I wish XenForo would consider pivoting to an OSS model like what nodeBB has done. Continue to sell the cloud offering and have paid support plans for those of us that want quicker turnaround on bug fixes (I'd pay for it).
I still find it crazy the homepage of xenforo has customer logos and when you click on them, it links to their community using alternative software to xenforo...
Just took a look at the XenForo customer scroll pane... what did catch my attention is that the forum software that the various sites migrated to (no longer using XF) had something all in coming:
1. Minimalistic Design.
2. Less focus on the user 'fluff' and more focus on the posted content.
3. 'Endless' scrolling.
4. Corporate.
Which has me contemplating something about forums as we all know, and not just limited to XenForo:
What can be done to streamline discussion forums so that they do not take a backseat in todays age of social media?
There is no denying discussion forums no longer have the golden appeal that social media (X, FB, Reddit, etc.) and rich media (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, etc.) websites can provide. Forums, from my point of view these days, are generally laser focused on a particular topic or product that a company/corporation provides and are no longer designed with 'community longevity' in mind. On the flipside, over the past five years in particular, community based forums have been seemingly losing out on user interactions and those users migrated to other mediums.
Which leads me to the following questions stemming from that thought and my own initial question (layering questions now!):
- Is it the need for real-time content to show up (Facebook Comments like)?
- Does a forum need to be rethought at the design level (Discourse Designs)?
- Does a forum need better gamification as a means to capture users (Reddit)?
- Does a forum simply need to be streamlined to support faster discussion (Discord)?