Bring Xenforo to the Fediverse

[sub_ubi]

There seem to be two ways people are federating forums. I'd be happy with either one really, or a different method you dream up. I just like federation.

1) The singular timeline. Users "subscribe" to various forums: neogaf, ign, stevehoffman, the forum you run, et. al., and then popular threads appear in their fediverse timeline. This replicates the experience of joining facebook groups or reddit subs, where interesting threads from followed communities are pushed to the user. An example with activitypub.

2) Community-owners pick and choose forums from other communities to display alongside their own. The founder of Lemmy made an adorable demo of the idea,



This looks like a regular forum index except one of the forums, "lemmyBB", is not local. It exists on an entirely different community with different users, yet both local and foreign users can post within that forum. Imagine adding stevehoffman's "audio hardware" forum to your tech community, or realcavsfans adding a forum from kingsfans for some healthy NBA debate.

 

[Alternadiv]

Does this mean I would ideally want to link my forum with my competitors' forums so all of our content can be viewed from my sites or theirs? That sounds cool for the users, but why would I or the competing sites want to work together like that?

(genuine question because I'm slow to understand this fediverse stuff)

 

[TPerry]

Does this mean I would ideally want to link my forum with my competitors' forums so all of our content can be viewed from my sites or theirs? That sounds cool for the users, but why would I or the competing sites want to work together like that?

(genuine question because I'm slow to understand this fediverse stuff)

Pretty much... and exactly that. It's basically a user benefit... not an admin benefit.... especially if that admin is running a large site. Now, if it's a small site that doesn't get a lot of traffic.. it has a LOT to benefit from this. Just think of it as a "modern" webring with some tweaks.
I'd rather see robust built-in SSO concentrated on instead of something like this.

 

[TPerry]

And that would enable people to browse other forums from any federated forum

Wow... just what I want... my users going to other sites to participate. I think most of us are more concerned with getting adequate participation on our sites instead of worrying how to push traffic to others. BTW, similar things have been attempted before... and like all "wild wild west, free to run" type adventures... they tend to collapse on themselves because there is very little, if any, official structure/control.
Granted... for the users it's great.. for the admins (especially of large sites that depend on traffic for income) it's going to be difficult gaining traction.

 

[80sDude]

Wow... just what I want... my users going to other sites to participate. I think most of us are more concerned with getting adequate participation on our sites instead of worrying how to push traffic to others. BTW, similar things have been attempted before... and like all "wild wild west, free to run" type adventures... they tend to collapse on themselves because there is very little, if any, official structure/control.
Granted... for the users it's great.. for the admins (especially of large sites that depend on traffic for income) it's going to be difficult gaining traction.

Lol yeah I agree. It’s bad enough I hardly have members and those that I have I’d like to hold on too.

 

[sub_ubi]

It's cute to see arguments about whether federation will be popular or not, while it's attracting 1.1 billion posts per month and growing on entirely free software.

Fediverse Observer checks all servers in the fediverse and gives you an easy way to find a home using a map or list.

Fediverse Servers Status. Find a Fediverse server to sign up for, find one close to you!

fediverse.observer

Does this mean I would ideally want to link my forum with my competitors' forums so all of our content can be viewed from my sites or theirs? That sounds cool for the users, but why would I or the competing sites want to work together like that?

(genuine question because I'm slow to understand this fediverse stuff)

It depends on who you federate with, and how that federation is implemented, whether it's more like 1) or 2). Servers de-federate from other servers all the time for a variety of reasons, from legal issues to culture clashes.

 

[Suzanne O]

Whilst it's cute, the whole thing smells of reddit which is a red flag in my view.
Great that you have found another pwa that xenforo can use.
But be aware of how many of your forum members hate it.
Xenforo is not a social media platform. It's also not free forum software.

 

[MySiteGuy]

I think it’s like a Facebook of forums. I’m not sure what to make of it though. Invision just released something similar to this.

What they released is closer to a feed aggregator for forums than it is a decentralized platform.

 

[Dad.]

What they released is closer to a feed aggregator for forums than it is a decentralized platform.

But I think they have the better idea. Aggregate as a feed, not as a new platform with new rules. Each community owner stays in control.

 

[sub_ubi]

They could (and should) have done the same thing with ActivityPub.

 

[MySiteGuy]

But I think they have the better idea. Aggregate as a feed, not as a new platform with new rules. Each community owner stays in

Someone already did something similar on the aggregation side more than a decade ago, and it never went far after the initial buzz was over. People simply don't use directories and feed aggregation sites like they used to.

I'd love to see something successful, but Invision isn't high on my list of companies I trust when it comes to drastic changes to licensing and/or the platform without much (or any) advance notice. Decentralized is the way to go.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

If he makes changes to Twitter that you don't like you're pretty much screwed; you have no other options.

Incorrect assumption.. there are other alternatives out there... but not all of them are "joined at the waist".

Yeah, I wasn't clear enough. You technically have other options, but all the people and content you care about have to move over to a completely different website. Whereas, with the fediverse, you can simply join a new server and everything can be continued.

Though I don't know all the details of that continuation, and it depends on the implementation, and I think Mastodon and Lemmy both work differently right now. IE: with Lemmy, for a user to migrate to another instance you have to make a new account on the other instance. There is no migration functionality yet.

I'm not entirely sure how it works for servers. I read that each Lemmy server hosts all the content of every federated server, so if one server decides to defederate, then the users can simply switch to another one without any loss. But I'm not sure that's correct. In my experience, when a mod of Lemmy.world deletes a post, that post is unavailable on all Lemmy instances.

Wow... just what I want... my users going to other sites to participate. I think most of us are more concerned with getting adequate participation on our sites instead of worrying how to push traffic to others.

Your users go to other sites, and other site's users come to yours. It's a mutual benefit, that will benefit all forum owners who are currently losing millions of users to the social media giants.

One example may be that there are three very similar hardware forums. A person would be disinclined to visit each of them every day, but with a federation they could "subscribe" to each of them and visit one site to see them all. I think each of those forums would benefit, and doubly so if the users could use the aggregator site like people use reddit -- especially in regards to google search results.

But I think they have the better idea. Aggregate as a feed, not as a new platform with new rules. Each community owner stays in control.

I don't have a firm opinion on "feed agregator vs fully federated", but either way, each server/site still has their own rules and stays in control.

People simply don't use directories and feed aggregation sites like they used to.

I think it really depends on how it's implemented, especially for SEO. For example, I think a main reason why reddit has gotten so big is because it shows up at the top for most web searches, and people have started putting "reddit query" into google. If a forum fediverse/directory could mimic that, that should be the goal. And that should make forums a more viable and widely-used option.

One example may be BoardReader https://boardreader.com/ - a search engine for forums. I have never heard of it till recently. So while I now find it quite useful, it's usefulness is still overall very limited due to few people being able to learn about it.

 

[Ricsca]

@MaximilianKohler do you know how to insert your own forum inside boardreader?

 

[MySiteGuy]

One example may be BoardReader https://boardreader.com/ - a search engine for forums. I have never heard of it till recently. So while I now find it quite useful, it's usefulness is still overall very limited due to few people being able to learn about it.

Boardreader is the aggregator I was referring to. And there were others before it. Aggregators for forums don't bring you traffic. It's actually a barrier in my opinion. People have to a) know there is such a thing as a forum aggregator, b) search for the aggregator, c) see your content on the aggregator. Versus searching for the subject they are interested in directly on Google, Bing, etc.

 

[Dad.]

I'd love to see something successful, but Invision isn't high on my list of companies I trust when it comes to drastic changes to licensing and/or the platform without much (or any) advance notice. Decentralized is the way to go.

Could you provide any proof at all that this is what they did? Im not familiar with anything drastic they've done. Their pricing model, to me, has been consistent. And their platform has undergone continuous improvement. What are they doing wrong that you don't trust?

 

[MySiteGuy]

Could you provide any proof at all that this is what they did? Im not familiar with anything drastic they've done. Their pricing model, to me, has been consistent. And their platform has undergone continuous improvement. What are they doing wrong that you don't trust?

1. The recent announcement where individual components can no longer be purchased. You must now purchase all of them, raising the minimum cost of entry to $499.

2. The recent announcement where after the first year, you must pay a month-to-month maintenance fee. Essentially turning self-hosted into a quasi SAAS model. You can save all little paying the month to month a full year at a time, but it still raises the minimum annual cost to $199 IIRC.

3. The recent announcement that if you do not pay for upgrades for two years, your license is no longer eligible for upgrades, and you must purchase a full license again.

4. All of the above changes, they didn't actually announce it until after someone noticed they had changed the purchase/license page, and asked about it. They've done this before, rolling out changes without announcement.

5. The announcement last week they are closing their marketplace. This will include the ability to automatically install within the admin panel.

6. When they abruptly switched to no longer allowing you to download past versions you'd paid for. Essentially forcing license renewals on you if you needed to redownload because you didn't have a backup installation ZIP file.

7. Changing their licensed URL policy twice (that I know of).

8. Changing their perpetual license policy when they went from 3.x to 4.x.

9. Dropping applications from the suite, more than once.

10. Dropping the mobile app.

11. A history of censoring people who complain.

12. A history of banning people who complain.

13. Afraid of negative feedback to the point where feedback section posts require moderator approval.

14. Changing their support policies from community, to private ticket, then back to community with private ticket with a more limited period.

15. Reversing their "free" claim after version 2.01. Matt Mecham said "They say 2.0 won't be free - and it will be."

Some of these are minor, some are major. In totality, it does not bode well for me. There are more I've heard over the years but don't recall offhand.

I had very high hopes for them after their big improvements in customer support the past year and a half (or so). Only to end up being censored recently when trying to respond to Charles essentially belittling me in a feedback thread. I know of other people who were also censored or outright banned for giving them feedback they didn't want to hear in that thread. I've seen many people over the years talk of being banned or censored there.

 

[Suzanne O]

Sounds like a dodgey organisation who rip you off all the time!
Personally i'd avoid places that do this because of how rude they are towards people.
They sound like these guys at createaforum.com.
Webmaster is there only for the money and doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

I know of 3 other people who were also censored or outright banned for giving them feedback they didn't want to hear in that thread. I've seen many people over the years talk of being banned or censored there.

Where do people go to discuss things like that? The Admin Zone?

Versus searching for the subject they are interested in directly on Google, Bing, etc.

The problem is that forums usually don't show up in those regular results. They used to back in the day, but now it's all SEO blogs and giant sites like Reddit.

@MaximilianKohler do you know how to insert your own forum inside boardreader?

As far as I know, it works just like Google or Bing.

I'm still not understanding what a Fediverse is after reading about it.

Think of it like Facebook and Facebook groups, except the groups are individual websites/Xenforo forums, and there is no "Meta Inc" that dictates policy to those groups or you. You keep the benefits of having a single login, and being able to easily join, use, and search any Facebook group.

Right now it's your little forum vs Facebook, Reddit, etc. Why should someone take the time and effort to find, join, and participate in your little forum when it's easier to use Facebook, and there are more people on Facebook?

Whereas if all Xenforo forums were federated they'd get all the network-effect benefits that draw people in to the social media giants. They'd become "a social media giant" without most of the downsides of having a single owner (dictating policy and implementing user-unfriendly changes geared towards serving people ads).

Using Reddit is super easy because it's one site and you can subscribe to any subreddit you want. With forums, they're more difficult to find and you have to visit a bunch of different websites. Imagine if every subreddit was its own website/forum. If you could use forums like people use Reddit, that would be a big boon for forum usage.

Another example - Discord is popular because "that's where everyone is". If you want to use Signal instead, you can't. You have to use both Signal and Discord. With federation you can choose to use Signal only, and still be able to interact with Discord users.

Something as simple as making a Xenforo add-on to integrate BoardReader would be a good step. Perhaps many forums would opt not to, because they initially see it as driving traffic away from their forum to others'. But the more people that integrate it into their website, the more people learn about BoardReader, and then more people start using it to find forum content instead of other content on general search engines and social media giant sites. The long-term effect is beneficial for all forums, and Xenforo.

Yes, it would be great if Google and Bing had a "forum" tab to easily search for forum content. But we obviously can't rely on them, given the fact that forum usage has been declining in favor of other social media giant sites.

Same goes for a forum feed aggregator. Perhaps there already is one. But most of us wouldn't even think to look for one. But if you have it integrated with most Xenforo forums, then people learn about it and start using it.

Ironically, I just did a search on Ecosia for "forum feed aggregator" and the only top-10 result answering the question is on Reddit...

 

[TPerry]

Where do people go to discuss things like that? The Admin Zone?

That site has become an IPS "suck up"... so be prepared to get "roasted" over there if you complain to loudly about IPS.

The problem is that forums usually don't show up in those regular results.

Sorry... a bit ago I posted examples (done in a Chrome incognito window) that showed just the opposite... most of the search terms I used (which would be somewhat generic for the niches I searched in) had forums ranking near (if not) at the top of the list. I guess it really depends on what you are searching for.



Now, if I was searching on how to make a Bundt cake, peach cobbler or such... then yeah, the returns would probably be slightly different.

ronically, I just did a search on Ecosia for "forum feed aggregator" and the only top-10 result answering the question is on Reddit.

Ironically.. when I did it in an Chrome incognito window not signed in, none on the first page had to do with Reddit. Got a feeling that you spend quite a bit of time on Reddit, and that was reflected in your search results.

 

[MySiteGuy]

Where do people go to discuss things like that? The Admin Zone?

I've seen in brought up in multiple places. That includes xenforo.com when I last mentioned their censorship, someone replied it happened to them. And this wasn't any sort of moderation for being nasty to them, breaking rules, etc --- it was simply they wanted to control the narrative, making it look like the community at large was pleased.

I've never seen that kind of pettiness from Xenforo staff - they deserve credit for taking flak and letting it stay - only stepping in if people went over the line with nastiness or other rule breaking.

 

[MySiteGuy]

That site has become an IPS "suck up"... so be prepared to get "roasted" over there if you complain to loudly about IPS.

It doesn't help that Joel is a shill who'll cover for anything they did. He defended their practices about reviewing all addons, and now that they've dropped doing that.... he's defending it. And yes, I truly mean shill.