Users confused posting status updates instead to forum
Martok
Well-known member
No problem on my forum.
You could disallow newly registered members from making profile posts by removing the permissions from the Registered group, then set up a user group promotion to allow profile posts after a number of posts have been made. You could also write a guide explaining the purpose of posts and profile posts, then create a floating notice that links to this guide. That will hopefully educate members on the use of profile posts.
You could disallow newly registered members from making profile posts by removing the permissions from the Registered group, then set up a user group promotion to allow profile posts after a number of posts have been made. You could also write a guide explaining the purpose of posts and profile posts, then create a floating notice that links to this guide. That will hopefully educate members on the use of profile posts.
Cyb3r
Well-known member
Xenforo has a complete different set of phrases and functionalities compared to other forum softwares, for example Private Messages as Personal Conversations, so yeah I see a lot of members who didn't use xenforo before getting little confused about some forum functionalities.
Martok
Well-known member
I think it unlikely that users would not to realise these are one and the same, especially as you find Conversations under Inbox at the top right of the forums and you have to send conversations to specific people.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
This has happened a couple of times where users confuse a conversation with a public thread, as they look very similar.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Yes.
As Martok suggests disallow profile posts for initial registrations then have an upgrade so after x posts they get a secondary user group allowing them if you want.
Personally I just have no profile posts on my forum as nobody wants them anyway.
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Cyb3r
Well-known member
They don't even know where to find those inbox and new features.
Most of them are used to use vB so no wonder.
FredC
Well-known member
This is exactly how I did it, as I was having the exact same issue as the OP with profile posts. The solution worked as intended and I no longer have that problem.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Yes, we have been had people posting their forum questions as a reply to the welcome PC..They don't even know where to find those inbox and new features.
Most of them are used to use vB so no wonder.
Of course we have since adapted the welcome PC to make it a bit clearer, with link to the forum user guide.
ActorMike
Well-known member
You only have 152 members on your forum, no offense, but that's not really a good way to determine if users are confused. I just used a plugin to disable the function, we had 39 people "get confused". The developers need to eliminate this function based upon what I've witnessed or at least make it optional. Not sure what's going on with this, but someone probably thought it was a good idea, but this is not facebook, it's a forum. User status updates serve no purpose.
Regarding educating users, people don't read directions, so that's a waste of time, IMHO.
K.I.S.S.
Cyb3r
Well-known member
You know you have the option to disable it?
Options > Node & Forum List > New Profile Posts to Display on Forum List set it to 0
Or you can completely disable it based on usergroups.
Martok
Well-known member
You asked if anyone else had problems, I answered. You didn't specify you only wanted answers from forums over a specific size. Besides my response is still valid, with any sample you will likely get some numpties. Clearly your forum has more than mine.
We won't. There are use cases for profile posts and, generally, I see them being used appropriately in most forums I see.
There are already options, as stated above, that make it optional. Including preventing the posting of profile posts with permissions, or reducing the visibility of the feature (such as by removing it from the forum list). So, if the feature doesn't suit your community, you should be able to find a solution in that.
ActorMike
Well-known member
What's the purpose of the plugin then? Does it still show up in the user profile or something?
ActorMike
Well-known member
Understood, but why is there a plugin to remove it? Do the options not fully remove it? I don't see how this function could be useful to anyone, all it has done on our forum is cause mass confusion. I can't imagine the havoc on an even larger forum. As long as it can be fully disabled I see no harm it it being optional.
Cyb3r
Well-known member
It's a core functionality not a plugin, yes it can be seen on member profile page, unless you completely revoke profile posts permissions to all usergroups.
Xenforo is in between social and forums, so most of it's functionalities is like other social networks, that's how xenforo works if you don't like it you might be interested in other old school board softwares, which will be dead soon enough as most users looking for something social more than threads and posts.
ActorMike
Well-known member
Someone created an add on (see link below) to remove the functionality, so it would seem whatever option to disable this function built into the core doesn't fully remove it. Just trying to clarify why this add on is necessary if this can be disabled.
Add On- Profile Page 1.5
Regarding it being different than other boards, that's all "fine and dandy" assuming that the users can use it without being confused.
My observation is the status update feature has caused mass confusion, and we have a wide age group of users, some of which have never even used a forum. They think they are posting a question to the forum for whatever reason, and it really doesn't matter why, it's happening, and it's not good.
Thanks for everyone's responses!
Cyb3r
Well-known member
That add-on does not give you the option to disable profile posts functionality, it's only combining all the tabs in the member profile to show them as stand alone page, the option to disable profile posts is already there by default.
erich37
Well-known member
yes, it happens quite a lot.....
which is why I have made several suggestions in order to make this more obvious to the user and minimize confusion, e.g.:
- to make to "Create New Thread"-Button bigger
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/post-new-thread-button-change-position.101833/#post-965347
- remove the Status-Box at the top when a user signs-up (move the location of the "status-box" from top to the bottom.)
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...sonal-details-is-confusing.30013/#post-511987
- change wording
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...s-towards-new-forum-posts.100679/#post-952564
etc., etc.
... until this issue was driving me so crazy to come to just this idea:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/is-it-possible-to-run-xf-without-the-forum-interface.12474/
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Divvens
Well-known member
6000+ members (stating the number of members since you brought up a problem for another member numbers) and no issue of this.
It depends on the demographic you are targeting I guess, we have many first time forum users and everyone understood the difference between profile posts and threads. In-fact in today's age everyone knows about a "personal profile" and "profile updates/status updates" - it is clearly marked so by XenForo too (Status updates, comments etc.)
Profile posts/updates/comments also help users socialize and get to know each other better, especially when it isn't appropriate to comment on a thread and go off-topic.
It depends on the demographic you are targeting I guess, we have many first time forum users and everyone understood the difference between profile posts and threads. In-fact in today's age everyone knows about a "personal profile" and "profile updates/status updates" - it is clearly marked so by XenForo too (Status updates, comments etc.)
Profile posts/updates/comments also help users socialize and get to know each other better, especially when it isn't appropriate to comment on a thread and go off-topic.
