Yeah it would be good if you could host pictures in a gallery. It is possible…the car forum I frequent hosts a gallery of over 1.5m pictures.
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Google images is not a forum.
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Are guinea pigs better than hamsters then?
Asking for a friend
. 
Ok, so here come some videos that hopefully show some of the features of Discourse. You’ll also be able to see the URL of the test site - but you won’t be able to log in.
Firstly, there is no such thing as pages anymore.
Discourse simply lets you keep scrolling and this is true of the main topics page as well as with the posts within the topic.
In long topics - such as the What are you listening to etc? thread, you can drag the date slider to exactly where you want to go and then filter by a specific user.
Instead of simply downvoting, Discourse allows you to specify a number of reasons for you flagging the post.
Here you get an idea of how the quoting and replying works.
You no longer have to upload images to a third-party site to show them.
All you need to do is copy the image to your local clipboard and then paste it into the editor.
With Discourse, you no longer need to press F5.
Changes that affect the thread you are looking at are instantly shown.
Here I’m looking at a thread and @btripz starts to post stuff.
Without needing to refresh, it automagically appears.
Whoa…
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Like Sotonians currently does, Discourse builds a list of the things that have happened that you might want to know about.
Posting links to things it’s very simple.
Most internet links can be shared simply by pasting that link on a line of its own…
It has a “spoiler text” remover too.
Discourse also allows you to insert a poll anywhere in a thread…
Poll voting - geddit?
Ok, here I’m going to try the impossible.
I’m going to try to find the most liked post by @pap on the subject of Brexit that I also liked.
A drum roll please…
Well you can try them out without breaking them alledgedly
Discourse is good and easy to use. Would be a good move
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No, you can mute a topic or even a complete category (Reasonably serious…, Monkey tennis…) but you can’t mute an individual user.
However, the forum software handles lots of moderation tasks for you.
So, if, a specific poster were getting lots of downvotes, the forum software picks up on this and removes their ability to post for a short while, a long while, or forever.
Does it work ok on mobiles?
Should’nt you give it to us techotards first, as we will naturally take longer to get up to speed.
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Good question, Cobber.
The answer is complex and multi-levelled I’m afraid, and starts with the words it depends…
Firstly, the user interface on Discourse is easier to use and should be quicker to respond. Everyone that has asked for a login has been really impressed by it.
Secondly, the software attempts to make the community more ‘sticky’* by staying in touch with lapsed users via email. You get a really nice email summary of what has been going on since you were last online.
See here:
Imagine that hitting your email box, you’d likely see something that would draw you back in to post.
Thirdly, all posters aren’t equal. At the moment at Sotonians we’ve got great posters that post every day and work hard to keep the momentum of the site and community moving in the right direction, but they get no more recognition than people that might log in from time to time and snipe at others or the world in general.
Discourse provides 4 levels of users - at level 1 the user has limited posts and by level 4 the user is effectively a moderator. To move up the levels you have to make a certain number of posts per day and post in a certain number of days in each month and obviously be upvoted for your contributions. It’s possible to move back down the levels if you don’t keep contributing too.
So, someone like yourself who contributes regularly might be given the power to edit other people’s posts, move posts from one category to another, merge posts, etc. Just to help the smooth running of the forum.
Fourthly, the forum software handles a lot of the moderation itself. The owners / Soviet would set the parameters for the software but then the software makes decisions about whether a proper discourse is happening or if things have gone wrong.
This would see people that attract a lot of flagged posts (downvotes) have their ability to post removed for a short period. If multiple people are each receiving downvotes on the thread, then the thread might be automatically closed for a while. The idea is that posters are given time to reflect, step back and think again.
Lastly, the software has an API (geek talk) which means programmers can get information in and out of it really easily. This would mean that we could make social media be a real part of the forum to promote and provoke discussion based on provocative comments in the outside world. We could also tame Optimus Trousers and make it more focused on providing shorter more informative posts.
As I say, it depends…
*yes, I know. I know.
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Will it automatically block hugely biased political threads? Will it encourage more footie chat?