I have copied ideas from Discourse — so yes it has some of Discourse's features. Plus features from Slack (i.e. chat), HackerNews (best comments rise to the top) and StackOverflow (question-answers) & Disqus (embedded comments).
More things you mentioned: It's not PHP (it's Scala instead, in Docker containers), it is server side rendered (React.js), fairly minimal Javascript: 150 kb JS on page load.
Looks good. One suggestion: it doesn't work with JS off, so I don't see content when I arrive.
I made a personal commitment not to use Facebook's software (React) whenever there are suitable alternatives available, because I don't want to support that awful company in any way, but hope that your project goes well.
Interesting commitment. Can I ask which URL didn't work for you, & which browser?
For me, when I disable JS in Chrome Dev Tools, the website still loads properly, incl homepage, forum index and discussion topics. (but one cannot leave comments, that still requires JS). I tested a bit in Lynx also.
And regarding the commitment not to support FB, it's because using FB's software supports FB, and FB is terrible for society. I don't want to support them (wherever possible), even if just in a small way.
https://www.effectivediscussions.org (I'm developing it)
I have copied ideas from Discourse — so yes it has some of Discourse's features. Plus features from Slack (i.e. chat), HackerNews (best comments rise to the top) and StackOverflow (question-answers) & Disqus (embedded comments).
More things you mentioned: It's not PHP (it's Scala instead, in Docker containers), it is server side rendered (React.js), fairly minimal Javascript: 150 kb JS on page load.