FlaskBB

Flask BB! You may think that forums are as dead as fucking bulletin board systems (BBSes). If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I rest my case. But your adult site could indeed benefit from a forum. Whether you need a forum to spur community growth, as a place for questions to be asked and answered, or something else altogether, consider an open-source solution like FlaskBB.

FlaskBB prides itself on simplicity. It understands that there is no need in hell to reinvent, well, anything when it comes to the forum software. A forum should be functional, simple, and never need an explanation on how to use it. So go forth! Take a look and explore the simplicity of FlaskBB and see how it can fit into your adult brand!

Open-source

Let’s get one thing out of the way here. When you choose FlaskBB, you are not getting bloated forum software. Nor are you getting software that was created by some giant corporation that is only going to release updates, well, never. It wouldn’t be in their best interest, so they’re not going to put in the effort; you know how these things go.

FlaskBB does not play by those rules. This software started as a labor of love, and it’s continuing that same tradition every day. That is why FlaskBB is 100% open-source. It began that way, and it’s going to continue to be open-source for what seems forever. Those who have no idea what open-source means or why it even matters; consider the fact that anyone can improve FlaskBB’s source code.

That’s the beauty of open-source software. It’s a joint effort, and anyone can make it better, including the team behind FlaskBB. If you know a thing or two about programming and want to improve the software yourself, FlaskBB invites you to do so. You can download the source code directly from GitHub. But if this sounds like I’m speaking another language, don’t worry about it. There are plenty of other professionals out there that will improve the forum software without your help.

You will see that there are over 30 contributors to the project. The latest update was released less than three months ago. And judging by some of the folders in here, the project has been in development for the better part of a decade. Considering that updates are regularly being added to the forum software, it is evident that the community is dedicated to making the forum software perform at its best.

As I was looking around at the GitHub page, I noticed that the forum software was actively in development. Version 3.0 of FlaskBB was in development, and services were being polished for 2.1. I also saw several issues that had been opened as developers continued to work on the software. There were also pull requests that had been opened as earlier as the day before this review. Again, it showed me that FlaskBB is absolutely in the middle of development and has never slowed down once.

Super simple forum

One of the things that jumped out to me was the simplicity of the forum. If you want to see the forum in action, all you have to do is click on the community tab at the top of the page. There, you will see the entire community forum as running on FlaskBB itself. It’s kind of like an ‘Inception’ type of thing. The forum is designed to show off what FlaskBB is made of while giving users the information they need to discuss all things FlaskBB.

There is not a lot of topics or discussions. Then again, the forum here is more of a proof of concept than anything else. But when you explore the forum and notice how everything works together and the simplicity behind it, it will make you become a believer that this is a forum that you could easily implement onto your adult site.

If you are hoping to build an entire social media platform around FlaskBB, it will not happen. FlaskBB’s strengths lie in how minimalist and straightforward the forum software actually is. You won’t get a flashy UI here or a method to managing more social media-centric features, as you may find on newer community hubs. Instead, the focus on FlaskBB is communication on the forum you are adding to your site and nothing else.

As I was looking around the forum, it looked like every fucking forum I saw decades ago. But again, that’s the appeal of it all. It’s a no-nonsense forum, and you will immediately know how to use it. And so will your visitors. FlaskBB is clean and straightforward. I noticed that the text was big enough, the avatars were large, and it was simple to see the names, roles, posts, and join dates of every member.

Following along on the forum is easy as well. The forum was split up into a few parts, with each part having multiple threads that I could look through. The main index of the forum also showed the last post of each section. This makes it possible to see which sections of the forum are the most active. It was also possible to see how many topics and posts were in each section of the forum.

If you have used a forum before – I mean, literally at all – then you know how to use FlaskBB. When so many forum software developers are vying to make the next generation of forum software become a reality, an open-source solution like FlaskBB says, ‘to hell with that,’ and instead focuses on making their software as easy and simple to use as possible. There is something to be said about the usefulness of that strategy. After all, if the problem does not need to be fixed, why even bother?

Easy to add plugins

Another thing worth mentioning is that it is quite simple to add plugins to FlaskBB. Unfortunately, there is no mention of what those plugins are! There are no examples of plugins implemented in popular forums running FlaskBB or anything of the sort.

There isn’t even a section for plugins at all. You can’t browse the most widely supported plugins for FlaskBB, either. It’s a bizarre move for forum software that prides itself on having such a great plugin system. FlaskBB needs to show off the plugins that it can implement into the forum software to understand better how plugins work on the software altogether.

But even though FlaskBB does not mention anything regarding the plugins you can add to the software, they at least detail that FlaskBB uses a plugin system convenient as hell. The site states that users can add plugins without knowing any code whatsoever. All they have to do is place the plugin into the plugin directory via drag-and-drop. From there, they can activate the plugin via the main management panel of the software.

Thus, it’s nice to know that while there are plugins supported and that it is easy to add them without knowing code, just what are they? To find out, you are going to have to seek out this information yourself. Or you can e-mail the developer directly. Still, FlaskBB needs to detail which plugins are supported to give interested users a chance to figure out how they can tweak and make FlaskBB uniquely their own.

Simple to create premium sections

A feature that is hiding in the proverbial shadows on FlaskBB is one of its most powerful. FlaskBB allows users to create what are called ‘group-based permissions.’ That may not sound like anything substantial until you consider how to implement it into your forum. Adding certain ‘permissions’ to sections and threads on the forum allows you to create premium sections for your adult forum.

If you have a premium membership plan for your site, FlaskBB can make the process of adding this to your site extremely easy. By choosing which ‘permissions’ certain members of your forum can have, you effectively hide threads and sections altogether from non-premium members. It’s a simple solution to adding yet another element to your brand’s forum.

Maybe FlaskBB will make sense for your adult brand’s forums, or perhaps it won’t. Either way, it does not hurt to check out. If you want to add a forum to your adult site or want to revitalize it and make it simpler than ever, FlaskBB is what you are looking for!

Suggestions

FlaskBB makes the process of adding a simple-to-use forum to your adult site easier than ever. Unfortunately, it can be a bit difficult to figure out how to add this for absolute beginners. It helps to have experience with a Linux distro and the programming language Python, but it is not necessary. There are plenty of guides and resources out there to make adding the forum straightforward, though there may be a learning curve.