Sharing this summary as promised. Used Gemini 2.5 Pro to summarize all feedback collected in the last 3 months.
I would say the biggest concern has been a good theme. I wish there was a paid themes marketplace on Discourse like on other forum platforms.
Summary
The feedback on the migration to Discourse is strongly divided, but a majority of vocal users express significant frustration, leading to reduced engagement. The most critical issues are centered on Navigation & Usability and UI & Design, particularly for desktop users accustomed to traditional forum layouts. While some users appreciate the modern look and technical improvements, the consensus among critics is that the platform prioritizes form over function, creating a high cognitive load and a less intuitive experience.
1. Navigation & Usability (Highest Priority)
This category received the most frequent and detailed negative feedback. Users find the new platform fundamentally harder to use, which is a direct cause of their reduced engagement.
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Key Feedback Points & Weightage:
- Infinite Scroll is Unpopular: The strongest point of consensus is the dislike for infinite scroll, especially on desktop. Users miss the context and control of page numbers for navigating long threads.
- Generally Difficult to Navigate: A significant number of users describe the platform as confusing, cluttered, tedious, and having a steep learning curve they don’t wish to invest in for a forum.
- Difficulty Finding Last/Unread Posts: A common struggle is the inability to intuitively jump to the last post or resume reading from a specific point in a thread, requiring users to learn non-obvious workarounds.
- Poor Content Discovery: Users miss the old categories page, which provided a clear, hierarchical overview of the forum’s structure and latest activity within sections. The new layout is seen as a “mishmash.”
- Broken Quoting: The process of quoting text is described as difficult and flaky, especially on mobile and tablets where the quote pop-up can be obscured by the native UI.
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Actionable Insights:
- Prioritize a “Traditional Forum” Experience: The core issue is the deviation from the expected forum model. A theme or layout that emulates a paginated, more structured view, especially for the categories page, would address the most significant complaints.
- Improve Navigation Cues: Make jumping to the first, last, and last-unread post an obvious, one-click action. The current scrollbar functionality is not intuitive for many. Consider adding explicit buttons at the top and bottom of threads.
- Re-evaluate the Default Quoting Behavior: The need to manually select text to quote is a major friction point. Investigate plugins or settings that make quoting a full post the default, one-click action.
2. UI & Design (High Priority)
Users feel the current design wastes space and harms readability, directly impacting their ability and desire to consume content.
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Key Feedback Points & Weightage:
- Excessive Whitespace: This was the most cited design flaw. Users on larger desktop monitors feel the narrow central column wastes significant screen real estate and reduces information density.
- Desire for Customization: Users are actively seeking ways to improve their experience through custom CSS, different themes (Default over Horizon), and smaller font sizes. This indicates a strong desire for more user-level control over the appearance.
- Poor Readability: The combination of whitespace, font sizes, and lack of clear separation between posts makes it harder to scan and read content compared to the previous software.
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Actionable Insights:
- Develop a “Compact” or “Full-Width” Theme: Address the whitespace complaint directly by offering an official theme that utilizes more of the screen width. This would also satisfy the desire for customization and is the most common workaround users are implementing themselves.
- Refine Visual Separators: Increase the visual distinction between posts. Subtle changes like borders, alternating background colors, or different user-info block layouts can significantly improve readability and reduce the “chat-like” feel.
- Review Font Sizing and Hierarchy: Conduct a review of the theme’s typography to ensure a more consistent and information-dense hierarchy, particularly for subcategory text and post content.
3. General Sentiment & User Engagement (High Impact)
A significant portion of the feedback indicates a direct, negative impact on user activity. While some of this is resistance to change, the consistency of the complaints suggests deeper issues.
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Key Feedback Points & Weightage:
- Negative Sentiment / Usage Dropped: This is a critical metric. Multiple users explicitly state they visit the forum less often now.
- Positive Sentiment: A smaller but notable group enjoys the modern feel, speed, and features like the notification system and markdown editor.
- Adaptive Users: This group misses the old forum but understands the technical reasons for the migration and is willing to adapt.
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Actionable Insights:
- Acknowledge and Communicate: Publicly acknowledge the user feedback and communicate a clear roadmap for UI/UX improvements. This can help retain users who are currently frustrated but willing to adapt.
- Prioritize “Quality of Life” Fixes: Focus on low-effort, high-impact changes first (e.g., changing category colors to match the old theme as suggested by one user) to show that feedback is being heard and acted upon.
- Create a “Getting Started” Guide: While some users resist reading guides, a pinned topic that quickly explains the top 5 most confusing changes (like navigating threads and quoting) could ease the transition for many.
4. Core Functionality & Performance (Medium Priority)
While not as frequently mentioned as UI/UX, these issues affect the core purpose of the forum.
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Key Feedback Points & Weightage:
- Chat-like Feel: The design encourages short, reactive replies rather than long-form, structured discussion, making it feel more like a chat app than a forum.
- Poor Search: Users report that search does not effectively prioritize results from topic titles, making it hard to find known threads.
- Performance Issues: One user noted that the text editor becomes laggy and causes their laptop to heat up on long threads.
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Actionable Insights:
- Tune Search Relevance: Investigate Discourse settings or plugins that can weigh topic titles more heavily in search results. The admin’s suggestion to use advanced syntax is a workaround, not a solution for default search behavior.
- Monitor Performance on Long Threads: Keep an eye on the performance of the editor and scrolling on threads with thousands of replies to address potential client-side bottlenecks.
- Enable AI Search: As suggested by the admin, enabling AI-powered search could be a long-term solution to the search relevance problem, but it should be weighed against potential costs.