conventions that have become standard on the internet, and instead opted for an eye-candy fixed-width button-less mess. Considering the professionalism and quality of the rest of the site, I’m very concerned with this aspect. I believe that the awesome possibilities for community is severely crippled with such watered down forum technology.

I apologize if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes, but I’m simply trying to bring light to the ugly parts of an otherwise beautifully well designed website.

If you read around the forums a little you would know why. This is a well known issue that has been discussed numerous times.

These forums were chosen because they were easy to integrate with the existing site. The forums are a side note to the actual purpose of the site, therefore they take a lower priority over other tasks. It has nothing to do with ignoring other technologies or preferring ‘watered down’ functionality, but those other technologies require more work to implement, otherwise it would require duplicate registration systems.

Kongregate has said plenty of times, that yes, these forums lack a lot and that they intend to replace them in time. Right now they are overloaded with current tasks that are more important. The site is in BETA, after all.