Missing: Social Groups + Group-forums

[erich37]

XenForo is great as it is, but I think one of the Core-Features which are still missing are some sort of "Groups" so that users can associate themselves to certain Groups.

Maybe also having Group-Forums for each of those Groups ?

For example, XING.com is using Group-Forums (public or invitation-based), which can be applied for by moderators to "run" a certain Group, so people can set-up their own Group-Forum based on their interest and they can invite already existing members or people who are not yet members of your website to join this specific Group.

So this would be free viral-marketing for your very own Forum.

Also see this suggestion:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-replace-members-page-with.2773/

 

[chipy100]

Please do not add social groups. Just dedicate your product to forums.

 

[Forsaken]

Please do not add social groups. Just dedicate your product to forums.

Groups tend to be a major part of forums; people with similar ideals and opinions will often group together and giving them a place to talk is valid.

vBulletin did this feature badly, but with alerts and other features already included with XF, social groups are likely to be a great feature.

 

[Dean]

I keep asking myself, what if vb3.8 had a xf type notification system, where people could be notified when new content was put up in a social group.

?

 

[Forsaken]

I keep asking myself, what if vb3.8 had a xf type notification system, where people could be notified when new content was put up in a social group.
 
?

Then it would have been adopted by much more of the community .

With the follower and alert system, blogs and galleries would get a much needed feature for keeping members up to date with one another. 

 

[jonsidneyb]

As long as they can be completely disabled without leaving any trace whatsoever on my platform... I have no use for them in any shape or form. Obviously, everyone has different wishes.

Me too

 

[Veer]

My vote goes for Social Groups.

 

[Col. Hajj]

A Social Group system that actually works would make me very happy. I run and international site dedicated to a game that you play face to face with other people. I need Social Groups to allow people of different countries and states a place to easily connect and interact with other players in their local area.

Do Social Groups right, and people will use them.

 

[Waddy]

I think a feature like this is going to depend very much on your forum, if it's going to be a fully featured system I think it would be better as an add-on as for a lot of forums it is just going to be unneeded bloat.

 

[Booth]

Social groups never took off on my sites I'm afraid. On another site I'm thinking of converting there may be more scope for them.

 

[Markos]

The social groups is IMHO useless...

 

[feldon30]

It's like anything else. If XenForo does it, Kier and Mike want to do it the right way, not a bolt-on half-hearted feature.

The concept of Social Groups is important to me. All it takes is trying to have a nice conversation a few times, only to be interrupted by a rude jerk butting in, to wish you could start a selective forum-within-a-forum.

 

[Waddy]

Could that not be overcome with a simple ignore feature? I'm not against this idea as an add-on, i just think it is somewhat of a divergence from the core product, and for it it to be as feature rich as people want it needs separate development.

 

[Alice]

Developed the right way, social groups can enable our members to run their own mini-forum within the main forum, I adore the whole concept of social groups on forums but have yet to see anyone who can develop it properly.

 

[AmericanForum.com]

Developed the right way, social groups can enable our members to run their own mini-forum within the main forum, I adore the whole concept of social groups on forums but have yet to see anyone who can develop it properly.

That's exactly what we need for AmericanForum.com ... allowing members to run a forum within our forum.

 

[Dean]

Personal Conversations could be a start, sort of. If they could be searched and have attachments.

 

[Waddy]

Developed the right way, social groups can enable our members to run their own mini-forum within the main forum, I adore the whole concept of social groups on forums but have yet to see anyone who can develop it properly.

But you want the main focus of your members to be the public forums, otherwise you might as well start a social networking site. PMs are needed because you sometimes need to share private info, convesations are a step up from this and a nice feature. I presume you could remove the limit of six people in a conversation and then you would pretty much have a private mini-forum, I suspect the limit of six people in a conversation is not a technical limit, as well as preventing mass spam it also encourages people to keep posting in the public forums.

 

[darkon]

Developed the right way, social groups can enable our members to run their own mini-forum within the main forum, I adore the whole concept of social groups on forums but have yet to see anyone who can develop it properly.

Why should i want a forum inside the forum?
People should use the public boards to the benefit of ALL members, and not only a selected group. If you want discuss something in privat do it with private conversation.

 

[erich37]

Why should i want a forum inside the forum?
People should use the public boards to the benefit of ALL members, and not only a selected group. If you want discuss something in privat do it with private conversation.

yeah, Group-Forums might not be needed for everyone, but have a look at this Discussion:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-replace-members-page-with.2773/


*****

 

[AmericanForum.com]

Why should i want a forum inside the forum?
People should use the public boards to the benefit of ALL members, and not only a selected group. If you want discuss something in privat do it with private conversation.

I agree with you but not all forums are created equal ... for AmericanForum.com this will be key to our decision to which software to go with.

 

[The Geek]

The problem with vB's Social Groups was little to no visibility. New discussions appear in groups you belong to? You will only find out by crawling back through each of your Groups via the poor interface to check. Due to this design I have seen very few vB groups take off (at all).

Regardless, why are people fighting against a feature? That's crazy stuff. Just because YOU don't want it doesn't mean it isn't useful for others.