An eagerly-awaited feature for XenForo 1.1, here is a first look at the new thread prefixes system, with a special guest appearance!
XF 1.1 Thread Prefixes
- Thread starter Kier
- Start date
erich37
Well-known member
After all we have limited width/real-estate on our screens.
on a fixed-width-style (990px width), the number of letters for a thread-title will be less, given the width of the thread-prefix........?
Marcus
Well-known member
I want my users to self-categorize their threads so that their thread can be grouped to other threads. Ideally other users can also categorize the threads, and they can vote for and against a categorization. I don't care how the categorization is called: prefixes, tags, forums. Users should do that (giving a prefix to a thread, tagging a thread, creating a thread within a special forum and therein categorize it with the forum title). The big problem lies that threads can be mis-categorized! So a prefix should be renamed, or if you use tags, the tags should be changed. Or if you use forums, you have to move the thread to another forum. Now it is rather unfair to the prefixes that with the admin-categorization "forums" you have multiple sub-categorization possibilities where the prefixes only have one level of categorization
With sub-prefixes you can build your whole community with just one forum. Think out of the box 
ibnesayeed
Well-known member
I want my users to self-categorize their threads so that their thread can be grouped to other threads. Ideally other users can also categorize the threads, and they can vote for and against a categorization. I don't care how the categorization is called: prefixes, tags, forums. Users should do that (giving a prefix to a thread, tagging a thread, creating a thread within a special forum and therein categorize it with the forum title). The big problem lies that threads can be mis-categorized! So a prefix should be renamed, or if you use tags, the tags should be changed. Or if you use forums, you have to move the thread to another forum. Now it is rather unfair to the prefixes that with the admin-categorization "forums" you have multiple sub-categorization possibilities where the prefixes only have one level of categorization
In my opinion, the kind of SOCIAL ANIMAL you are talking about, is known as TAGS. Where L number of free souls can assign N number of tags to M number of objects. (Administration might be there as an option though.)
In my opinion, Thread prefixes are more suitable to fine tune level of categorization under a broader category (having all final level categories the same set of permissions as their parent /container has). It may also be used to mention state of objects. And it should be simple, predefined, very finite in number and well moderated. My 0.02 USD
In my opinion, that is the right time to think about balancing load between Sub-Forum and Thread Prefixes. Keep the leaf bit for thread prefix and arrange rest of the stuff in sub-forums. I understand that this might not be the ideal solution for every situation. But, keeping thread prefix system simple will keep it lot cleaner. Specially, nested prefixes might become a nightmare when they decide how to handle interface for applying/changing prefixes. After all we have limited width/real-estate on our screens.
There are advantages to multiple prefixes if designed and implemented properly, including how a website administrator sets it up. Sometimes it's worse to split up a topic into multiple sub-forums which will all receive proportionally less traffic to the point where some of the sub-forums may not need to exist as they are almost never used compared to the others. Further what if someone has a thread that doesn't properly fit in any of the sub-forums for this topic, do you create another sub-forum for it? Or perhaps you have a need to manually move threads to another sub-forum to indicate that some action was taken.
Now obviously it should never be used to compact completely unrelated topics such as sports and politics which should be different forums and probably in different categories. However, there are quite a few cases where multiple prefixes would allow a forum to be sufficiently general while still allowing extensibility and threads to be specifically identified. If you miss some part of the topic it'd be better to create a new prefix (primary or secondary) than a new forum. This is definitely an additive solution, meaning you'd probably never remove prefixes. In fact this isn't a perfect solution either as it might lead to many problems if you ever decide to restructure your forums.
Screen space is definitely a concern which is why I think double prefixes would just about be the limit before it should probably be divvied up into separate sub-forums, although I'm sure there are edge cases even here. Even so it needs to have a compact representation which would require the system to be flexible enough to accommodate what an administrator considers the best format for their forums. For instance in my last post I had discussed the example of a gaming forum. My idea was to use the first prefix as an iconic representation of the system (Windows logo, OSX logo, Xbox 360 logo, etc...) and the second as the category (FPS, RTS, RPG, MMO, etc...). This would lead to a compact representation of two prefixes allowing a single general forum to be used and extended as needed. Of course this may not work for other situations. This could of course be done with a single prefix, but all of the combinations would need to be exhaustively defined and a user would be presented with a gigantic list of prefixes.
As far as a tagging system I am absolutely against using one. Tagging is solely in the purview of the users and limiting their use of it to make the system effective is often unpractical. Categorization via tags is a very fuzzy way of categorizing things and while it might seem like a good idea on paper, in reality it is often abused requiring it to be disabled or increasing moderator oversight. Of course I have seen it used effectively on some discussion forums, so perhaps I just associate with the wrong crowd
. Do not misconstrue this sentiment as a petition for XenForo not to include such a feature, I believe it's up to a website administrator to decide whether or not such a feature is useful for their community. I just personally find it antithetical to structured categorization and discussion and usually ends up as more of a medium for meta-discussion, specifically trolling and soapboxing.
erich37
Well-known member
I am just w0ndering if the thread-title is then going into 2 lines ?
Alpha1
Well-known member
It looks great, but I wonder how this can be used on big boards. For example: I have hundreds of forums. Almost all forums have (mandatory) prefixes. Those forums have a set of prefixes. There are 35 sets of prefixes containing a total of 600 prefixes. Many sets are used by multiple forums.
So how would this translate to XenForo?
At first glance it seems that this would be very hard to manage in Xenforo.
Forsaken
Well-known member
Because no one has implemented them properlyWe don't need tags but we do need prefix
okkk I know the purpose of the tags and how could they be useful but I never really use them
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kkm323
Well-known member
You are right. Twitter probably the best site that uses tag properly.Because no one has implemented them properly
ibnesayeed
Well-known member
Delicious is the other one. In fact, when tags get votes (i.e. how many people tagged the object with the same tag) then it makes more sense. This way, social democracy model fits nicely. You may put a minimum threshold or negative tagging option to fight against false tags. This helps ranking/ordering search results greatly. Also, tags help clustering content into topics/fields.
jonsidneyb
Well-known member
I like the discussion here very much. This seems to be a nice community here
It is a nice community here
Forsaken
Well-known member
Much better now that theres an ignore featureIt is a nice community here
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Mikey
Well-known member
usergroups here on xenforo.com:
"people we don't like (moderators)"
"people we like a bit"
hahah.
in other news, another great video!
"people we don't like (moderators)"
"people we like a bit"
hahah.
in other news, another great video!
This.
kkm323
Well-known member
I like the discussion here very much. This seems to be a nice community here
Indeed, I apparently spend more time here than in my own forumIt is a nice community here
