Re-implement self-branded platforms with the Discourse multisite feature

[tanius]

The first implementation of self-branded platforms based on edgeyders.eu was done for biofabforum.org. We used a separate Discourse theme with CSS trickery to make one main category appear as if it is the whole forum, and a change to Discourse core to select the theme based on the request.host variable (taken from Host in the the HTTP request header).

While this works, it has its limitations and needs some hacks to (1) make e-mails being sent from the right address and (2) prevent the default logo from appearing in desktop notifications, and at times on the website. So it may well be that this first (exploratory) implementation should be replaced when a new paying customer comes along so that we can collaboratively cover the costs.

The new idea would be to use the "normal" Discourse multisite feature, which assigns a different database to every website served. This guarantees that every website has its own set of backend settings, such as for the From: address of notification e-mails. In addition, we will need some PostgreSQL level magic to combine / link / connect / sync all database tables across these databases that are related to content and users, just not those related to settings.

[tanius]

Today, we decided not to implement this in the near term, but that it is the right way to go when we find a collaboration / funding opportunity in the medium to longer term.

For a more detailed feature plan of this re-implementation, see our (internal) topic "Edgeryders Communities Platform Manual" in chapter "3. Option B: Federated Discourse Platform".

[tanius]

This is fully implemented now using the Discourse multisite feature (see branch "multisite"). All documentation about it incl. installation instructions is in the manual section about our federated Discourse platform offer.