thank you for sharing my product here! I grew up on forums, it's somewhat of a love letter to the mid 2000s I spent many hours of my youth with, happy to answer any questions on the project!
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Could you give us a brief overview of the use of AI in the production of Storyden? Like which components are ai-assisted, and to what degree?
I think this is the main sticking point people have with the project, especially since it is apparently in use but it’s not super clear how.
sure, so I use a ton of codegen and hand-write the openapi schema, jsonschemas and database model, I use AI often to write the mapping/binding boilerplate that goes between the outside-to-inside world (database stuff to queriers/writers and http handlers to actual logic) then I write the logic itself as well as the end-to-end tests. I find language models work very well once you have a clear set of constraints/boundaries such as a clear api contract + generated types or a set of tests that define the behaviour. I use a mix of claude and codex. Claude I find works well for exploratory/experimental work (a ton of the new plugin system was R&D so claude helped set up and tear down a bunch of potential implementations and ideas) codex is a lot less interactive and doesn't seem to play well with creative r&d style exploratory workflows, so I use that one more for well planned out features using the codegen mentioned before.
while I somewhat understand the "sticking point" it allows me to work faster and focus on the more enjoyable side of the craft i've honed for almost 20 years. While it's still not a super popular project and a couple of friends sometimes help, it's just me doing it so the AI helps a lot when I only have a couple of hours a night to work on it!
outside of pure code, I used a combination of very early generative imagery models (circa 2022 I think) for the hero art, which started life as a sketch, scanned in, with some iterations on Dall-E (back when it was an app before chatgpt absorbed it) and a few hours painting and expanding in photoshop with my wacom. for future art on blog posts and such, I'm keen to commission a human artist for future marketing assets (in case you know anyone!)
and I think finally, lots of exploratory discussion with chatgpt on api design, http semantics, cross-browser cookie behaviours, boring stuff like that... very useful!
do you think it would be worth including some blurb about how ai tools are used in the readme for this kinda crowd who are understandably skeptical of many open source projects now due to irresponsible usage of ai?
The marketing mixes metaphors, talking about gardening, growing, curating… all part of sustainable process that includes plants dying.
It also uses words like forever and permanent.
Having content live forever is at odds with metaphors of the natural world, where things naturally die.
Well permaculture is a thing in gardening ^^
I mean, it's not "forever" as in "until the end of all things", but as much set and forget as I would like in a knowledgebase (and in a garden).
I think the metaphors refer to different aspects of the project. The gardening refers to a more deliberate, small scale, cultivated experience tailored to your community, which is opposed to commercial factory farms that produce a monoculture on a massive scale for profit.
The permanence refers to the fact that you own and control the data, so you are in control of its lifecycle, not a third party that could kill it at their discretion.
Whatever happened to vBulletin? That was peak forum software. Simple to use, no frills, and no bloated tracking shit.
All the car community forums are operated by Fora at this point, and they're trying to push some bullshit AI assistant called "ForaFrank". I blocked it on every car forum I'm a part of, and have encouraged others to do the same.
Never heard of vBulletin. I'm on a couple old phpBB conlanging forums that are still hanging around. My main gripe is the use of antiquated BB Code for formatting and a lack of a user mention feature.
As for modern forums, I like nodeBB.
hmmmm seems to deploy fine but when I try to register a new account (per the setup instructions) I just get an unknown error.
The concept is promising, as I said before I've been wishing for an integrated forum/wiki for a while now, but it seems like it's very early days for this project.
The AI stuff has me bristling though. Not a fan.
hey, would love to know what that error was if you have any logs or can remember, and any feedback is truly welcome!
Will have to look into this. Been saying for a while that a wiki-forum combo would make sense, since a forum slowly becomes a repository of knowledge, if not generally then at least for its members, and a less linear and more browsable way to catalog that knowledge would make sense. You can set up a separate wiki server but then you have two things to manage and moderate.
It mentions many AI features. Is this vibe-coded?
From what I can tell the author uses AI assistance in creating API endpoints and some front end styling, based on some clause code agent files in the repo. Whether that is for prototyping client changes after making backend changes, or thats what winds up in the official client, I cannot say. It’s a good thought though as it’s not really mentioned on the main site.
From reading his blog he seems to be not be yet another AI bro and I sort of agree with his position on the ultimate usefulness of AI. There is little to no AI generation implemented in the app, it seems mostly designed as a search function and is optional.
Looks like the pictures are also AI generated?
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I find it strange that they themselves have a Discord link in the footer.
Because it's not for replacing discord it's a modern version of phpbb or vbulliten forums, the OP mentions this
Ones where live chat and voice rooms aren’t the focus.
It’s a combination of forums and knowledge base that would be perfect for this use case.
looks like a great alternative for the kinds of Discord servers
That is correct. However, OP says right before:
a great alternative for the kinds of Discord servers centered around Open Source projects and organizations
That's because it aims to replace one of the wrong use cases that projects (FOSS or not) weirdly decide to use Discord for, such as replacement for a "contact forum" or "support forum".
Such a great point.
I've refused to use software that require things like Discord or Telegram for support.
Use a proper tool on your website.
I know, I literally quoted the line after it to put emphasis on the fact he wasn't saying it's a discord replacement but one where live chat and voice rooms aren't the focus
tbh he could have just said it's a new type of forum because it really has nothing to do with discord at all
It has unfortunately, a lot to do with Discord. I am a members of a dozen or so Discord servers, none of which are used for live chat, audio, screen sharing, etc. This software would be a 1:1 replacement for all of those servers.
You should be correct in saying that this software is not a replacement for Discord, but it is, just not in every single instance.
Some kind of weird WebGL error on their site I've never seen before.
Doesn't load for me.
LibreWolf doesn't seem to be offering to activate canvas.
Oh well.
Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading www.storyden.org (see the browser console for more information).
Exactly same error for me. I'm glad there are such indicators so I don't have to waste my time on such a crappy overcomplicated design.
Could be something everyone is blocking in their browsers. I know I use arkenfox. No joy with LibreWolf or Waterfox. I did pull it up in Opera, and it worked ok. I didn't browse any further than the front page. I only use Opera for paying bills as Firefox, LibreWolf, and Waterfox are set up to block a lot of excess crap, and my utilities love their bullshit webpage candy.
Same for me in IronFox.
Also on cromite. Both disable webgl by default, iirc.
Not like a forum has a reasonable use case that requires webgl, tho.
Works fine in Firefox on Android
Me too
Same for me, why does a forum software need webgl?
You mean why does the site for a forum software need webgl, by which the only reason I can think of is tracking visitors somehow. It's not like the background landscape on the site is dynamic or something.
i added a dumb globe thingy and some useless effects in a mania of creative chaos, not felt a spark of creativity in ages and hate the current site, but you're right this was stupid, i removed the useless webgl stuff and made it simpler, thanks for the feedback!
Thanks!
It's not so much about wholly removing webgl contrasted to at least having some sort of fallback that allows the site to be experienced, but thanks again for at least tackling the change.
yeah I'm usually disciplined with progressive enhancement but not this time, should have been a .webm or .gif lol
Oh great more cool FOSS projects to bookmark
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