XF 2.3 ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Grant said:
It is if you're a member. It shows you posts from the forums you are subscribed to, people you follow, and occasionally posts outside of these it thinks you might be interested in.
Click to expand...

ok, this makes sense and is a good idea. Especially since reddit is not a niche forum but a forum for every topic in life. Similar to Facebook and twitter.

I do think this would be a good idea/suggestion for a new XF feature in the core or as an addon.

Grant said:
Today for XF, outside of a few core add-on writers, I don't feel able to rely on third party addons to stick around.
Click to expand...

I agree. I also try to keep the usage of addons at a minimum for the same reason. You better do not get the users used to something, that might not be available anymore in 2 years time.

Grant said:
Not at the beginning, but in 2008, three years after it launched. They have got a lot bigger since that.
Click to expand...

This "make your own group" feature is very risky, if you have a smaller forum. You risk to loose control over your forum, people build subgroups and leave as a whole group if they do not like something. That hurts a lot the rest of the forum.

Also if these subgroups are made kind of "private". You raise your own competition within your own forum.
 
It seems to me that reddit copies the idea of Facebook a lot, which FB copied from AOL: create an internet within the internet and people need to access the content through your platform which cuts the connection to the rest of the internet outside of this platform.

You have one single login and access all topics of your life (within that platform). Discord tries to do something simlar. But this only works, if you are big enough. Not relevant for us.
 
snoopy5 said:
Also if these subgroups are made kind of "private". You raise your own competition within your own forum.
Click to expand...

When we used VB we used their groups functionality and most of the groups were public. It allowed members to really dive into certains subjects that would maybe overwhelm the main board (perhaps something most people weren't interested in). There were some private, or invite only ones, which in some ways made sense (one was set up by A.A. members).

None of this took away from the main boards, and if anything, it gave users another reason to hang out on your site rather than be on FB whatever
 
snoopy5 said:
That is interesting to hear. I would have thought differently.
Click to expand...

I mean other people may have different experience.

To give an actual example, my forum is about perfume. And there's a forum to discuss men's fragrances. - Theres a handful of people really into men's fragrances that smell like pine. Having the group allowed them to really geek-out on pine scents without filling the main board with something only a few people were interested in.
 
snoopy5 said:
The only "new idea" is on the left side at the top (the link to popular feeds) and on the right side the link to other communities.
Click to expand...
Rely too much on left and right columns and bang goes your mobile usability. If 50% plus users are on mobile which they are on many forums, it is better to design for the mobile and not have anything crucial in sidebars.
Grant said:
Yes it sounds like mayhem, but something like a group functionality has been requested for a long while (and there's two add-ons for it).
Click to expand...
If there are addons, that's great because I'm sure it's a niche feature.
Grant said:
Having the group allowed them to really geek-out on pine scents without filling the main board with something only a few people were interested in.
Click to expand...
Again, why not have a pine scent subforum for that group. If you want to stop the gen pop getting inundated with pine scent then disclude the pine scent posts from the main New posts. They then just go to their own forum to see the latest posts.
 
@snoopy5
Go to fb, twitter, reddit and use them.
i think you need to read @Brogan thread on his experience with reddit.

Fb groups are no way near what a forum is.
twitter has too many political pests on there.
reddit is overmoderated.
the others are just plain dodgy.

there's too many reddit like crap being posted up on twitter these days.

Facebook wants us to have pages but wants us to get rid of friends and pages and groups all the time.

when you have a forum be happy that you get a chance to have a proper discussion on things that annoy you.
 
Tracy Perry said:
I think one of the large parts of this factor was simply the availability of mobile apps. FB, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, YouTube and such benefitted from that.... and it was rather difficult for a forum to have a mobil app that honored all the features that the web based site did, since those former were singular sites where forum scripts were used by many more providers and few were the same in what they offered.
Click to expand...

Alpha1 said:
. My members actually asked me to migrate to IPS because they found it much easier to use on mobile.
Click to expand...
IMO no need for a mobile app if the site is extremely mobile friendly. When I try to use old forums on my phone 😱🙀

XF could still improve its user friendliness especially with navigation. No one knows to click the three bars to navigate to another section of the site. That's why I had @Russ build in bottom navigation for my site on mobile. It works very well and has greatly improved site usability and navigation on mobile.

Screenshot_20230607-082953.webp
 
Grant said:
None of this took away from the main boards, and if anything, it gave users another reason to hang out on your site rather than be on FB whatever
Click to expand...
This x10000. My main reason for social groups is so that people don't leave my site once they've been accepted to school. (My site is for applying to college). I have a custom very basic private forum group setup but native social groups would be huge to help prevent this.

For example the accepted students can make a private class of 2027 group that only they can see and communicate on but it keeps them coming back to my site so they can help the next batch of applicants. That's the dream at least. Now they share their Whatsapp and are gone. A true native social groups feature could do better at keeping them on the site.
 
MarenLBC said:
So Reddit took that concept, added it ontop of the forum concept, and gave the best of both worlds. In addition it gave everyone the ability to create their own sub forum which widened the appeal tremendously. Reddit put the content first and forum second where as traditional forums put the forum first and content second.
Click to expand...
And also in every language. So if people need a Club about whatever topic in whatever language, then there is a subreddit for it or it can be created. Its the combination of social groups with languages that makes it so wide in scope.
 
Alpha1 said:
And also in every language. So if people need a Club about whatever topic in whatever language, then there is a subreddit for it or it can be created. Its the combination of social groups with languages that makes it so wide in scope.
Click to expand...
Yes but you will still hate the platform because of being overmoderated and too strict.
 
This why you can't have social media interferring with your forum.
If you chose a facebook group over a forum and that platform keeps on banning you for the way how you respond to things it's not that great of a platform because you could get done for swearing too much, cat fishing, etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

NikitOS
Duplicate XF.setupHtmlInsert has different behavior in XF 2.2 and XF 2.3.
Replies
2
Views
205
Jeremy P
Jeremy P
NymO
  • Solved
XF 2.3 XF 2.3 download?
Replies
3
Views
314
Mr Lucky
Mr Lucky
loyalis
  • Question Question
XF 2.2 [XF 2.3] Webhooks --> Create Topic using Webhooks?
Replies
0
Views
123
loyalis
loyalis
K
XF 2.3 Using XF 2.3 OAuth Provider
Replies
11
Views
391
ndahiya
N
S
Duplicate XF 2.3 B5 - Placeholder text is always shown
Replies
1
Views
69
Chris D
Chris D
Top Bottom