Well, this is the creator of StackOverflow and Stack Exchange, so there is some reputation going on for him.
Let's analyze the features, since I believe that XenForo can learn from other packages and steal/implement the best features.
Infinite Scroll
You don't like it? I kind of do. I think the navigation breaks the engagement. You could be browsing a single page, then ... as you approach the bottom, more response load in.
The main issue to solve in here is the quick reply issue, since the infinite scroll kills it. But this is easily solvable, one click on "Reply" on the post and you go to the quick reply. There is some other usability challenges but I will say that most forums would like the increased time spent into the forums.
Reply while you read
Kind of cool, in theory. But I tried vBulletin 5 at the point at which it loaded the reply box just in the post that you were at (hit reply, a box comes for you to write the reply, no need to go to any quick reply section... hit send, and .. the reply goes to the bottom .. what?)
I could never get used to it.
Replies down the page
I find this ugly. vBulletin tried this actually, remember "replies to a post", or "post comments"? What is the feature actually called? The problem is that this is enforcing a hierarchical model on a flat designed forum, and it completely breaks. It just feels .. unnatural to me. If you notify the user now you need to scroll to the comment .. inside the reply. And now there is no way to reply to that or quote it. Ugh.
Links automatically expand
This is kind of cool actually. XenForo does it with media by expanding links to youtube and other media sites. I don't see why not this could be extended to expand Wikipedia and create snippets of pages.
Real time updates
Yeah, we kind of need this. The XenForo devs need to let go the "it would be too server intensive", and just give me an AJAX call with the new content while I'm on the page.
As apps advance, we are getting used to this. Twitter puts a message (10 new replies, load them?), Facebook just keeps refreshing the News Feed. At this rate people are going to forget the refresh button exists.
Paste to share images
How do they do it? I would love if this worked flawlessly
Log in with … anything
Why, oh... why, does XenForo does NOT have this?
This is ridiculous, if they provided Facebook login might as well go all the way and implement Google and Twitter too
The login is the one thing too fragile I have trouble just using an add-on. It is way too important. If the login is messed up the whole site is messed up.
Moderation that scales with the community
I kind of like the social moderation, though I don't think most of the forums would use it. This is increasingly important as the community grows to the thousands. Finding new moderators every month is not an easy task.
.... etc
.... some things XenForo already has so I won't even discuss them
- Remembers your place - thread read dates
- Notifications - XenForo got them
- Reply while you read - save draft ?
- Search
- Responsive design
Xenforo should put this feature in mind without causing high server load.
