I am working on a project to start a new forum with Discourse and I am wondering how can I go through the direction of this website https://swapd.co/. The project is similar to the idea of this forum, that is why I want to know everything about it.
I really want to know basically everything they did and how to implement that on my website. From the theme, SMS verification, their app, banners for new users, menus, and especially to the payment gateway they use (checkout ticket).
I know that their moderators are active in this forum and I would appreciate it if they could help me out with that.
They have an awesome but very custom Discourse instance, the moderator/developer posted a couple of things about their custom plugin that I thought where amazing, now, they rely on being unique, so I really doubt they will be eager to come here and spill every little single modification they did, specially because he told he was not going to open source one of the plugins they were using.
Thanks for your reply @marianord, I really didn’t know about that and sincerely not open-sourcing this work is sad, particularly because they did an amazing job.
Yes. We’re active However, we will not be releasing anything other than what we’ve released to the public already. We’ve currently released four plugins to give back to the Discourse community, and that’s how far as we are willing to go, for now. Over the past 2-3 years, we’ve spent close to 25,000+ USD in customization plus upkeep, and nearly 100% of this money went back to the developers in this community. Just mentioning this as I want to point out that by not open-sourcing our plugins we’re not the boogeyman here and we do contribute to the community, but in other ways. And that price keeps going higher with every update. Having almost 20 plugins is painful during upgrades and each time an update is needed, we have to pay to get things done. We’re a business solely in this to make a profit, and we will not make a profit open-sourcing our plugins. On the contrary, it would only hurt our business, as many people are setting out to do what we’re doing. You’ve said you have “other stuff” you’re into, yet you’ve even asked for the name of the exact theme as we have. That makes me question your real motives.
In no way I was implying that you were a boogeyman, I love what you have done with the platform and I’d love to do some stuff with what you already have in place.
But, I understand those are needed to keep the business running as it’s. Being an active community member shows the value you give to the tool as a lot of other people (like me) does. Go ahead with that great platform because is a real inspiration to others of how versatile and which kind of niche solutions can be based on Discourse.
Hey, I didn’t mean to direct that at you Sorry! I was speaking more in general terms. Thank you for your kind words I love Discourse and this community!
I appreciate you all for your replies and I would like to say that there is no problem in not having the exact same plugins and stuff that swapd.co has. I will use it as an example to follow and congratulate @WorldIsMine for his work.
I would like to gently ask if someone could list the currently released and opened plugins that @WorldIsMine has mentioned before. I could not properly find them in the community.
@marianord it might make more sense if you let us know what it is that you’re trying to achieve and we can advise on the best path forward. Is it their theme? Specific functionality?
I would like to implement the e-commerce style that SWAPD has, where they serve as a middleman. My understanding is that they receive the money from the sale, get a cut and release only when both parties are ok. I handle a considerable size car community where we could implement this to be a trust platform between members, but this goes way beyond what Discourse is set up to be.
Right but payment processors and split payments aren’t Discourse functionality. As @worldismine said above, they have open sourced the plugins which have wider benefit.
If you want more than that, then the place to take it is the marketplace.
However, we will not be releasing anything other than what we’ve released to the public already. We’ve currently released four plugins to give back to the Discourse community, and that’s how far as we are willing to go, for now. Over the past 2-3 years, we’ve spent close to 25,000+ USD in customization plus upkeep, and nearly 100% of this money went back to the developers in this community. Just mentioning this as I want to point out that by not open-sourcing our plugins we’re not the boogeyman here and we do contribute to the community, but in other ways. And that price keeps going higher with every update. Having almost 20 plugins is painful during upgrades and each time an update is needed, we have to pay to get things done. We’re a business solely in this to make a profit, and we will not make a profit open-sourcing our plugins. On the contrary, it would only hurt our business, as many people are setting out to do what we’re doing. You’ve said you have “other stuff” you’re into, yet you’ve even asked for the name of the exact theme as we have. That makes me question your real motives.
Sorry! I was speaking more in general terms. Thank you for your kind words