Lack of interest [Suggestion] Allow threads to be posted to multiple forums...

[BirdOPrey5]

I know this isn't the most often asked feature but I made a mod to do this for some other forum software and couldn't live without it...

Basically I want/need a way that when a thread is posted (or edited) I can have it show up in multiple forums if I choose.

In my mod I read threads from about a dozen forums and load them all into my 'off topic' forum using a relatively simple if statement in forumdisplay.php that is "if in off topic" get threads from a bunch of forum id's, otherwise just get threads from the requested forum.

I wouldn't care how it was implemented, either my way or with native support for multiple forums per thread, but I wouldn't be able to live without this.

 

[Erik]

Creating a thread and having it mirrored in other forums would be fantastic. It would fit into one category but show up in others, but clicking it would all be the same thread so everyone can talk about the same topic in different forums without having two different discussions on the same subject.

I like that approach.

As long as there is some indication that it's mirrored so users don't get confused. Perhaps a Mirrored: prefix like the Moved: prefix in current forum software.

 

[Onimua]

As long as there is some indication that it's mirrored so users don't get confused. Perhaps a Mirrored: prefix like the Moved: prefix in current forum software.

I'm not really worried about confusion. It's the same thread, just shows up in multiple places, so they'll see all the messages, alerts, and replies when they click it.

 

[Tigratrus]

If you set up your categories correctly, there should really only be one place to post a thread.

Respectfully disagree.

The human mind is generally a pretty messy place, and there are faaaaar too many things where categorization is a subjective thing. There certainly ARE forum niches in which categorization is clear cut and unambiguous, but there are certainly others where it's not so clear cut.

And there are always *always* members that don't GET the forum system regardless of how logical and clear your forum categories are. This system would provide a way for them to just choose one that are possibly right. It also opens the door for some much better community interaction while still having content being well categorized for those that are reading/researching rather than posting.

 

[Tigratrus]

It's an old question:

Do you setup a lot of very specific forums so that each thread/topic type has a specific area to go at the risk of fragmenting your community interaction that it falls below the critical mass to sustain a real community?

Or

Do you keep to a minimum number of forums to encourage community interaction (the lifeblood of any UGC site) and accept that there's going to be a lot of different types of content mish mashed together which may make it hard for browsing guests to find the kind of info they are looking for. Searching isn't always a valid answer as sometimes people are looking for inspiration, not question answer.

This solution seems like it would kinda let you do both, and from what we've seen of the 301 redirect capability of XF, it may well be exceedingly well setup to offer this as an *option*. Note that it's being discussed as an optional function, as it wouldn't be useful to everyone .

 

[Kevin]

If I have a site about cooking, would my brand-new chocolate chip cookie recipe go in the "New Recipes" forum, the "All About Cookies" forum, or the "Chocolate Lovers" forum? Categorisation is difficult because real-world items fit into more than one category. Categories are really only tags or labels with the limitation of only applying one.

Well said.

 

[Forsaken]

I'd love to see a way to mirror posts as well.

However, I would want one click deleting to go with this (Delete one topic in one forum, and it deletes all) in case it is abused by members (Unless there is a permission system in place, so that you can set it to be for staff, or specific groups only).

 

[BirdOPrey5]

As long as there is some indication that it's mirrored so users don't get confused. Perhaps a Mirrored: prefix like the Moved: prefix in current forum software.

On my forum I use a mini icon to show what forum the thread originates from so users know before they click on it they are viewing a thread from another forum.

It's an old question:

This solution seems like it would kinda let you do both, ... .

That was exactly my thinking... I now get to 'file' threads into appropriate forums for easier access later and SEO reasons, but they continue to be seen by everyone browsing my main Off-Topic which is the vast majority of my traffic- my users don't want to be bothered visiting 18 different forum categories... and many people never use the "New Posts" functionality, so they'd miss threads moved to appropriate forums.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

I'd love to see a way to mirror posts as well.

However, I would want one click deleting to go with this (Delete one topic in one forum, and it deletes all) in case it is abused by members (Unless there is a permission system in place, so that you can set it to be for staff, or specific groups only).

Yes, because it's 1 thread that simply shows up in multiple locations you only need to delete it one time. (or edit it, or reply to it, etc...)

 

[Dean]

Extremely fasinating discussion. Several things that I have been stuggling with being discussed.

I would like to ensure threads *don't* get cross posted to multiple forums as it's confusing. If your forums are set up and defined correctly, cross posting will be minimised.

If you have a news, reviews, Flat screen tv forums, and a thread dedicated to Panasonic, then what happens if someone sees a review of a new Panasonic TV, considers it news and posts it in your news forum? And the next person considers it a review and puts it in the review forum, and the next person puts it in your Panasonic thread?

3 different threads, 3 different places.

(I am only using this as an example, I've not been on your forum for while, I am paraphrasing what happens on my forum)

 

[Peggy]

Allowing threads to be posted to multiple forums would drive me over and above insanity.

 

[Onimua]

Allowing threads to be posted to multiple forums would drive me over and above insanity.

I agree, it's a practice I haven't seen before (usually if it fits in more than one forum there's a "general" forum those kinds of threads are put into), but no harm in trying to figure out how to best execute it for those who do it this way.

 

[Kevin]

Allowing threads to be posted to multiple forums would drive me over and above insanity.

You'd be surprised how useful it comes in handy. Instead of "forums" think of some "blogs" out there... when you create a new entry you don't assign it to a category but rather assign it some tag words. Those "tags" might be a single word or a phrase. So in our example we create a new blog post about the failed Knight Rider remake. For the tags, we use "Knight Rider", "NBC", and "KITT" (Hey, can't talk about Knight Rider without KITT ). Now when we show a list of tags that have been used we see those three tags in the list. Now the fun part... no matter which tag I click on I will see the new entry. One entry, multiple tags.

Now getting back to forums, tradition has been to assign that entry to a specific forum. In our example, we may have posted in a forum named "TV Shows" or similar. On the same site we might have a forum each of the major networks in the US, "NBC" being amongst them. A visitor going to the NBC forum would never see the post but a visitor going to the TV Shows forum would.

But if we think outside of the traditional design a bit, let's get rid of creating individual forum names and instead in our ACP we specify a list of pre-defined tags. Instead of a showing a "forum index" we'd see something that looks identical to it but instead it would be a "tags index" (or we could still call it "forum index" so our community members don't get thrown off). Now instead of going to a specific forum and then creating an entry I instead go straight to an option to create an entry. We create our new entry about the failed Knight Rider TV show and from the list of pre-defined tags available to me I select both "TV Shows" & "NBC" to be used. Now when visitors come to our site and view the index page (either our "forum index" or "tags index") and click on either "TV Shows" or "NBC" they would view the new entry. When they view the entry it would have a unique URL identifier to it so the SE bots see it only once instead of as duplicate content. When visitors click on "What's New" (or similar) it would only show up only once (since, after all, we only created one entry). When visitors who are only interested in "NBC" visit the site and click on the corresponding link from the index page they would see they entry. When visitors who are only interested in "TV Shows" visit the site and click on the corresponding link from the index page they would see the entry.

I would love to be able to do something like that.

 

[Tigratrus]

^^
Exactly. There's only one thread, you're just letting people see it in the area that *they* find it most intuitive to look in. And the search engines would be happy because it's really only one page with a unique URL, thus no duplicate content, just more than one way to GET to that content, and there's nothing at *all* wrong with that .

I can totally understand that many folks wouldn't be happy with this method, but clearly there are quite a few of us that would be, and honestly XF seems to be ideally suited for it given the way the only important part of the url is the id #. So make it optional. Use it if you see benefit in it, don't if you don't like it.

Personally I think it's a nice hybrid between the old school forum system and some of the newer variants that have NO specific forums and do all thread grouping by tags. Now *that* option doesn't appeal to me as too many people would type thing in with typos, unique abbreviations etc and you'd never be able to find anything, it would likely end up as a chaotic mess. This however still gives you excellent control on the available options, it just makes the site more adaptable, gives you greater interaction AND lets you have highly specialized forum categorization to aid those that want to browse a very narrowly defined topic.

 

[Biker]

Creating a thread and having it mirrored in other forums would be fantastic. It would fit into one category but show up in others, but clicking it would all be the same thread so everyone can talk about the same topic in different forums without having two different discussions on the same subject.

I like that approach.

I'm seeing a LOT of query bloat with something like this. Not something I'd want or even contemplate using.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

I'm seeing a LOT of query bloat with something like this. Not something I'd want or even contemplate using.

Not exactly sure what you mean by 'query bloat' - my implementation uses no additional queries and any implementation I can think of would be fairly query efficient. The logic is already part of a major add-on.

 

[Tigratrus]

I'm seeing a LOT of query bloat with something like this. Not something I'd want or even contemplate using.

Que?

Why do you say that? I wouldn't think it would cause extra queries at all?
[edit]Didn't see BoP's response before mine, but the basic content remains unchanged. [/edit]

 

[Dean]

imho this should not be part of the stock code, it would make a nice mod though.

 

[Kevin]

imho this should not be part of the stock code, it would make a nice mod though.

If implemented in a fashion similar in my example to Peggy above, then it'd just be a matter of allowing the users to only selected from an individual pre-defined tag. For those who prefer traditional forum paradigm then nothing would be different from what they are used to today while others could allow for multiple tag selections to take advantage of it.

 

[Erik]

Very interesting idea Kevin, although seeing as I wouldn't use this (and I'm guessing most forum owners wouldn't), personally I would rather see it in a mod than in the stock install.

 

[Ahmed]

I think it can be done with something like the announcements, or maybe in a better way.
Anyway, I can see the need for such feature from time to time, and it importance will definitely vary from a site owner to another.

+1 for this feature.