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8WayRun.Com Modifications for XenForo

#2 FTW! Make it simple - keep it all in the forum structure. Besides, there are already blog options out there that follow the standard format outlined in #1 - be different!
 
HUGELY on the side of #2. I've written reams of opinion on the subject, and I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I directly seen what happens when a #1 type system is implemented. See the OP of my CMS/Blog thread for general write up, and post 40 for some specifics about the contrast between #1 and #2. I'll quote #40 below:

Think about it this way: Most folks that have run forums for a long time know that you don't add a forum for every *minor* variation of every shade of your niche, because it breaks up the community into too many tiny bits, and deprives them of the critical mass needed for a real community to grow. You don't add a new forum to the system unless there is sufficient population and interest in that particular topic, or a strong overriding reason that that particular topic needs to have it's own forum (permissions etc).
Well, separate system community blogging in a forums based system causes (in my direct experience) *exactly* that sort of problem, only worse. The solution I proposed in the OP lets you consolidate all content generation into the forums itself. The "Blog" forum becomes highly integrated, in fact the "Blog" forum functions wonderfully as a member "activity stream" that shows all posts by all bloggers.

Even with integrated searching (which certainly helps), it's still a fragmentation, and still a net negative in many, many ways.

Onimua's done a great job, but it's still a separate stovepipe for the community. I've BEEN down that exact road before (we used three separate community blogging solutions over 3-4 years, actually 4, but I'm not going to count one that we killed after a couple days) and watched the community interaction fragment and almost destroy the community. What we saw very clearly is that putting a separate, parallel system in place split the community into those that blogged and those that spent time in the forums of their choice. And by splitting the content into separate areas, the blog authors didn't get the approbation and responses they felt they deserved (and many of the blog entries were in fact excellent). The forum readers lost out on seeing a ton of good content, and a lot of the interaction and sense of community was severely damaged.

When we introduced blogs there's was also a marked amount of confusion, people didn't know where to post, many new people were so used to "Blogs" that they didn't even know what a forum WAS and so they would create a blog entry to ask a technical question. Then when nobody answered that question (because they monitored the appropriate forum that covered those kinds of issues), they got frustrated and vanished forever. We added explanatory text to the blog screen warning that blogs were not a good place to ask questions, that they were better used for chronicling a project, but it made not a whit of difference. The Blog system funneled away a lot of new members who then got frustrated and never saw the community in action. If it was all part of the same system , it would be easy enough for a moderator to step in and move the post to the appropriate forum where the new member would be much more likely to get their question answered. Can't do that if they are fundamentally separate systems.

@Brogan: You've said before that you'd rather see main functionality in the core instead of as 3rd party mods. Don't you see that adding blogs is a FAR more fundamental bit of functionality than most addons? If you make blogs a separate system, you're creating a whole separate community! In addition to the fragmentation (which is huge), any improvements/tweaks you add to the forums side, you also have to add to the blogs to maintain a consistent interface. That runs the risk of increasing your maintenance and development problems tremendously.

In contrast, by keeping all content generation IN the forums any new functionality that is added to the XF core system (galleries, signature tweaks, ad positions, notification systems etc etc) is also automatically added to the "Blogs" as well as it's all part of the same system. Anything posted in a member's blog is instantly part of the forums as well, not via a clunky duplication of content, but because the actual content IS part of the forums. The blogs are just another way of presenting that content in a member focused way. Members can move back and forth from "Blogging" to posting in forums seamlessly, because it's all the same thing.


In fact, by having it based on the XenPorta system, you also (depending on the specifics of the implementation) get the ability for members (that have the inclination) to specify Blocks/Modules/Widgets to customize their particular blog. And you're not required to maintain a separate set of modules either as the same modules you develop for the homepage layout can potentially be re-used in the blogs.
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Based on what Tigratus is saying, I think I'm going to go with option 2...

This doesn't mean the blogs will LOOK like a forum, but simply that they will be read by the system as such. Basically the same way I do the recent news block on XenPorta; they don't look like a forum, but when you click to read more, or post a reply, it takes you to the thread.
 
Jaxel said:
Based on what Tigratus is saying, I think I'm going to go with option 2...

This doesn't mean the blogs will LOOK like a forum, but simply that they will be read by the system as such. Basically the same way I do the recent news block on XenPorta; they don't look like a forum, but when you click to read more, or post a reply, it takes you to the thread.
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Exactly! :)

:: snoopy dance ::
 
Jaxel said:
The way you feel about blogs is exactly how I felt about Social Groups... Social Groups were the worst of them all... way to segregate your community vBulletin!
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Absolutely. *anything* that breaks up the community should be avoided like the plague based on what we've seen/experienced. Social Groups are almost identical in the sense that they fragment the community, and are something that the individual members create more or less at will.

Can't tell you how excited we are to have a light at the end of the tunnel... At last! :)
 
I have some suggestions, shown in the below image
The user has the ability to name their blog, so I can make a blog called "I love XenForo". The rest of the elements of the siebar are self explanatory.
bloglayout.webp
 
Jaxel said:
Okay... as people have seen, my current project is a Blog system.
Click to expand...
Would it be a good idea to create a new thread to get more input about what do people actually want in a Blog System ?
Wordpress is super popular.
It's not hard to see it's design is quite popular.
 
Jaxel said:
Okay... as people have seen, my current project is a Blog system. I actually haven't started any programming, as I've been working through designs in my head for the past 2 weeks. However, before I start programming, I want to know people's opinions. Basically, I have two options when it comes to creating Blog software with XenForo, and I want to know which people prefer...
  1. Create a "blog/comment" content type.

    Creating a new content type pretty much means that the block will be a separate entity from the forums (XenMedio is an example of this). With a new content type, handlers need to be made for all XenForo events, but there is a lot of customizability. For instance, the activity page would say things like: "user posted a blog entry", "user replied to blog entry", "user liked blog entry".
    .
  2. Use the "thread/post" content type.

    Using the existing "thread/post" content type is extremely easy. With this, an admin would simply need to create a new forum node, and assign this node as the blog node. Then the blog page will simply retrieve it's information from this node. The best thing about this method is everything is already built into XenForo and all XenForo features will be available from the start.
Honestly, I'm leaning towards #2.
Click to expand...
I'd prefer #1

If we go to the threads type at the end, then why the "blog" is needed? there are forums you can call them as "blog". It would be actually useful if you do something like LN Blog, A new content type with a new User interface.
 
Option 2 sounds the better option for the reasons posted by Tigratrus. I mean the 'blogs' could still look like blogs and have that functionality but it would tie into the forum far more strongly as suggested by others above. It sounds logical that if we have a brilliant forum system why ruin it by not having a brilliant blog system that utilises it to create greater exposure to members blogs and reduces member fragmentation.
 
I like to see Comments to Blog posts directly underneath the Blog Post.
Will comments be visible underneath the Blog Post in #2 ?
 
Tomble said:
Option 2 sounds the better option for the reasons posted by Tigratrus. I mean the 'blogs' could still look like blogs and have that functionality but it would tie into the forum far more strongly as suggested by others above. It sounds logical that if we have a brilliant forum system why ruin it by not having a brilliant blog system that utilises it to create greater exposure to members blogs and reduces member fragmentation.
Click to expand...
I can't even imagine the hacks that Jaxel will have to write to hobble together a complete and powerful blogging system based upon threads, which weren't designed to be blogs! Simple as that. Simple blogging system I can see, but most definitely not an extremely advanced system with all the bells and whistles. I'll just create a CMS based upon threads, sound good? (PS - this wasn't aimed directly at you, its more of a general use threads as data source thing)
 
Digital Doctor said:
I think the Option #2 plan was just to use one thread as the Comments to a Blog Post.
Would it be that challenging to do so ?

Do you have a technical example that will alert Jaxel to his unforseen problems ?
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That's not how I read it. What happens if you want to categorize posts? tag posts? keep intricate statistics on those? Do anything more expansive than basic blogs. Does the blogging system create these features universally? Anything more advanced than BASIC blogging systems create a more, hackish way of doing it than a completely new content type. I feel it would be like me using threads as galleries and each post having a single attachment and building my Galleria based on that. It becomes quite a bit more advanced and hackish when it comes down to it. Threads were designed to be threads, not blog posts. Simple as that.
 
King Kovifor said:
That's not how I read it.
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Ooops. I think you are right, I misread it. Thanks for your great examples KK.

Of course ... there are many analogies between blogs and threads.
Blog Post + comments = Thread + replies

That being said ... as you say .. what might the limitations be ?

categorize posts?
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I would like to categorize posts, maybe this could be done with some bbcode ?
[blogcategory]Soul Caliber, Gaming, Cheats[/blogcategory] ?

tag posts?
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Well ... you can't even tag xenforo forum threads yet. I think tagging needs to be "xenforo wide" before it's worthwhile.

Another possible limitation .... Where would you put [Read More] aka [Continue reading] entries to distinguish between the Preview and the Whole Blog Post ?

In the "Blog Post Forum" you'd want people to be able read the post and reply, but not make new threads. is that possible ?
 
Digital Doctor said:
Ooops. I think you are right, I misread it. Thanks for your great examples KK.

Of course ... there are many analogies between blogs and threads.
Blog Post + comments = Thread + replies

That being said ... as you say .. what might the limitations be ?

I would like to categorize posts, maybe this could be done with some bbcode ?
[blogcategory]Soul Caliber, Gaming, Cheats[/blogcategory] ?

Well ... you can't even tag xenforo forum threads yet. I think tagging needs to be "xenforo wide" before it's worthwhile.

Another possible limitation .... Where would you put [Read More] aka [Continue reading] entries to distinguish between the Preview and the Whole Blog Post ?

In the "Blog Post Forum" you'd want people to be able read the post and reply, but not make new threads. is that possible ?
Click to expand...
If you use [blogcategory] how do you honestly track category statistics? link those items together? integrate fellow blog posts with that? Tagging is quite popular within blogging. It may be quite a problem for those used to tagging.
 
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