Idea: a forum that adapts to the user.

[Digital Doctor]

Possible ? To what extent ?
Desirable ?

How could Notices play a role in adapting a generic forum experience into a customized user experience ?

How might a forum look if it catered to newcomers ? How might it morph to be optimized for Power Users ?

Could Style modifications alone adapt the forum enough ?

For unused forum features such as ...
Recent Activity: http://xenforo.com/community/recent-activity/
Watch a thread.
Upload an Avatar.

If time went on and a user never used the "Watch a Thread" ever. Would a gentle reminder about the feature be helpful ? To what percentage ?

Any ideas how or why a forum should Adapt to the User ?

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

There is one really simple thing that I always think should be done

I use the home screen a lot just to check what the "latest thread" is, when I do, I see the "Latest thread in the forum"

That is a feature that absolutely has not evolved in time, it should be a little more smart, it could be the "Latest unread thread in the forum".

Right now, as it stands, if I am in the homepage and I see latest thread: XX, I have two options, I can either say:
1) Oh, I have already read that thread, or
2) Oh, new stuff* click, just to find out it's the old thread

If it, instead, changed to show me the next thread that I have not read, the homepage would be an aggregator of new stuff, for me.

 

[Sador]

Or show unread topics that are similar to topics you've read before..

 

[Sim]

There was an addon written for vB a while back (largely superceded by improvements in the core notices system in vB 3.6 I think it was), which focussed on encouraging users to engage with the community more.

It included default features such as a greeting to guests explaining the forum, a message to people who had not yet activated their account with instructions on how to do so, a message to newly registered users who had not yet posted, encouraging them to introduce themselves, and so on - it was targeted based on their activity.

No doubt similar functionality could be extended based on attributes of the user - all in the name of increasing engagement.

I think the occasional message introducing or explaining an often forgotten (or not obvious) feature would be useful too.

 

[Daniel Thomann]

What about a CMS - Like Userdashboard? With widgets to turn on and off... Widgets like: New unread threads in most visited forum... or someting like that...

 

[Xarcell]

I think the best way would be a software that uses only 3rd party login like social sites such as facebook, twitter, yahoo, etc. But at the same time, it would run incredibly slow...

 

[Marcus]

These ideas should be basic for all communities.

 

[Digital Doctor]

A small example (not really even a good one) of how a forum could adapt to the user.
Ideas like this might not appeal to the crowd here as ... well .. everyone here is a forum junkie.
Adapting is about helping newbies.

Example: use a Notice for Education.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/not-receiving-alerts-on-watched-threads-bug.10770/#post-323745

 

[Morgain]

I think the admin email needs a few tweaks but I'm about to post on that on its own thread.
Sending individualised encouragement and instruction is important but right now I have to do an awful lot of copy/ pasting.