Moodle as forum platform

Moodle as forum platform

by Paul King -
Number of replies: 12

I am wondering if anyone can advise on the suitability of using Moodle purely as collegial forum?

Although there is an educational purpose, this would not be associated with a course of study.

I currently host a small web based forum for Architects (600 users), that started out as an email based chatlist on Yahoo Groups before migrating to a self hosted MyBB installation.

Unfortunately the most active original users no longer participate, citing loss of the spontaneity and engagement throughout the day that rapid fire email based posting exchanges allowed (even as the constant flow of email chatter flooding inboxes was an irritant to  other users, causing many to unsubscribe).

From what I can gather, Moodle has an online forum functionality, which allows for posting by email for those that want it, and posting online for those that prefer that  - potentially offering the best of both worlds, and solving my dilemma?

Sadly, MyBB does not support posting / replying directly by email.

Can users initiate a new forum thread by email, or just respond to an existing thread notification?

I have a sense that Moodle might have features to support collaborative and review processes, where in my case multiple users could potentially comment on and even contribute solutions to architectural problems? (perhaps by posting PDF files of sketches and other drawings?)  Do I have this right?

How sophisticated is the forum functionality and ease of administration available in Moodle compared with dedicated forum software?

Is it even possible to set up a website in which forum features are all that a user sees? (there would be no education/course related functionality or menus wanted or needed)

Can a Moodle forum even be created as a standalone feature, without needing a tutor, or some sort of course related material as a starting point ?

Are there otherwise any serious shortcomings in Moodle forum functionality that might make me look elsewhere, if forum functionality is all I would be using? For example with privacy, spam protection, user registration and management, content moderation, thread management (pruning and grafting, merging duplicate threads), onerous hosting demands etc?


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In reply to Paul King

Re: Moodle as forum platform

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

The shortest answer is Moodle supports most of the features you are looking for (and many, many more) either out-of-the-box or after some configurations which can be done on the administrator's web interface - no coding necessary. Get a free site on https://moodlecloud.com and see yourself.

The more difficult subject is, we don't know whether the cause for the lack of participation is a general shift/drift in user habits: from the (store-and-forward) BBS and Usenet to (Internet-based) Newsgroups and web forums, finally to get lost in the explosion of possibilities today. It is up to you to judge whether "switching forum software" is the solution.

Talking of "forum software", as you've already found out, Moodle is much more. It is also possible, depending on the quality of your community, some such features would make the Moodle solution more attractive than a pure web forum.
wink
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle as forum platform

by Paul King -
Thanks very much for that.
Yes, a good insight into my engagement problem.

I guess all I can to is test the alternative, given my current setup is just not attracting much activity at all these days.

I will have a tinker with https://moodlecloud.com
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In reply to Paul King

Re: Moodle as forum platform

by Paul King -

Ok, turns out that the currently supported version of Moodle won’t even run on a shared host like mine, as the current version requires something called Barracuda file format for databases, that shared hosts don’t offer.

 An expensive dedicated host or fully managed cloud hosting option required – which in my case with 600 users would cost $AU1000/year (assuming it even worked as expected) - well beyond my reach. 

Shared hosting is the only financially viable option for a community website run on an unpaid/ volunteer basis.  Sounds like, despite being open source, Moodle has engineered itself out of reach for anyone but large fee generating institutions for all practical purposes.


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In reply to Paul King

A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

This is a completely different question to the original one https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=395110. Pl. notice that I've changed the subject line accordingly. This is a recurrent new enquiry more suitable for the Hardware and performance forum and is a recurring one. You can skim that form or launch a search https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=395110.

You joined the moodle.org yesterday and haven't looked at the platform (as Moodle administrator) yet, right? Please do your homework as promised in https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=395110#p1592959 before making daring statements like "Moodle has engineered itself out of reach for anyone but large fee generating institutions for all practical purposes."
sad
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Paul King -

Hi Visvanath.

I did look at the page listing free cloud hosting option , but as this excludes any plugins, there seems to be nothing much I can usefully test that seems relevant to my forum objectives.

Also, because 600 users would cost $1000 pa on cloud hosting plan, and because the latest version of Moodle has been made incompatible with shared self managed hosting (by barracuda file type requirement), my statement is correct, unless there is something I am missing?

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In reply to Paul King

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Hi there - just an observation - I don't have the technical knowledge to comment on the hosting requirements - but if you are only interested in the forum possibilities of Moodle then why does it matter if you can't add any extra plugins?
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Paul King -

Hi - good question.   My objectives include facilitating some means of collaboration and critique with other forum users in addressing architectural problems, Also to host a galleries of supporting architectural images  & PDFs to this end (my current forum has a very basic gallery plugin, but no real way to link images back to specific topics etc, and no email list functionality)

My goal was to see what plugins might be needed and available to support these things.

Because I quickly learned the free cloud hosting option would not allow me to explore plugins, there seemed no point investigating further in that direction

Also, given I will sooner or later need to provide for my 600 users, the cost of the paid higher tier cloud service option that I would need to use, even if all required functionality turned out to be present, would place a managed service out of reach anyway - I am doing this as an unpaid volunteer.

Either way, it seemed the only practical way to test, to see if Moodle could even work for me, would be to set up and instance  at on my shared hosting service. 

But then (one frustrating evening later) I discovered that the developers had fairly recently made Moodle no longer compatible with shared hosts (it used to run on shared hosts as I understand it) , leaving my only options as either an expensive dedicated server if self managing, or an expensive paid service, if delegating the management.

Hence my comment that, despite being open source, Moodle looks to have been effectively engineered so as to be out of reach for people without big budgets.



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In reply to Paul King

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
'I discovered that the developers had fairly recently made Moodle no longer compatible with shared hosts '
That seems unlikely, what are you referring to? Having said that the traditional benefit of shared hosting was low cost, and I now have a VPS (through Digital Ocean) for $US12 a month, which seems modest, plus it would be easy to add additional capacity at a modest cost. 
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Paul King -

Hi my comment there refers to the installation process for Moodle 3.9 on a shared host - installation halts due to requirement for 'Barracuda' file system - which apparently most shared hosts do not provide.

I did just discover a workaround:  rather than using the recommended direct installation process, I found that using the Softalicious installer from my host Cpanel , I was able to install v 3.5, and from there upgrade to 3.9, thus bypassing the roadblock. (attempts to install version 3.9 directly are also halted by softalicious)

I was presented with a few warnings en-route during the upgrade, so presume performance won't be great - but my server was at least accepted as meeting minimum requirements  - so this gives me an ability to play around and test Moodle plugins etc.

Thanks for the tip re Digital Ocean.

My current host (Inmotion Hosting) indicated the cheapest option that would give access to barracuda file system would entail cost of around $1500pa.

My current standard shared hosting plan has 5 websites, including the current incarnation of my forum, all working well enough for my purposes, at $3.99/month all up. 

The forum is a voluntary endeavour and generates no income - so even adding $12/month to my hosting bill is more than I would like, especially as my sole purpose in investigating Moodle is to add a single feature (reply by email) to current forum functionality.  Sadly no working plugins to achieve this are available with my current forum software (MyBB)

That said, if shelling out the extra and going down the Digital Ocean Route, it looks like I could set up Discourse there, which might be a better option for my use case - especially if Moodle does not allow creation of new threads by email.





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In reply to Paul King

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Moodle 3.9 does not exist. Softaculous installs for live systems is not a recommended solution. 

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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Paul King -
Apologoies, Moodle 3.8.

Yes softalicious is not a recommended solution. However it is the ONLY solution I have so far found that actually works for installing to shared host, because as noted, the recommended method no longer works.
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In reply to Paul King

Re: A suitable hosting provider for me? Moodle 3.8 for 600 users

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

You miss a lot!

You seem to miss the whole foundation, way before Moodle become a topic.. So, they are outside Moodle, off-topic here, AFAIAC. I just jot down a few lines so that you have an idea what I mean. I am not inclined to continue though, I'm sorry!

- Software and service are two different things: Moodle as found on https://download.moodle.org/ is software. It is free - free as in Freedom and free as a free lunch. The Freedom here means the four freedoms given by the GPL, https://docs.moodle.org/dev/License. Free lunch is obvious, you can serve yourself without paying. In contrast a service is not free. You have to find a way to run them. (Analogy: A free lunch which you can help yourself opposed to a free served lunch.) You are mixing up the two. MoodleCloud is a service!

- MoodleCloud is not the only service. There are thousands of other possibilities. Moodle developers do not hinder in any way. With MoodleCloud they compete in an open market. Well, there are more subtle points like the feedback from the user base goes back to improving the product, and thanks to their deep knowledge of the product, they can react faster, etc.

- When I said "see yourself" in my first post, I meant it literally. Not to march there with your 600 users! May be I should have said "evaluate", how exactly to evaluate a new forum software you should know, you are running one already.

- I am a technical person, not a (personal) manager. In my judgementt, I don't see in the running topics anything too difficult for the average adult to understand. Given some patience - your Moodle-journey is barely two days, even that without an own Moodle instance - you might be able to put is to use. Or not. May be you'll find something more suitable. In any case I am out of the loop.
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