Just posted this somewhere:
For 1 year now, whenever I join a forum I like to ask this question: Have you considered using discourse.org ?
Most of the times it is my perception the answer is “no, we didn’t even know / care about it” or, sometimes, “yeah, but we wanted to roll something of our own”, which I find very sad. Discourse is hugely unique in a lot of ways and still so much overlooked. If you wanted to build something, why not on top of it?
It will not only become the wordpress of forums, it will probably become the google of talking. It could even eventually resolve what’s broken about email or messaging, although their small team would never claim this. Okay, maybe I’m overstating it… But it is this awesome! 
So sad 