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QDB Quotes Instance — Step 3: Development Plan

Stage 1

  • Goal: stand up the new site instance's identity/branding plumbing.

  • Dependencies: none.

  • Expected changes:

    • New entry in SiteProfileRegistry::all() (e.g. qdb) with its own default theme.

    • New entry in ThemeRegistry for the QDB-style theme.

    • docs/runbooks/production_deploy.md gains the new FORUM_SITE_ID value and a vhost example pairing it with its own FORUM_REPOSITORY_ROOT/FORUM_DATABASE_PATH/FORUM_STATIC_HTML_ROOT, mirroring the chouse entry.

  • Verification approach: run locally with FORUM_SITE_ID=qdb; confirm site name/default theme resolve to the new profile; existing SiteProfileRegistryTest.php pattern extended for the new entry.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • none.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: SiteProfileRegistry, ThemeRegistry (both extended, not forked).

Stage 2

  • Goal: ship the QDB-accurate visual skin (no voting behavior yet).

  • Dependencies: Stage 1 (theme entry must exist to attach the stylesheet).

  • Expected changes:

    • New public/assets/theme-qdb.css carrying the archived palette/fonts (burnt-orange/white chrome, Arial UI text, courier-new quote body) per the theme guide's variable-block/swatch/scoped-section structure.

    • tests/LocalAppSmokeTest.php theme allow-list updated for the new theme name.

  • Verification approach: local dev server visual check against the archived classic-QDB snapshot; smoke test passes.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • none.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: ThemeRegistry stylesheet path convention (no new wiring needed, per theme guide).

Stage 3

  • Goal: extend the existing scored-reaction vocabulary with upvote/downvote, no schema change.

  • Dependencies: none (independent of Stages 1-2).

  • Expected changes:

    • TagScore::scoredTags() gains upvote and downvote weights (symmetric, e.g. +1/-1), alongside existing like/flag.

    • Confirm PostReactionRecordParser's tag-token rules already accept upvote/downvote tokens as-is (lowercase, no new validation needed).

  • Verification approach: unit-level check of TagScore::scoreValueForTag() for the two new tags; confirm ReadModelBuilder/IncrementalReadModelUpdater pick up the new weights automatically since both already iterate TagScore::scoredTags() generically.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • Score aggregation currently only counts reactions from identities present in approvalState (existing gating in the score-reduction loop). Need to verify whether anonymous QDB-style voting will move the displayed score under this gate, or whether that gate needs a documented exception for this instance before Stage 6 sign-off.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: TagScore (extended weight table only).

Stage 4

  • Goal: render the index as a flat QDB-shaped quote list instead of the generic thread-card board.

  • Dependencies: Stages 1-3 (profile, theme, and tag vocabulary must exist first).

  • Expected changes:

    • New templates/partials/quote_card.php, modeled on thread_root_card.php's existing data-thread-reactions-root/data-action="apply-thread-tag" block (same score node, same AJAX wiring) but trimmed to #ID + score + full quote body — no subject, preview truncation, or labels — with upvote/downvote/flag buttons in place of like/flag.

    • templates/pages/board.php branches on the active site profile to render quote_card.php instead of thread_card.php for this instance only; other profiles' board rendering is untouched.

  • Verification approach: manual browser check of the index against the archived reference shape; confirm zenmemes/chouse board pages render unchanged.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • none.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: templates/pages/board.php (new conditional branch), templates/partials/quote_card.php (new, reuses existing reaction JS/API contract rather than inventing one).

Stage 5

  • Goal: make the shared reaction feedback copy tag-accurate so upvote/downvote don't say "Liked."

  • Dependencies: Stage 4 (new buttons must exist to exercise this).

  • Expected changes:

    • bindThreadReactions() in public/assets/thread_reactions.js stops hardcoding "Liked."/"Already liked." and instead derives the feedback copy from the button's existing data-applied-label attribute (already passed in but currently unused for this string).

    • Regenerate the fingerprinted copies of thread_reactions.js per the existing asset-fingerprinting process.

  • Verification approach: manual check that Like still reads "Liked."/"Already liked." (unchanged wording, now parameterized) and that Upvote/Downvote read their own applied labels.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • none.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: thread_reactions.js (bindThreadReactions) — shared by all instances; change is additive/generalizing, not behavior-changing for existing tags.

Stage 6

  • Goal: end-to-end verification pass across the whole feature.

  • Dependencies: Stages 1-5.

  • Expected changes: none (verification-only stage).

  • Verification approach:

    • Confirm the quotes instance's index visually matches the blended classic-QDB/qdb.us reference.

    • Confirm clicking a quote's #ID reaches the existing /threads/<id> discussion page with working replies, unmodified.

    • Confirm upvote/downvote/flag update the displayed score without a page reload and persist across reload.

    • Confirm zenmemes/chouse boards show no behavioral or visual regression.

  • Risks or open questions:

    • Resolve the Stage 3 approval-gating question definitively here if still open.

  • Canonical components/API contracts touched: none (verification only).