Lack of interest CC'ing threads on multiple forums

[Southfork1]

The best content on my forum is found in the topical sub-forums but those threads just don't get the exposure they should. A lot of visitors just park themselves in the general topics area and stay there. I think it's worth a change to not only share with the bulk of the visitors the best content, but also to reward the OP of that good content by providing it more exposure.

So how can I better expose some of the content within the sub-forums? I suppose I could slap topical prefixes on them and move the content to within the main forum, but the problem there is the fluff discussion of the main forum would reduce the visibility of the topical discussions, save for when a new discussion with that prefix pops up, hopefully getting a few to use the prefixes. Not ideal, and I don't think it would be received well by the groups of people putting effort into the sub-forums. I could use sidebar widget, but that's not what I'm looking for.

Instead...

Suggestion: The option for threads within a forum to be CC'd in other forums? Show the original forum name before the thread title so they know where it's coming from. Make this option available to be applied against any forum, and individual threads in case it's within a forum not set for all topics to be CC'd somewhere else.

This might seam a bit redundant to the prefix approach, but in my forums case the suggestion here would benefit us. Anyone else?

 

[Mouth]

The option for threads within a forum to be CC'd in other forums? Show the original forum name before the thread title so they know where it's coming from.

Wouldn't this issue ....

but the problem there is the fluff discussion of the main forum would reduce the visibility of the topical discussions

... still apply though?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Well you can actually force prefixes, I think that option is under the prfix tab of the forum in node list.

I don't think copying threads is a good idea for SEO as it will be duplicate content

Better solution I think is to educate your forum members. Move threads and tell people why you a removing them and hope they get the idea sooner or later

 

[dougdirac]

Somewhat related. I'd like certain threads to be able to show up two or more sub-forums. I'm sure many sites have this same problem. There are certain threads that really could be categorized in two different sub-forums and users and mods alike are unsure which it should belong. Why not both.

 

[EQnoble]

The best content on my forum is found in the topical sub-forums but those threads just don't get the exposure they should. A lot of visitors just park themselves in the general topics area and stay there. I think it's worth a change to not only share with the bulk of the visitors the best content, but also to reward the OP of that good content by providing it more exposure.

So how can I better expose some of the content within the sub-forums? I suppose I could slap topical prefixes on them and move the content to within the main forum, but the problem there is the fluff discussion of the main forum would reduce the visibility of the topical discussions, save for when a new discussion with that prefix pops up, hopefully getting a few to use the prefixes. Not ideal, and I don't think it would be received well by the groups of people putting effort into the sub-forums. I could use sidebar widget, but that's not what I'm looking for.

Instead...

Suggestion: The option for threads within a forum to be CC'd in other forums? Show the original forum name before the thread title so they know where it's coming from. Make this option available to be applied against any forum, and individual threads in case it's within a forum not set for all topics to be CC'd somewhere else.

This might seam a bit redundant to the prefix approach, but in my forums case the suggestion here would benefit us. Anyone else?

I have done development related to exposure of sections needing promotion as a custom job for someone and after consulting with them may be able to make it available to you as well.

If you would like to see it and then decide that it could benefit your goal I may be able to help you out with this so feel free to start a convo with me.

Somewhat related. I'd like certain threads to be able to show up two or more sub-forums. I'm sure many sites have this same problem. There are certain threads that really could be categorized in two different sub-forums and users and mods alike are unsure which it should belong. Why not both.

Having the same content on two different URLs can penalize your site. There are ways to do what you are suggesting without duplicate urls but it is most definitely custom development and is not something I can see happening in the core of XF at least in the 1.x.x line but this is just my guess.

 

[dougdirac]

Having the same content on two different URLs can penalize your site. There are ways to do what you are suggesting without duplicate urls but it is most definitely custom development and is not something I can see happening in the core of XF at least in the 1.x.x line but this is just my guess.

The way I see it, it wouldn't be two different URLs. There is only one thread. It just shows up on the thread list of more than one forum. I'd like the forum a thread is in to act more like label in gmail. You can have a hierarchy to your categorization, but you can also just add another label when something belongs in more than one category.

A thread about bats can be found in the "mammals" forum (which also might include threads about mice) but it also can be found in the "animals with wings" forum (which also might include threads about birds).

 

[EQnoble]

I am not arguing that it can't be done as I said it can be done with custom development and I am not saying it is not a good idea especially for your uses, but personally I feel like it is more of a niche thing and would benefit a very small fragment of forum owners...and again this is all just my own opinion

In your case (the animal kingdom) I can see it being beneficial but for most sites I visit it would be useless and in some cases it would actually become confusing and make me want to visit another site that uses point a->b->c logic rather than the everything is everything logic.

If you could name more than 5 completely unique niches (1 being the animal kingdom example) that would benefit from implementation of this idea I would gladly support it.

 

[dougdirac]

Is there an addon that can do it?

My actual use case is for a car forum. There are an increasing number of vehicle models. Each model has it's own forum, and each of those forums has a very similar set of about five sub-forums. Some of these vehicles have many common features, and often there are threads that could equally apply to and are often about more than one vehicle.

For example, say there is a thread about adaptive cruise control. For model A, this would be in Vehicles-->Model A-->Audio and Electronics. But it turns out that model B has the same feature and the discussion is covering both vehicles. So the same thread should also exist in Vehicles-->Model B-->Audio and Electronics.

So someone visiting the site wanting to know about "audio and electronics" for their own vehicle would go to the appropriate Audio and Electronics subforum and would see all the threads that only apply to their own vehicle as well as those threads that apply multiple vehicles as well as their own.

Also on my forum we have regional subforums. Often there are threads that apply to multiple regions.

We have a Classifeds/For Sale forum with categorized sub-forums. Sometimes an item for sale could fit in multiple categories.

There are a few other cases that would be useful for my own forum but are probably too esoteric to be of value to this discussion.


So some of what I'd like to accomplish could be done with prefixes or tags. But I think people really do prefer a hierarchical a->b->c logic when looking for something. So you need the structure that categorized forums provide. However, I would like the flexibility for content to exist in multiple categories.

 

[EQnoble]

So yeah for your case this makes complete sense and yes most can be done with prefixes/tags etc but in that sense moderation will have to be on point because in any event it seems as that would be by default reliant on users to apply the correct organizational labels which we both know could cause you a wee bit of hours.

However you ask about about existing addons so I did a quick skim through the resource listings pertaining to threads and came across these two but having never used them I can not really tell you if they fit your application.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/forum-digest.2668/
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/threads-from-node-in-othrer-node.3929/

Best bet is to clone your site and try one of em out before you consider custom development and I say that because I feel as though you want this sooner than later and if XF did decide to include this in the core it wouldn't be a jimmyjob and as such even if they started designing an implementation of it today (that I'm pretty sure they are not going to do) you would not see it for months at least and that is being conservative as they need to make sure it is implemented in a way that can benefit anyone and not put massive overhead on those with light servers.