Profile posts and forums

[Morgain]

I'm not a fan of blog format and I love the richness of forums.
SO I was wondering about replacing the Profile posts area with a personal forum.
Could work for me on my SMALL boards.

I'm looking for your good minds to check the idea - have I missed a bad disadvantage?

Working out the implications -

Keeps communication style consistent across the board.
Display most recently updated thread AND most recent post at top. Paginate encourages longer conversations.
Can include media. Pictures, videos.
Profile forums do not appear on the node tree .
User option - Profile threads can be private to follows, private to visitors, or publicly integrated to What's New?
Have their own settings per usergroup to replace profile posts settings.
Possible levels - newcomer has one welcome thread - midcomer can start their own threads - veterans have ability to allow visitors to start threads and even mod them.

Might draw too much action away from main forums? So perhaps a display of the top 10 most active profile forums - just linking usernames + small avatars. Top of whats new?

 

[Shelley]

I'm not a fan of blog format and I love the richness of forums.
SO I was wondering about replacing the Profile posts area with a personal forum.
Could work for me on my SMALL boards.

I'm looking for your good minds to check the idea - have I missed a bad disadvantage?

Working out the implications -

Keeps communication style consistent across the board.
Display most recently updated thread AND most recent post at top. Paginate encourages longer conversations.
Can include media. Pictures, videos.
Profile forums do not appear on the node tree .
User option - Profile threads can be private to follows, private to visitors, or publicly integrated to What's New?
Have their own settings per usergroup to replace profile posts settings.
Possible levels - newcomer has one welcome thread - midcomer can start their own threads - veterans have ability to allow visitors to start threads and even mod them.

Might draw too much action away from main forums? So perhaps a display of the top 10 most active profile forums - just linking usernames + small avatars. Top of whats new?

The profile area can still do with a lot of work and still lacks that interactivity social aspect and many other factors I could mention. Many areas of it are cut down versions (no smilie usage) heck why not? Kier and mike have something against smilies now? Not a big deal to most but it hads to that warmly environment.

I recall participating in thread here in the early days regarding the profile area, it lacks alot of stuff and often in all products it's an area seriously neglected and not taken too seriously.

I think the profile area should be looked at like that retreat you goto each weekend where you get away from things where you have stuff to do, leisure it up where friends get together (if that makes sense).

Xenforo and every other forum product profile Area: Neglected

 

[Morgain]

Shelley very much agree.
Ive done quite a bit of customising - pulling info out of those horrible tabs and displaying it openly on the front.
So you can see lots of info about someone and of course click to PC them.
Most of that involved
a) adding info to the sidebar on left
b) making the profile posts area into a much narrower column, with a second column on the right for user created info.

I'm about to edit that a bit more. Thinking about the forum idea. But space is crowded ..
Also want to add a user album along the bottom. Or maybe put that in the second col and put user info along the bottom ? Not sure because it really needs to be flexible depending on whether the user's forum or album has content.

 

[Deepmartini]

How about brainstorming a list or screen mockups. Maybe a developer will make a "profile enhancement" addon that makes this section more interactive?

 

[Shelley]

How about brainstorming a list or screen mockups. Maybe a developer will make a "profile enhancement" addon that makes this section more interactive?

DigitalDoctor - Time for you to enter.

On a somewhat related note - Likes (post ratings is what I use) would be an extended model on the likes to expand on one little area where you profile rate status updates? it's something luke Foreman may look into but my understanding it's not a solution that can be developed in a few days. Seperate add-on? Profile Ratings?

Mini profile shop: Drag items to your followers & friends avatars automatically sending gifts where a text box pops up and you can send a short message. widgets/blocks possibly tab to go into on items/gifts received, by whom, when etc and so forth.

 

[Morgain]

mockup - most of this layout is in use on HM but not the substituted forum, and not the Gallery.
I was thinking of the gallery tab opening a new page
but also the gallery displaying 6 user selected thumbs along the bottom of the profile page/ or 6 most recent if user does not select.

 

[Morgain]

There was once an amazing vb profile widget on 3.0 series which let you select colours and to some extent move blocks by dragging them.
The colours had a miniature image of the page which updated to show you what it would look like.
It was amazing fun.

Some hated it because users dont always design good pages. I could see that being an issue on aforum about a professional designer where pages might reflect badly (though incorrectly) on their work.
But outside certain specialist areas it was a big success - we used to visit each other a lot to see latest designs. Also genrated support activity on main forums, ideas ... and cooperation because we helped each othr ... and friendly competition. Certainly a lot of activity which has to be a good thing.

 

[Morgain]

A bit more designing going on.
I really like the idea of a profile forum. Added the angle that the top thread is sticky and feeds the status message if post is by owner of profile.



Everything there is standard XF except the forum and the gallery, and a custom field for location I think.
In case it's not clear neither the profile forum nor the gallery exist yet, this is the design Ive given to a coder.