I think phpBB3 would probably be a lot nicer & easier to work with... I'm a member on a few phpBB3 forums and an admin on one, and I can assure you it's nicer than this from everyone's point of view.
Admins get complete control over everything on the board, and mods actually have powers (i.e. post editing, post deleting, etc.) without needing to heavily customize the installation... and oh yes, I forgot to mention the fine-grained permissions: permissions can be fine-grained right down to allowing one user, say, to put images in their posts while denying that to another user.
I'm pretty sure phpBB3 installation is simple, too... I haven't actually installed phpBB3 on a machine before, but I've heard good things about ease-of-installation.
On the normal (i.e. non-admin) user's side of things, there are a lot more smilies, special effects, etc.; quoting others is a lot more intuitive; and the (frequently crazy) comment nesting isn't there. Plus, users get private messageboxes - no more publicly posting e-mail addresses - and "View your posts" sections, which makes finding topics you've posted in actually possible!
Please? Pretty please? 
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why? then we have to disable these forums, setup phpBB, start using that. No thanks. I like drupal by the way. Plus, when you go to http:\\portableapps.com\tracker you can see something called "My recent Posts"
Cheers
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Thanks for the tracker link, nice to actually see what I've posted...
phpBB3, in my (admittedly limited) experience, has a lot more power than Drupal, and it's easier to use... as I mentioned, that would make life a lot easier for John, the mods, and the users. Just MHO, take it or leave it...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
By easier, do you mean it imports Drupal nodes, can magically ban all the spammers, AND make web pages, AND has indented replies?
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
By easier, I mean
* he won't have to manually edit the config files to give mods special powers - he can actually use a GUI for it
* he'll be able to have an incredible amount of control over permissions - phpBB3 gives admins very fine-grained control, and a lot of it
* he can almost-magically auto-ban almost all spammers - by adding a few simple registration questions, I was able to get rid of some darn persistent bots on a phpBB3 forum I admin
As for making web pages, like the release pages... no, I don't think phpBB3 can do that. However, phpBB3 can use its own tags, like [i]this is italic text[/i] instead of this is italic text
phpBB3 doesn't have indented replies, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing - the indenting can get pretty confusing, especially with longer threads. (I've never seen a phpBB3 thread called "Threading 101", have you? :P)
With regards to importing the Drupal nodes, this looks fairly promising... http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=489446
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Since when did he have to do that?
But then there's also the problem of integration. Running 2 sites is pretty hard.
I'll have to agree with that. John: add more reCAPTCHAs!
That's only because almost all forums are BB3 and we aren't. I find that blockquotes are sometimes even worse (but in this case, we don't have Google wave's splitting replies).
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
With regards to the config files, I could have sworn I saw a thread where John said he was working on getting the mods actual privs... I can't seem to find that thread now, but I know it's there. I'm pretty sure ( >75% sure) that he mentioned having to edit the Drupal files... or perhaps it was upgrading Drupal? Wish I could find that thread...
reCAPTCHAs aren't what I'm thinking of; I'm thinking of profile questions that humans can answer but spambots can't. Classic one: Are you a spambot? Enter YES or NO.
Bots choke on it, humans handle it neatly.
And while blockquotes might be worse than the indenting, blockquotes are hard to do here too... I just tried to quote your reply, but quoting your reply that quoted me was too much. At least phpBB3 lets you nest quotes without needing a degree in rocket science... lol jk
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
reCAPTCHAs aren't what I'm thinking of; I'm thinking of profile questions that humans can answer but spambots can't. Classic one: Are you a spambot? Enter YES or NO.
Bots choke on it, humans handle it neatly.
This is NOT true. i have seen bots bypass this security so often that you just saying makes me laugh. Bots can be modified to bypass nearly any and every security measure out there. i have seen bots bypass reCAPTCHAS.
This is NOT true. i have seen bots bypass this security so often that you just saying makes me laugh. Bots can be modified to bypass nearly any and every security measure out there. i have seen bots bypass reCAPTCHAS.
lol PAY back https://portableapps.com/node/21693#comment-135268
"woot now you cant delete one ahahaha."
hehe
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
I didnt double post
I don't think putting quotes in one of the double posts makes the double post not a double post
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
huh?
What the??? i edited the original post! this is odd.
Well, two questions like that froze, and I mean froze, bots on a board I admin. Before I added the questions, they were coming in at about 1 a day; since I added the questions (about 2-3 months ago), we've had 0. Can't argue with stats...
Sure, bots could bypass the security - but it takes extra time & trouble to do it. And the botmasters, IMHO, are going to hit the pitifully easy targets first.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
on a board i moderate it did nothing.
another thing, John said several times that he hates phpBB, as much as I would love to see the forum's with phpBB, it just wont happen
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
I agree with John, I find the phpBB forums to be too much for some simple forums. I think people should not need to know when someone is online, there is no need for forums to support private messages, phpBB's skinning template is a mess and I do like more of threaded replies instead of phpBB's system that forces users to make 30 000 blockquotes in each page.
Blue is everything.
Too bad... well, it's John's forum and I'll abide by whatever he says.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I like the idea of having a private message box. is there any thing like that for Drupal?
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
yes, but we don't have it...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
we need that
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
we had it, but it caused issues with the server, or spam trouble or something like that.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Drupal is probably the weakest forum platform out there that's publicly available. It's like in most video games how you start with the weakest weapon (shooters) or slowest car (racers)... Drupal is like the entry-level forum platform. I did not even know it existed until I came here. NaNoWriMo.org uses it as well, but they haven't got a tracker, but they do have private messaging. They also have a feature where you can hide the boards you don't like. Anyway, I used to think Infopop/Eve/Groupee/whatever it is now was the weakest (what Snopes has). Actually GameFAQs has the lowest of low tech that I've used, but that's a proprietary platform, they don't distribute that platform's software.
That said, Drupal is not bad. It is open source (but then, so is phpBB) and it works. The draw, as I understand it, is that Drupal is a true CMS (Content management system). It does the forums and it does the release pages. When I say things like "it's the weakest" or "it's the lowest of the low", I'm not being ugly -- some people want simple. Look at Invision Power Board, the cream of the crop. Integrated blog, integrated photo gallery, integrated chat room, social networking features such as friends, status updates, and all that junk... do we really want all that? Invision is great if you have thousands or more active members and you need all that firepower. (And you talk about things the company likes, version 2.xx had a backdoor they could use to shut your board down if they didn't like you.)
I like phpBB. I don't use it, but it's free, it's open source, and it supports the BB Code standards (not sure whose standards they are, but they seem to be the same on just about every Invision, vBulletin, and phpBB installation I've seen. Drupal (and GameFAQs' proprietary software) use limited HTML markup. If I ever had a site that attracted visitors, I'd go with phpBB and use something else to make the rest of the pages.
How I'd do it (for here) if it were to be done at all:
1. Trash the forum. Nobody uses the search forum anyway. Back up important posts to plain text.
2. Replace the forum with phpBB. Rebuild the forum and replace the stickies and whatnot.
3. Get a blog that works well with phpBB (logged into one, you're logged into the other, and accounts are tied) and use it to post releases.
But, that's a lot of work and Drupal isn't that bad.
I would just suggest changing the topic display from nested to in-line. The nests are confusing and largely unnecessary. And super-narrow posts are an inefficient use of space.
We do not need private messaging, and if we did go to phpBB, I would be all for it getting disabled. This isn't a social board. Not really anyway.
I like your thoughts... there's just a few things I'd like to point out/differ with you.
First, if we were replacing Drupal /w/ phpBB3, we wouldn't need to scrap the existing posts - there's a converter out there. (I posted a link earlier in the thread)
Second, private messaging. You might not like private messaging, but I hold the opposite viewpoint: it's essential. PM may be primarily used for socializing, but I've seen it used (and used it) for so much more: to give someone my e-mail address without giving to half the world, to discuss a difficult issue that couldn't be discussed in public, as a quick and non-embarrassing reminder that "hey, I need this done but you didn't do it yet"... I've even used it to help dissect a piece of malware.
IMHO, the PA.c Drupal board has 4 major weaknesses.
#1: Post nesting. Makes intelligent thread reading nearly impossible, since eventually the nesting gets deep enough that it's difficult/impossible to see who was replying to who. (Plus, finding new posts can be nearly impossible too - what happens when that new post is nested deep in the first page of a 6-page thread? Good luck finding it...)
#2: No PM's. I already explained this one above...
#3: No obvious way to access a user's recent posts. phpBB3 has a "My recent posts" option; we could really use one. (Heck, I've been a member here for several months and only recently learned about portableapps.com/tracker)
#4: Quoting is a pain in the backside. I mean, phpBB3 lets you quote somebody with one tag - [quote="PersonImQuoting"]This is quoted text[/quote]
but we need two tags nested just so, and good luck trying to nest quotes.
Drupal is really underpowered, but fixing/adding those 4 things would make it a lot easier to forget that...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I disagree with your opinion, and I will explain why:
#1: Post nesting is a(n optional) feature of Drupal. And although it may become hard to see who was someone replying to, if you read it from top to bottom you can always keep a logical path (Original post, comment#1, reply#1 to comment#1, reply#2 to comment#1, reply#1 to reply#2 of comment#1, comment#2, reply#1 to comment #2) instead of an history path (Original post, comment #1, comment #2, reply#1 to comment#1, reply#2 to comment#1, reply#1 to comment#2, reply#1 to reply#2 of comment#1). And if you press "new" on the posts listing page, you are automatically taken to the first un-seen comment. (Of course, if you are the forum owner, you can disable it)
#2: Yes, the lack of PMs is a weakness, but it is totally unnecessary in here. We want support threads to be available to everybody so that everybody can read them, and by not using PMs, everybody can see your messages and help you solve them (and most developers can manage to hide their email somehow if they don't want it public).
#3: Go to the user's page and press the tab "Track". Here is yours, for example.
#4: First, with nested threading, quoting becomes almost useless. Nonetheless, people thought that nesting wasn't enough and asked John to give some quoting system. John and the developers considered if they should implement some module to give BBcode like tags, and considered it was a bad idea for several reasons:
And the developers are willing to implement some button to automatically create blockquotes if someone makes it or there is one (I think, I don't remember very well, so don't cite me).
And nested quotes are easy, to make this:
I just need to type this:
It may not be as easy as in bbcode, but it is not rocket science.
So... 2 fixed, 2 to go!
Blue is everything.
Quoting is only a necessity when somebody makes an insanely long post. But I don't think that quoting is the best solution for that. IMO, the best solution would be to implement paragraph id-ing, so that it's easy to link to a specific paragraph within somebody's post (then have some script to let you jump back to where you were).
And as to the tags...there's only one solution that pwns all! WYSIWYG!!!
I'm going back to Twitter...
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
#1: For a lot of threads (say, the PA.c beta discussion or the status update), who has the time or desire to re-re-re-read an entire thread for the dozenth time just to get a logical idea of who was replying to who?
Because the new replies go underneath old ones, it's frequently necessary to backtrack several posts in order to see who was being replied to; add in replies where the comment is on page 1 and the reply is on page 2 (as happened to me very recently), and you've really got a bad-looking stew.
#2: PM's may be unnecessary most of the time, but, as I said, they're frequently a very useful tool... for example, instead of going through a 10-post Q&A session to track down a bug, a dev could take the discussion to PM and get far more information about the bug than any "normal" reader would ever want to see. Not essential, sure, but still a useful tool... just like having e-mail isn't essential (snail mail still works just fine), but is still a good & potent tool if used correctly.
#3: Oh, nice! Thanks!
That's even simpler than what I had been doing - going to portableapps.com/tracker. Still, a "My recent posts" link would be nice... mostly eye candy but still mildly useful.
#4: I beg to differ with you. Many posts aren't wildly long but still need point-by-point replies (heck, even in this thread, quoting would be good - answering on a point-by-point basis becomes possible).
Thanks for the nested-quotes example; it's somewhat complex, but still mostly legwork w/o brainwork.
Once again, not essential but nice to have... (and add up all the "little things" and they're really not so little in the long run!)
Just my 2c...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
2c or 2¢? To make the cents sign, with NumLock on, hold ALT and mash 0162. If you're not using a UK keyboard and Shift+2 = @ and you want the Pounds Sterling sign (£) that is ALT+0163.
That being said...
To PM or not to PM
Drupal does have private messages, but John just didn't install the module, or enable the feature. Didn't enable the feature would be the correct vernacular for most boards, but Drupal is based on modules, and I suspect private messaging is a module to be added.
The biggest problem with a PM system is that it becomes an area of the board that is unmoderated by the board staff. All PMs on any board are readable by the admin or anyone with access to the SQL database, but there's not always a GUI for it in the Admin Control Panel or whatever the board may offer.
Infopop/Eve might have the right idea, instead, with private topics. Private topics exist on a ghost board visible only to staff, and each topic can only be seen and replied to by the person who creates it and people they invite when the topic is created. Invited members can leave and surrender their access to the topic, and the topic creator can delete the whole thing, but it's important to note that staff can read all of them (I believe the private topics show up as a forum for them) so the same level of control is maintained as the other areas. I always liked the Private Topic system, but Infopop is the only one I know of that does it. (This is the software Snopes and Ars Technica use for their forum.)
I do *like* private messaging, but it really has no place here. Email addresses are not some secret thing. If you have a Gmail account, you don't worry about spam. If you don't, you can get one. And if you use clever tricks, e.g. say "my DOT name AT gmail DOT com, usually spam bots can't get your email address anyway. (Or, on forums that support images, you type your email address in plain text, take a screenshot of it, and post it as an image.)
Quotes/nesting
...isn't that hard. I use the Firefox extension BBCode, and I'd use it anyway as opposed to typing BBCode on phpBB and other forums. I'm just that lazy. Yep. I've configured its "custom tags" for Drupal; I have my em and strong tags at the ready, and also a nice little quote tag. It is tricky to use, but very effective. Here's the code for anyone who wants it:
{blockquote}{cite}_value_{/cite}_clipboard_{/blockquote}
Until the code tag gets fixed (if it was ever meant to break html) sub for }...
What I do is, type the person's name where I want their quote, in the post editor. Then, I copy what text of theirs I wanted to the clipboard, highlight their username, right click, BBCode, Custom Tags, PA.c Quote, and it does it all up for me. It could be a little easier, but not by much. And I could do it backwards, except you can't copy peoples' names here (it'll copy the link to their account page).
Nesting is pretty much fail, but I said that already.
But I don't always quote; as I've done with this post is break it down into sections. So I'm not replying to anyone in particular, but dividing my post by subject and replying to each subject as a whole. Makes a little more sense to me.
2¢
Thanks for that key combo! I'm used to using the Alt+whatever, since I use it for Spanish symbols, but didn't know the ¢ code.
PM
I like your idea of "ghost topics"... the value of PM's is the ability to hold a conversation without revealing sensitive info or bothering anybody, and ghost topics sure meet those requirements... (although, for super-sensitive info, something like Hushmail could be a better choice...)
Quotes
I like your "breakdown" method, too. Mind if I steal that from you?
As for the BBCode addon... I use & love Fx, but I already have way too many addons... and a couple of addon conflicts to boot. Don't feel like collecting one more addon, so I'll just use your breakdown method or manually type the blockquote & cite tags. Not much work, just kind of a pain in the backside... lol
Cheers!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Sure, "steal" away.
I'm curious what addons are more crucial to a Fx setup than BBCode though. I have... lemme see... 10 extensions, all essential. Well, I could get rid of Greasemonkey and Greasefire and not be missing much. BBCode for here, of course Adblock Plus is a necessity, TwitterBar is just convenient (could get rid of it if need be), AnyColor (also includes Personas) is nice but will be dropped when I go to 3.6/3.7... then there are a couple of convenience things like Tab Mix Plus and one that clears my search bar and sometimes resets it to Google. And QuickProxy, need it for work.
I know there are thousands out there, but none really crucial.
Thanks for the "steal" permission!
(Although you wrecked it, now it's not stealing anymore... lol :P)
I actually need to rebuild my FF Portable from scratch, as I've probably screwed up a lot of stuff... anyway, here are my 31 addons.
AdBlock Plus
AdBlock Plus, Element Hiding Helper
Add to Search Bar
BetterPrivacy
Brief
ChatZilla
Chrome List
ColorZilla
Console2
CS Lite
Download Statusbar
DownThemAll!
ErrorZilla Mod
FireFTP
FireShot
JSView
NoScript
Open in Browser
PDF Download
ProCon Latte
Read it Later
RefControl
Restart Firefox
ScrapBook
SearchLoad Options
SiteDelta
Stealther
Tab Progress Bar
TabGroups Manager
TabRenamizer
UnMHT
I wouldn't dream of browsing without NoScript, it's probably saved me at least a dozen times already... and ABP takes care of a LOT of ads. I was stuck using IE a few days ago (not my fault, I was stuck using a library computer w/o FF), and went to one of my favorite sites - I couldn't believe all the ads I saw.
TabGroups isn't essential, and it does have some bugs, but it's still nice to be able to subdivide my dozen or more tabs...
I could probably drop Stealther, but I don't want to just yet... (Private Mode isn't actually as private as it sounds, and it disabled the Clear Private Data function, so that's out)
DTA is a huge tool for my 56kbps dialup connection - I'd probably go looney without it.
Tab Progress Bar is really nice for seeing how far multiple pages have loaded without actually needing to switch to the page in question...
I could go on all night, but I'd better stop hijacking my own thread... lol
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
well there is a phpBB/Drupal module kicking around actually, but we would still need to import everything from the old forum to the phpBB forum which again I don't think John wants to do.
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
To reiterate, forum updates are not fun. When I had an Invision board, they upgraded it from 1.3.1 to 2.0.whatever, and I'm thankful for that, apparently it was a big job. I did 1.2 to 1.3 and then 1.3 to 1.3.1 and various 2.0.lesser to 2.0.greater updates. They are not fun, you have to take the whole board offline when you do them, the instructions are real vague (search for this text and add this other text above/below it)... just not something you want to be doing.
The end result is usually worth it, though, especially if the new version has features you want. But if John comes in here and says "phpBB is cool but not worth the hassle", I completely understand why. Been there, done that. Well, I only ever updated a board from one minor version to the next. No major version change, and no platform to platform. A lot of steps called "backup" and "pray" and nobody wants to go through a procedure like that unless they have to.
Yeah, I had a friend with a forum - he upgraded (not even a platform switch, just a normal update) and the whole board went down overnight. He had to totally rebuild it to get it back... so I know what kind of a hassle that can be.
I still think phpBB3 would be great, but I also don't visualize that happening, like, ever...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I have a way to end this:
computerfreaker: I think there would be more motive if you grab the whole website db, install the necessary modules, test it out, see if it works, then send the whole monster back to John. That way he doesn't do any work for it and you get the desired result.
(I have a feeling somebody will point out a lot of flaws...something else to talk about :P).
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
You can't just grab a site's SQL database, take it, and build your own forum around it.
Can you?
Actually GameFAQs and GameSpot use the same database between two completely different forum platforms. The former is version 11 of the original platform CJayC wrote way back in 1995 or something -- and looks it. GameSpot's is more modern, with images, avatars, private messaging, and such, but the site is generally uglier, the signal to noise ratio is much lower. Most of us there just prefer to stick with the original. I don't know how they do it, but if you signed up with one, you can use the other, but with some reduced permissions. Also I think moderators from one are similarly powerless or less effective against members originally from the other, though that might have been worked out.
But that isn't an ordinary setup. GameSpot actually acquired GameFAQs (which was then in turn bought by CBS) so they work together.
Pretty sure you can't just take a site's database. Unless John sends it to him. But that would include everybody's email addresses, and their passwords, the latter encrypted, but still. The folks over at Invision said that nobody had ever broken the encryption used to secure the passwords in the database, which is why forums let you reset your password, but they can't give it to you. They store a hash of your password in plaintext, but you can't get the password from the hash. When you login, it hashes the password you provide and compares the hashes. If they match, you're in. As I understand it anyway.
You're right, I can't get the PA.c database. That would be a HUGE security breach. I'd have immediate access to everyone's e-mail address, the hash of their password, and goodness knows what else. Even if John consents to send me the DB, I'm not going to accept it.
'sides, I don't have a web server to stick this massive DB & Drupal install on... (and come to think of it, even if I do get this super-install up and running, how in goodness' name will I send at least 2 GB of data to John? :P)
And btw, yes, passwords are generally stored as their hashes - when someone enters a password, the two hashes (just-entered and stored) are compared. That's how, AFAIK, the big boys do it and it's also how a few of my apps do it.
I hope you were joking, digitxp...
(EDIT: sorry about all that bold & italic stuff, I forgot to close one of my tags. I looked a bit like jamcomm there for a second...)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Anyone can set up a web server, it's tricky, but once you get it, installing stuff to it is not that tricky. Well, it's tricky, but what it isn't, is hard. It actually defines and epitomizes tricky, but if you keep your wits about you, shouldn't be too big a challenge.
Speaking hypothetically, you should be able to export a database. How it would probably happen, if it were to happen, is you'd get the database backed up on a DVD-ROM in the mail, with the agreement to microwave the disc (3 seconds?) once it's on your web server. So you install Drupal, and get a local copy of the board up and running. Then you install phpBB and port it. Remove Drupal, and get the board running with all the posts intact. Login to your account (the only one you will have access to, besides the admin account) and ensure it works. Make a post. Reply to another. Then give a few volunteer testers the IP address of your server and let them log in, make a post, reply to another. Once it works, download the entire web server's files and ZIP them, then export the new database, ZIP that, burn both on a DVD-ROM, and send it back.
It's easier to do online. He'd (still hypothetically) give you access to the server, where you'd install phpBB in a "closed" setting (visitors would get a "This board is offline" message), then import a copy of the database (not the live one Drupal's using) and begin ironing out the kinks. Then bring the phpBB board online and take the Drupal one offline.
This is a very random post, just comments I have from skimming through the thread.
I don't think Drupal has the worst implementation of a forum. I'm not sure what does but TikiWiki is up there too. As much as I love the open source groupware/CMS, it's forum implementation is terrible.
I have to admit that I find the nesting of these comments a little confusing. It might be good if you could hide branches of the comments, otherwise at times it's just like reading random comments all on one long page.
I also don't like the fact that you basically have to use HTML to get formatting, that seems very user-unfriendly to me. I personally don't care since I don't have a problem messing around with "code" but I can see that your average joe-user might (legitimately) have a problem with it.
For the record privately messaging people so that only they can see, doesn't seem very social to me. Not sure what exactly is social about it. Now a shoutbox! THAT'S social! Something that PA.c really doesn't need.
I can see all the whiners and spongers now. Maybe John should install PHPFreeChat while he's at it. 
I can think of many legitimate uses for PM's though.
On the plus side, it's all under one roof (which has been mentioned before) i.e. One website, one install, you have all the features you need. That is really the whole point of a CMS, it manages all your site content, freeing you up to actually focus on the content itself, rather than organizing it and making it pretty.
Regardless of whether John has to mess around in config files or not, I'm sure that a CMS, as opposed to individual software for each of the required website components, is in general the path of least maintenance. That's really what it comes down to.
If Drupal isn't cutting it (and that's not for me to say) then maybe it's time to look at another CMS, rather than the bolt-on-this, bolt-on-that approach.
Drupal's weaknesses are all in the setup, I think. NaNoWriMo.org has a more intuitive Drupal setup, I think. The key differences:
* Replies to a topic are all inline, none of this indented mess.
* You can only add posts to the end of a thread, not in the middle like here.
* Quickpost is enabled, you don't have to click Reply, just scroll down to the bottom and start typing in the box. Clicking Reply on a post, I think, will fill in Quickpost with a quote of that topic (but I'm not sure, I never tried it).
* Private messaging is enabled and it works pretty much the same as on other boards.
* There is an additional page in Settings to hide forums you are not interested in.
* No tracker (but that board is HUGE and a tracker would kill it).
HTML isn't unfriendly. Get BBCode. Set it up for custom tags. Set it up for STRONG and EM(phasis) which replace bold and italic. You can even get nifty quote tags, just type the name of the person you're quoting, copy the text you want to attribute to them to clipboard, and use this custom tag in BBCode:
{blockquote}{cite}_value_{/cite}_clipboard_{/blockquote}
replacing the pointy parentheses with the less than/greater than signs as appropriate. Or you can leave the _value_ part out and type the name between the CITE tags.