Extensions of Discuss

Prosperous

Have you ever wondered what extensions we use here on the official Flarum Community? Wanted to have your Flarum instance set up to be as close as possible to ours? Look no further!

I am posting this discussion to outline the extensions we use, why we use them and their benefits to us as staff members in providing the best community we can for all current and future Flarumites!

What extensions do we use?

FoF Ban IPs - Ban IP addresses from your forum.
In our fight to prevent the spread of spam and mitigate bogus users joining the forum. We use this nifty extension to ban entire IP addresses from registering to Discuss should the need arise.
FoF Byōbu - Well integrated, advanced private discussions.
Not all forums can function without a private messaging system. The staff use this regularly to not only correspond between each other, but also to other members of the community.
FoF Disposable Emails - Prevent users from signing up with disposable emails.
Basically a preventative measure to stop users registering to Discuss with disposable email addresses.
FoF Follow Tags - Follow tags and be notified of new discussions and replies.
Fairly self-explanatory. The prime reason we use this extension is to provide the ability to follow specific tags, for example, the blog tag. This replaces the need for newsletters or other subscription-based services.
FoF Formatting - Customise TextFormatter with plugins through the admin interface.
What's a forum without pictures and links? This extension is used to allow you to correctly customise your posts with content and media.
FoF GeoIP - Geolocation for your Flarum forum.
Using your IP, this extension grants the ability to identify your geographical location. We use GeoIP to prevent blocking IPs from Cloudflare or other services that would impact not just the spammer.
FoF Links - Manage Flarums primary navbar menu links.
An extension used to customise navigation bar/menu links.
FoF Merge Discussions - Merge two or more discussions into one.
Definitely a useful tool especially for the moderators taking care of Discuss. This extension is used to merge discussions not only to keep things relevant, but to allow better organisation. No one likes seeing numerous discussions on the same subject now, do they?
FoF Open Collective - Open Collective integration for your Flarum forum.
We are a team completely consisting of volunteers, no one gets paid for their efforts working here at Flarum. Open Collective is a way you can support Flarum and its development. By contributing, you're helping us pay for our hosting and server infrastructure costs, as well as dedicated development time so we can keep making Flarum better. This extension automatically grants the Backer role to anyone backing us Open Collective and known to us with the same email address.
FoF Sentry - Flarum integration for Sentry.
Our nifty error-reporting tool with thanks to Sentry. With the Sentry extension we are made aware of errors on both our backend and frontend whenever they happen, with immediate reporting. We set Sentry up to report to Discord using webhook functionality, making us actionable on the spot. Sentry has been so great to sponsor our plan as well!
FoF Spamblock - Mark user as spammer, suspending them and hiding their posts and discussions.
Another one to take care of those nasty individuals that just want to spoil Discuss. We use this extension to mark a user as spammer, and in turn automatically suspends them hiding their posts and discussions from view. Especially useful for spambots and advertisers.
FoF Split - Separate posts from one discussion into its own, splits discussions.
Not only can we merge a discussion or post, but so to can we split them! You are likely to see this extension in action when a discussion goes way off topic or a staff member deems it necessary to create a completely new discussion.
FoF Stop Forum Spam - Stop forum spam.
Unfortunately spam is inevitable on any forum, but using this extension we are able to mitigate as much of it as possible using Stop Forum Spam's free database.
FoF User Bio - Add the user bio back into Flarum.
beta.8 saw the removal of the user bio from Flarum core, and in turn, this extension was released to bring it back.
FoF Username Request - Allow users to request new usernames.
Have you ever grown out of your username? May be you spelled it incorrectly? This extension gives us the ability to process any requested username changes. Please ensure you follow our Guidelines and use your common sense before submitting a request.
GitHub Autolink - Autolink GitHub issues and commits.
Definitely an important extension for our staff team as this allows for automated linking of GitHub issues and commits in posts.
Bokt Redis - Adds Redis cache and queue to Flarum.
An advanced extension we use for caching and queueing. We actually use Bokt Redis for queues only at this point. Using the Redis queue, wecan move long-running processes (like sending emails to subscribed users) outside of the user interaction of Discuss.
Askvortsov Discussion Templates - Create per-tag templates for new discussions.
Provides a consistent template for starting new discussions, like in our Support tag. This helps cut down on the amount of back-and-forth needed for information before diagnosing a support issue can begin.
Askvortsov Moderator Warnings - This allows moderators to warn users.
Moderators have often had to warn users by a public post or private discussion (see: FOF Byobu) in the past. This allows for a warning to occur seamlessly on the post itself, to help keep disciplinary messaging from spilling into public discussions.
FOF Best Answer - Mark a post as the best answer in a discussion.
This allows the authors of discussions (in our Support and Dev tags right now) to select the post that has provided the best answer to their question or problem, to make it clear for anyone reading it later.
FOF Prevent Necrobumping - Warn before necrobumping old discussions.
On very old discussions that might not be current anymore, we can display a warning to anyone coming later to respond to it and make sure they understand what the proper convention is. Sometimes we don't always read the dates when finding a discussion of a problem we have, and that's forgiveable. This extension just helps to be a helpful reminder.

As you can see, we are HUGE fans of extensions by Friends of Flarum, despite a lot of us being a part of the team itself. You can check out the project any time on GitHub by clicking here.

We obviously use the following core extensions as well...

Akismet - Stop spam using the Akismet anti-spam service.
Approval - Make discussions and posts require moderator approval.
BBCode - Allow posts to be formatted with BBCode.
Emoji - Convert text and unicode emoji into Twemoji.
English - English language pack.
Facebook Login - Allow users to log in with Facebook.
Flags - Allow users to flag posts for moderator review.
GitHub Login - Allow users to log in with GitHub.
Likes - Allow users to like posts.
Lock - End a discussion and don't let anyone add further replies.
Markdown - Allows posts to be formated with Markdown.
Mentions - Mention and reply to specific posts and users.
Pusher - See new discussions and posts in real-time using Pusher.
Statistics - Add a basic statistics widget on the Dashboard.
Sticky - Pin discussions to the top of the list.
Subscriptions - Allows users to follow discussions and receive notifications for new posts.
Suspend - Suspend users so they can't post.
Tags - Organise discussions into a hierarchy of tags and categories.
Twitter Login - Allow users to log in with Twitter.

So there you have it! The entire list of extensions currently used by us at Discuss! Please feel free to use this discussion to comment on what extensions we use, but do not use it as a means to request new ones be added or created.

Until next time.

hrvoje_hr

Great blog post, it always interested me what extensions do you use here.

Did you guys ever consider to give permission to use Byobu to us, regular users, as well?

tankerkiller125

hrvoje_hr I think that would kind of be an added moderation complexity, plus I think for the most part the discuss page is supposed to be "Vanilla" for end users, most of the things listed are moderation tools (other than formatting and following tags) Byobu adds an additional field when making a post which a brand new user may find confusing. If staff contact you through PM you can respond, but I think until a separate PM service (like really separate from discussions) is implemented it's probably safer to keep discuss the way it is for new users use.

jordanjay29

hrvoje_hr We did. However, we're a bit stuck on that because Byobu does not have a good system (yet?) for flagging PDs for moderator/admin intervention. That's something we feel is important for the community to have, assurance from the site staff that they can be kept safe in their personal discussions as well as in public in our community. There was an recent PR to add this feature, it seemed like it needed more work but that hasn't come to fruition yet. Hopefully that will change in the near future so we can open Byobu up to the whole community.

hrvoje_hr

jordanjay29 There was an recent PR to add this feature,

I didn't know for this. This is huge. This is basically all I was asking in Byobu discussion. And a lot more.

BlueWhaleYT

Why some of the extension I cannot find them? Especially FoF Disposable Email,Akismet these. thanks

tankerkiller125

BlueWhaleYT They are not installed by default (though I thought Akismet was) you will need to go into their discussions (linked in the original post) and follow the install instructions provided by the extension author. You may also need to clear the flarum cache php flarum cache:clear

BlueWhaleYT

tankerkiller125 Thanks for reply,but I am using FreeFlarm to host.

tankerkiller125

BlueWhaleYT FreeFlarum is not officially associated with the Flarum project or Flarum Foundation, it is run by a community member. It would be best to ask this question in the FreeFlarum discussion

therealsujitk

How does Flarum have such good search results on Google? I always thought is was the Flarum SEO extension or something.

tankerkiller125

therealsujitk Flarum discuss has been around for a long time and to google it probably is considered a source of authority when it comes to Flarum search results (since it's the main website for the official project), there are a lot more things that go into SEO than simply having the right tags. In fact even if you have no SEO at all you can theoretically rank well in Google so long as your content is well made and you have large a number of active visitors.

Googles search engine (and likely most of them now) are using Machine Learning that is trained using massive amounts of data and has a ton of specific goals with each goal having a certain priority, although we will never know exactly what those goals are one of them fore sure is related to how often a link gets clicked without the user immediately returning back to google looking for a new search result. With Flarum discuss being the go to place for everything Flarum anything searched on google related to Flarum is going to end up returning results from this site.

SEO can be critical for a site just getting off the ground, but for a well established site or a site with a certain amount of authority on a particular subject SEO can be the least important factor to getting good rankings.

Fusta

hi @Prosperous !!

the extension Drafts by FriendsOfFlarum was missing in the list

luceos

Fusta here are all of the extensions on discuss (installed maybe not all enabled):

        "flarum/core": "^1.6.2",
        "flarum/akismet": "dev-main",
        "flarum/approval": "dev-main",
        "flarum/bbcode": "dev-main",
        "flarum/emoji": "dev-main",
        "flarum/lang-english": "dev-main",
        "flarum/flags": "dev-main",
        "flarum/likes": "dev-main",
        "flarum/lock": "dev-main",
        "flarum/markdown": "dev-main",
        "flarum/mentions": "dev-main",
        "flarum/sticky": "dev-main",
        "flarum/subscriptions": "dev-main",
        "flarum/suspend": "dev-main",
        "flarum/tags": "dev-main",
        "flarum/statistics": "dev-main",
        "fof/formatting": "*",
        "fof/links": "*",
        "fof/user-bio": "*",
        "fof/spamblock": "*",
        "fof/merge-discussions": "*",
        "fof/oauth": "*",
        "fof/disposable-emails": "*",
        "fof/split": "*",
        "fof/byobu": "*",
        "fof/follow-tags": "*",
        "fof/stopforumspam": "*",
        "fof/username-request": "*",
        "fof/nightmode": "*",
        "fof/geoip": "*",
        "fof/github-autolink": "*",
        "fof/best-answer": "*",
        "fof/drafts": "*",
        "fof/prevent-necrobumping": "*",
        "fof/sentry": "*",
        "blomstra/flarum-redis": "^0.4@beta",
        "blomstra/cache-assets": "*",
        "askvortsov/flarum-moderator-warnings": "*",
        "askvortsov/flarum-discussion-templates": "*",
        "kilowhat/flarum-ext-audit-pro": "*",
        "blomstra/realtime": "^0.2.8-beta.12",
        "intervention/image": "2.5.*",
        "fof/gamification": "*",
        "luceos/flarum-ext-dofollow": "^1.0",
        "fof/ignore-users": "*",
        "blomstra/payments": "^0.5.1",
        "blomstra/fontawesome": "*",
        "blomstra/spam-prevention": "^1.1"

Never mind php flarum info works better:

+---------------------------------+----------+--------+
| Flarum Extensions               |          |        |
+---------------------------------+----------+--------+
| ID                              | Version  | Commit |
+---------------------------------+----------+--------+
| flarum-flags                    | dev-main |        |
| flarum-suspend                  | dev-main |        |
| flarum-approval                 | dev-main |        |
| flarum-tags                     | dev-main |        |
| flarum-subscriptions            | dev-main |        |
| fof-username-request            | 1.1.0    |        |
| fof-user-bio                    | 1.1.1    |        |
| fof-split                       | 1.1.0    |        |
| flarum-sticky                   | dev-main |        |
| flarum-lock                     | dev-main |        |
| fof-spamblock                   | 1.1.0    |        |
| fof-byobu                       | 1.1.8    |        |
| fof-follow-tags                 | 1.1.7    |        |
| luceos-dofollow                 | v1.0     |        |
| kilowhat-audit-pro              | 1.6.0    |        |
| fof-stopforumspam               | 1.2.3    |        |
| fof-sentry                      | 1.2.0    |        |
| fof-prevent-necrobumping        | 1.1.0    |        |
| fof-oauth                       | 1.3.0    |        |
| fof-nightmode                   | 1.5.1    |        |
| fof-merge-discussions           | 1.3.1    |        |
| fof-links                       | 1.1.2    |        |
| fof-ignore-users                | 1.1.0    |        |
| fof-github-autolink             | 1.0.0    |        |
| fof-geoip                       | 1.1.0    |        |
| fof-gamification                | 1.6.2    |        |
| fof-formatting                  | 1.0.2    |        |
| fof-drafts                      | 1.2.2    |        |
| fof-disposable-emails           | 1.0.0    |        |
| fof-best-answer                 | 1.2.4    |        |
| flarum-statistics               | dev-main |        |
| flarum-mentions                 | dev-main |        |
| flarum-markdown                 | dev-main |        |
| flarum-likes                    | dev-main |        |
| flarum-lang-english             | dev-main |        |
| flarum-emoji                    | dev-main |        |
| flarum-bbcode                   | dev-main |        |
| blomstra-spam-prevention        | 1.3      |        |
| blomstra-realtime               | 0.2.17   |        |
| blomstra-payments               | 0.5.10   |        |
| blomstra-fontawesome            | 0.1.5    |        |
| blomstra-cache-assets           | 0.5      |        |
| askvortsov-moderator-warnings   | v0.6.1   |        |
| askvortsov-discussion-templates | v0.8.3   |        |
+---------------------------------+----------+--------+