What do you think about XF's decision to hide user info in postbit?

[Kier]

Hover membercard posts --> http://xenforo.com/community/threads/show-membercard-on-avatar-hover.2895/

 

[Kim]

LOL cool

 

[AndyB]

Right now, the poll shows 72% or responders like the data where it is(n't), so it may not be a good candidate for an option, but should it arise that there are significant numbers of people who want the info and equally significant numbers who don't, then it would become something for which we'd look at providing an option.

Thank you for your thoughts on this Kier.

Please keep in mind that polls created here will have a huge bias because most are admins of forums. You really need to ask average users which they prefer and find easier to use.

One thing I noticed as a problem with showing details below the avatar is that search engines index this information. Ideally it would be best if that information would not be indexed along with the post data. I'm not sure what the best way would be to show the information, yet prevent search engines from indexing it.

 

[Onimua]

Thank you for your thoughts on this Kier.

Please keep in mind that polls created here will have a huge bias because most are admins of forums. You really need to ask average users which they prefer and find easier to use.

One thing I noticed as a problem with showing details below the avatar is that search engines index this information. Ideally it would be best if that information would not be indexed along with the post data. I'm not sure what the best way would be to show the information, yet prevent search engines from indexing it.

Administrators are also users of the software most of the time, so if they cant work with the software or don't like it for whatever the reason, chances are their users will not either.

 

[dutchbb]

One thing I noticed as a problem with showing details below the avatar is that search engines index this information. Ideally it would be best if that information would not be indexed along with the post data. I'm not sure what the best way would be to show the information, yet prevent search engines from indexing it.

This can be solved with a simple if statement, hiding the information for guests and thus S.E.. These kind of methods are also used by vBSEO for example.

 

[Dean]

One thing I noticed as a problem with showing details below the avatar is that search engines index this information. Ideally it would be best if that information would not be indexed along with the post data. I'm not sure what the best way would be to show the information, yet prevent search engines from indexing it.

This. This is reason I really like the way it works now with a clean post bit. I also plan on disabling signatures for the same reason when we start using xf.

Hopefully the popup member card will be easy to change to show custom profile fields.

 

[AndyB]

This can be solved with a simple if statement, hiding the information for guests and thus S.E.. These kind of methods are also used by vBSEO for example.

One thing I have done on my forum is to provide a near identical experience to those that are not logged in to those that are logged in. Ideally there would be a way for search engines to know that the content below the avatar should not be indexed.

 

[Allan]

I completely agree with it and will keep it that way on my own (XF) forum(s)

 

[Brandon_R]

One word, pure genius.

 

[dutchbb]

One thing I have done on my forum is to provide a near identical experience to those that are not logged in to those that are logged in. Ideally there would be a way for search engines to know that the content below the avatar should not be indexed.

ATM only Yahoo provides a 'nocontent' tag: http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2007/06/yahoo_robots_no.html.

 

[Paul B]

One word, pure genius.

That's two.

 

[khurt]

The postbit is a thumbnail for a person's profile. The purpose isn't to give total clarity, but to let you know whether it's worth visiting their profile page. This is probably better accomplished by the user making quality posts (for example, I'm probably not going to view someone's profile because they have 30,000 posts ... I'm going to do it because they *just now* said something really interesting). I like the idea of the thread being more about the topic of conversation and less about the person (while the profile page is all about personal self-promotion). The postbit is a way to get from point A to point B.

The thing that's missing is a way to easily compare another person's forum achievements to yourself. If that's important, maybe there's a solution in the memberlist. Perhaps you could select several users from the list, click on a "compare button" and see a side-by-side view of their forum achievements.

 

[Russ]

I personally think the poll is a little bias myself...

If you look at forum boards as a a whole I guarantee you it'd be the opposite way where 72% + of boards show additional information. Before you say "this isn't other forum boards", I would feel the goal would be to attract as many users as possible and making it optional would be key. If they are simple template edits I have no problem doing that, but other folks may not be so keen.

 

[John]

I personally think the poll is a little bias myself...

If you look at forum boards as a a whole I guarantee you it'd be the opposite way where 72% + of boards show additional information. Before you say "this isn't other forum boards", I would feel the goal would be to attract as many users as possible and making it optional would be key. If they are simple template edits I have no problem doing that, but other folks may not be so keen.

The goal of XenForo is clean and minimalist. Reorganization of information to enhance the experience and put focus on content. Kier and Mike have years of day to day experience with this on a level most of us can't imagine and thus have put lot's of thought and planning into everything presented here. This is not to say they aren't open to suggestions for improvement which they surely are, but not change just for the sake of change

 

[AndyB]

ATM only Yahoo provides a 'nocontent' tag: http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2007/06/yahoo_robots_no.html.

Hi Dutchbb,

Thank you for that link. However how would one use the class="robots-nocontent" when there is already a class?

 

[Luke F]

Classes are space delimited

 

[AndyB]

Classes are space delimited

Thank you I forgot about that.

I hope Google will support robots-nocontent as that would be very helpful.

 

[Russ]

The goal of XenForo is clean and minimalist. Reorganization of information to enhance the experience and put focus on content. Kier and Mike have years of day to day experience with this on a level most of us can't imagine and thus have put lot's of thought and planning into everything presented here. This is not to say they aren't open to suggestions for improvement which they surely are, but not change just for the sake of change

I'm not questioning the end goal of XenForo or what they expect it to be at launch, I'm merely saying that giving users options would be the customer-friendly approach. I'd find it rather humorous to wait for a modification to show how many posts someones made on the postbit.

Don't get me wrong, I love the way this is for xenforo.com however when it comes to my community I want a little more. Not having the ability as an option to show the post count on the post bit or other misc items doesn't take away from xenforo's "clean and minimalist" approach but rather take away from users who prefer to have it on there.

I wish people would vote not how it looks here because of course it looks great, but vote more if there's a small chance they might actual use additional things on the post bit on one of the many forum boards we all plan to have

 

[AndyB]

Would it be possible to insert the data below using javascript? I understand that Google does not index content which would be displayed using javascript.

 

[Luke F]

Who cares if search engines index post counts? :|