Much appreciated Sal, and same to you too.
See now, I really do find this to be entirely reasonable.
Frankly I'm not seeing any issue whatsoever, beyond the necessary work-as with all good things-that would of course be required in order to achieve this.
As you've pointed out, it would be optional, therefore those who may be interested can freely choose to utilize the additional tools an add-on such as you've described could potentially enable/—/while those who may not be interested in this, they can simply choose to ignore it altogether and continue on as they freely choose.
So imo the potential benefits of having your optional add-on idea made a reality and available, outweigh any potential detriments—of which seem essentially negligible.
Yeah I absolutely agree.
Actually have tried doing this myself too, using, among others, my Farcebook account several months ago.
I was able to encourage a number of individuals whom I'm acquainted with irl to join our community fora...
however it basically seems they found themselves completely lost in the highly structured oldskool-XF-fora environment. Almost like it's an alien environment and utterly confusing for them.
None have ever engaged with the fora community at all. At best, they occasionally pop in for a few minutes before gappin'.
And it got me thinking, why is that the case(?)
So I did a bit of research. Frankly it didn't take long to reach a conclusion-which is related to my prior post's mention of "narcissistic" traits.
From what I can tell, many FB, et al, users/addicts motivators, intentions & resulting expectations are primarily that of self-aggrandizement & immediate gratification via perceived social-validation.
Or in other words, they aren't actually concerned with socially engaging and interacting in any meaningful ways.
They simply seek continuous ego stoking and to be hand fed flashy distractions.
This is partly why I reckon your idea is not only quite reasonable, it is also likely one of the only possible ways to attract individuals who are now ever-increasingly accustomed to fast food junk SM and already just too bloody lazy & impatient to put any real effort into online social discourse.
I'll quickly add that one of the forums I'm co-admin at, the owner has loosely set it up with only 1 single forum and a constant stream of threads.
He's opted for this approach because he can't be bothered really, and I mean it is basic af, yet also has an elegance to it's simplicity.
It is proving to be quite effective too and has become an uncommonly populous + active community, also considering that it isn't a "niche" fora either.
However the biggest issue I see with his simplistic/lazy approach, is that this sacrifices the core fora and frankly I think it is wasteful in general.
So as you have highlighted, I don't see why we should not have the best of both worlds optionally available—and without having to discard one for the other.
Well, you can certainly include me as being interested and if the opportunity were presented, I would very likely be keen to provide assistance in whichever ways I may be able.
Regardless I'd love to see how your hybrid-social-fora is progressing, though I can appreciate prioritizing discretion & would respect your wishes for keeping the project's development private.
Anyways, I'll conclude here...
...
cheers
@Sal Collaziano