XenBlog + XenCMS: It's already here!

[Tigratrus]

Well... Mostly

I've spent years thinking about ways to tightly integrate Blogs and CMS systems into a forum based site. This morning a final piece of the puzzle fell into place, and I'd like to get some feedback from others before making it into a "Suggestion."

Basically, BOTH The CMS and the Member Blogs should be nothing more, or less, than a different VIEW (in the MVC sense) of the existing community content (forums). Building a separate parallel system which stovepipes user content is counter productive, presents a unnecessary barrier to user adoption, and fragments the community.

The solution to both a native XF CMS and a native XF Member Blogging solution is essentially:

An extended XenPorta. Let's hear it for Jaxel!

Let me explain.

XenCMS

With the "Promote Thread" functionality Jaxel has already implemented, XenPorta can act right now as quite a good CMS using the forum system to store the articles. About the only thing that's missing is the ability to provide category pages that show a chronological list of "Articles" in a given category.

Category pages could be handled one of two ways (off the top of my head):

1. Each category == an existing forum name. That ties in directly with your communities existing content structure, so it prepares newcomers arriving via the home page for the community forum structure.
2. When "Promoting" a thread from the community forums to the home page, you specify a matching category for that "article."

In both cases, clicking on the category name brings up a page that functions identically to XenPorta, except it has a filter that shows only articles that match the appropriate category. If these category pages have the ability to have their own module configuration/layout, you now have the ability to (very easily!) craft customized landing pages for various topic areas of your site. Each of which will be dynamically updated with topically appropriate "articles" simply by promoting threads from the forums. How do you add custom crafted articles with in depth info? By doing what you should be already doing in the first place...creating really GOOD threads in your forum system!

Basically each category page acts as a separate WP style blog (displaying carefully selected content from the forums), and the homepage acts as an aggregator (showing all selected content in all categories).

XenBlog

Building on the existing XenPorta functionality we use a single forum to hold all "Member Blog" OP's and present them in a member specific manner. Basically XenPorta, but with the "RecentNews" module set to pull from the designated "Blog" forum (Project Blogs in the example below) with a filter to only pull threads started by the member whose "Blog" you are visiting.

Example:

Let's say you have a DIY forum, and you have a forum named "Project Blogs" where your members chronicle their projects. Now I can either go to "Project Blogs" and create a new thread there, or I can click "My Blog" in the site Nav menu to go to my "Blog" (www.domain.com/blogs/tigratrus) then click a "New Post" button to create a new blog entry. In both cases the results are identical:

A thread is created in "Project Blogs" sharing with the community whatever I want to share. A new "Post" shows up in Tigratrus' Blog showing the first 400 (or whatever you have the excerpt set to) characters of the OP followed by a "Read More..." link to the thread and a note that there are "X" comments (which are actually replies to the thread).

POOF!

Now it's super easy to keep up with all the details of an individual blog you want to follow, just go to that member's "Blog" page. In fact, it might make sense to merge this functionality with the existing user profile.

In addition there's a single place to go to see an activity stream of ALL Member blogs: The Project Blogs.

As an added benefit, it's perfect for the many existing forums that have a thread based blogging tradition already. Nothing has to change, this just gives them a better interface.

Conclusion

Forums... Blogs... CMS Articles. They are all basically the same thing, User Generated Content, initial post and replies/comments. So let's apply the concepts of MVC design to take the existing content, and present it in different ways to more effectively suit different needs. Google loves blog style home pages, that's why so many large sites go to a WP/Joomla/Drupal CMS homepage. But by taking the creative output of the Admin (and other article writers) and funneling it into "Articles", we deprive the community (forums) of that same creative energy, and also deprive the member of the sense of personal accomplishment that goes with having THEIR content on the home page.

Our communities are all about the people in the forums and their stories. Let's take that energy, that sense of community and show it to the world directly! Give the internet a fresh "VIEW" of our communities

 

[Paul B]

@Brogan: You've said before that you'd rather see main functionality in the core instead of as 3rd party mods. Don't you see that adding blogs is a FAR more fundamental bit of functionality than most addons?

I have and I still believe that.

I was just wondering why you thought Jaxel's blog would be so much better than what Onimua has already done.

I don't use any of Jaxel's add-ons so the integration with his other add-ons is not a relevant factor to me personally, if I was going to install a blog add-on.

 

[GofD]

I was just wondering why you thought Jaxel's blog would be so much better than what Onimua has already done.

Onimua's done a brilliant job with the Blog add-on. But it's an add-on: the content is created in a 'blog,' rather than in the forums. Yes, it's integrated in the search function which is excellent and which is something that other systems in the past have missed -it's a fantastic improvement. But the content is still in two separate distinct areas of the site, which is what we're trying to avoid.

 

[Paul B]

If Jaxel's blog is going to be inside the forum and that's your requirement, then I can see why that one would suit better than Onimua's.

Personally I would want it the other way, with a separate Blog tab/section.

At least both options are covered, so people have the choice.

P.S. You may want to chime in on this post then, as he's asking for input on how to implement it: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/8wayrun-com-modifications-for-xenforo.4470/page-6#post-176792

 

[GofD]

@Brogan - Thanks for the tip!

 

[Grover]

<scissored>

I've BEEN down that exact road before (we used three separate community blogging solutions over 3-4 years, actually 4, but I'm not going to count one that we killed after a couple days) and watched the community interaction fragment and almost destroy the community. What we saw very clearly is that putting a separate, parallel system in place split the community into those that blogged and those that spent time in the forums of their choice. And by splitting the content into separate areas, the blog authors didn't get the approbation and responses they felt they deserved (and many of the blog entries were in fact excellent). The forum readers lost out on seeing a ton of good content, and a lot of the interaction and sense of community was severely damaged.

<scissored>

I keep ... saying it... but your insights (based on your real-life experience) are spot on.

(Shouldn't this thread be moved to Bigger Feature Suggestions by now? (And receive 6.123 likes (from the 6.123 members that we have now overhere) )

My current platform is powered by vBulletin 3.8 with their Blog system and we are experiencing the exact same thing as you guys and girls. From the very beginning. And we need a solution for this situation badly. I am now even at the point that I think switching to XenForo and loosing (the content of) our Blogs is even preferred then to continue in this way with vBulletin 3.8 and our Blogs. However...if XenForo can learn from the mistakes of vBulletin and Invision and provide a much needed solution along the lines of your proposal then we do not have to think a split second and will move over. I dearly hope that if XenForo is ever going to offer integrated Blogs (no Wordpress for our users/members please... I strongly believe in the fact that we should keep our users/members familiar with XenForo's UI/UX and not introduce a completely different third-party tool with different UI/UX on top of it, just to write some simple Blogs. It's a completely different story I feel when I as admin/owner want to use Wordpress as a CMS, integrated/next to XenForo. That would be a valuable option, because -amongst many other reasons- my endusers/members will not be confronted with Wordpress's UI tools and 'technical' stuff; only me as admin and that is how it should be).

Anyway, I hope this 'suggestion' get's all the support/*likes* it deserves.

 

[jmurrayhead]

Personally I would want it the other way, with a separate Blog tab/section.

Me too. A blog is not a forum post and an article is not a forum post. But hey, different people have different needs. Tigatrus' idea doesn't suit my needs, but it most certainly will be enough for others.

 

[Tigratrus]

Me too. A blog is not a forum post and an article is not a forum post. But hey, different people have different needs. Tigatrus' idea doesn't suit my needs, but it most certainly will be enough for others.

All I can say is: Been there, done that, wish i could give back the tee-shirt. We've used WordPress for years, along with Joomla! and other systems, please don't think that my proposal is based on not "getting" blogs and articles.

I would submit that it's not a case of it's being "enough", it's actually a better solution for community based sites (IMO/E) because it keeps all the community interaction in the same place. And the difference between the blog post, forum post and article is largely in how they are presented. They are all words and pictures stored in a database/file system.

But unfortunately, I'm afraid that's a lesson that others may have to learn on their own. :: shrug ::

On the flip side, each site/community IS different, and have different needs. It's good to have different options available so admins can tailor their site to what THEY want it to be. Wouldn't it be boring if everyone did everything the same exact way?

 

[Deepmartini]

Tigratrus you seem very well versed in all of this and present some compelling ideas. I hope Xenforo is listening.

Can you tell us your current set-up and what mods we need to use to make this happen? Xenforo + Xenporta + ? + ?

blogs? albums? custom profile fields? CMS? etc.

 

[Onimua]

If XenForo were to create their own blog add-on, I imagine it would go the similar route I have taken.

Sure, you can use a forum as a blog and restyle it, but it's still a thread at its core, and things like report handling, moderation que, Likes, Recent Activity, Searching Posts/Threads by a user will still all point to it as a thread, and you may actually generate more confusion that way because the user thinks they created a blog entry when they see a list of threads. Trying to make it appear as not on the outside doesn't hide what it is on the inside. The very reason why XenForo was built the way it was is to allow add-ons to appear on the same level as the forums, something no other forum software product has ever done. That's why Alerts, online activity, recent feeds and so much more is so useful when you get it right.

Yes, they're separated, but that's because they should be as they are different types of content (a thing XenForo actually keeps track of by having content_type fields in the database). A blog entry shouldn't be a thread much as a gallery album shouldn't be put into a thread and simply restyled. Toss in things like user-level moderation, permission groups, etc. and you end up piling a lot more on the forum core overall than simply using it only for what you want it to work on: The blog or gallery.

If we were meant to just toss it onto the core forum (meaning forums are used for all this content) so quickly and easily (and to be honest, the approaches here seem to be nothing but a patch and don't cover a proper integration level), Kier and Mike wouldn't have created the software to integrate and extend so deeply as it does now. Even then, taking the approaches listed here, you're doing the exact same thing by creating an add-on, taking a different approach with it, but again it's an add-on. The difference here I guess is presentation, but still, it goes on to making something appear what it is versus what it actually is.

One of the big complaints I see about vB Blog is that it wasn't integrated enough, and they assume that XF should have it built into the core. How vB Blog came about really shone a bad light on first-party integrated products, but there were bigger things at work during the time. However, add-ons are treated like a core feature with XenForo. The days of add-ons being second-rate and come as an afterthought are over with XF because Kier and Mike made sure that didn't happen here, and if you look around at properly integrated add-ons that make use of XF's features, you can tell.

Old arguments don't hold well with XenForo simply because the approaches its taken on numerous levels are completely different, and are much more easily integrated and obvious than vBulletin ever had it.

 

[Tigratrus]

Onimura:

I hear what you're saying, but I don't know that you really understand my position. Obviously what you say about vBlog is right, and it was an execrable example of total lack of integration. But even better integrated you still have the same exact problem: Fragmentation of the community.
*ANY* system that takes community interaction and splits it apart automatically loses a lot of the critical mass that makes communities work.

Look, I felt exactly the way you and Brogan and jmurrayhead do about 3 years ago. We were really REALLY excited about the potential of vBlogetin as a blogging system (before vBlog killed the project dead and we were essentially forced to move to vBlog), we had it pretty well integrated into our system, we promoted it, had it showing up in a side column etc etc. We closed our "Progress Blog" forum (which was a vital, heavily engaged part of the site) to new threads, and pushed all new blog creation into vBlogetin blogs.

It almost killed our community.

Luckily a lot of the core members abandoned it as a bad idea and moved their posting into one of the "planning" forums instead, but it never regained the same vibrancy that it had once had.

It's NOT as simple as integrating the blogs into the search system and having a sidebar with latest blog posts. A lot of the people saying they want separate blogs are likely saying it for the same reason WE did. Because it looks great on paper and as a theory. But have they TRIED it? I'm not advocating the system I outlined in the OP as an academic exercise in theory, or as a half-assed wannabe blogging solution. I'm proposing it as the best solution I've yet glimpsed to adress a very real, and major problem that a lot of community builders WILL run into. Not all of them, I know a few forum sites that have been able to make blogs work, but they are the minority and it depends very heavily on their specific niche and the posting motivations of their community.

For a lot of others, they may not even realize WHY their community suddenly stumbles and the posting rates drop off... It doesn't happen immediately.

 

[Paul B]

That doesn't really address the technical aspects of Onimua's post though.

How are members going to know the difference between a blog post and a forum post, if they're both using the same code?
Especially on the news feed it will show up as Tigatrus posted a new thread when in actual fact it should be Tigatrus posted a new blog.

I'm confused as to why you need a blog if that's the case.
Why not just use a thread?

 

[ragtek]

I think we all are talking about 2 different things (if not: sorry, then i misunderstood it false^^)

system architecture vs. presentation
(some users here including me, are talking most time about the technical side and Tigatrus is talking IMHO only about the presentation, right?)

IMHO the key for success is to have seperate data elements ( i think onimua said this already) BUT sometimes it's also importent to mix them for the presentation layer.


For example, i have in 2 boards an "event board"
Users can post there event. This creates:
1. An Entry in the calendar
2. Creates an Thread in the Event Board.
Then: Users can attent to events (which is shown in Calendar & Thread)
When the event is over, my system moves the thread automatic into an other category (past events) and creates automatic a gallery category, which is linked in the thread & calendar entry.

You can't have 1 content type, covering all this data. (OK it is technical possible, but IMHO a very ugly way

 

[jmurrayhead]

The reason vBlog was a failure is because of its poor implementation and the fact that is was just an addon to a product whose core is a forum. The whole problem is that all these sites work around a forum instead of the forum working around the site. If you have a home page that contains quality content that integrates with your forums, blogs, and any other vital community component, you will find that the community will be heavily engaged. However, it's not all about community engagement. It's about creating quality content that will bring in visitors who are simply searching for something. You build a community with a forum, you share ideas with blogs, you share information with articles/pages/etc and you build a site with all three.

 

[Tigratrus]

The reason vBlog was a failure is because of its poor implementation and the fact that is was just an addon to a product whose core is a forum. The whole problem is that all these sites work around a forum instead of the forum working around the site. If you have a home page that contains quality content that integrates with your forums, blogs, and any other vital community component, you will find that the community will be heavily engaged. However, it's not all about community engagement. It's about creating quality content that will bring in visitors who are simply searching for something. You build a community with a forum, you share ideas with blogs, you share information with articles/pages/etc and you build a site with all three.

I agree with much of what you said, but the idea of having your home page pulling it all together is (IMO) based on a false premise, and as a result doesn't work. The vast majority of a community/forum site's regular membership does NOT read the home page. They also don't pay all that much attention to the sidebar.

I totally agree that vBlog was a horrible example, and what I'm trying to clarify is that vBlog is NOT what I'm basing my points on. It's so far beyond the pale as far as lack of integration it's absurd. vBlog wasn't the source of the problem, it came along quite a bit later and just made it worse.

But while quality content IS the key, my point is that it's the job of the software to encourage the creation of quality content by the membership by directly rewarding those posting members by making sure they have as much exposure to the rest of the membership as possible. The members NEED to get the responses, the "likes" and all the other feedback from their peers in order to GET that positive reward for posting.

And in that sense it is *ALL* about community engagement and avoiding fragmentation.

Quality content on the homepage is VERY important as well, and it's key in drawing in new members, but it plays a very minor role in encouraging community interaction with EACH OTHER which is the key to community building.

 

[Tigratrus]

That doesn't really address the technical aspects of Onimua's post though.

How are members going to know the difference between a blog post and a forum post, if they're both using the same code?
Especially on the news feed it will show up as Tigatrus posted a new thread when in actual fact it should be Tigatrus posted a new blog.

I'm confused as to why you need a blog if that's the case.
Why not just use a thread?

Honestly how it shows up really isn't that important, though it WOULD be handled by a simple style tweak to provide emphasis of the forum name in the news feed. Remember, the Forum name would be whatever you choose to name the "Blog" system on your particular site. So in your example it would say something to the effect of "Tigratrus posted a new entry in Project Blogs"

My point is that actual system users really don't care if you call it a blog or a thread, heck call it a topic (couldn't resist the IPS ref ) instead. They just want to be able to present their content to the community.

Now sometimes they want to post about something that is about a specific topic area that the site covers, and thus will post in the relevant forum for that topic area. Sometimes they want to post something that is specific to just them, their project, their life etc that's outside the normal topic areas/forums. In that case a "Blog" style makes much more sense. Many times other members are trying to follow the progress of a specific member/project and having a single place to go to that presents a clean, chronological presentation of *just* that member's posts is exactly what they want. You can't simply do it with a single thread, because there's no way to break a single thread into separate OP's to cover specific events, ideas, milestones etc. Threads also lack the ability to have Modules like XenPorta could provide. That functionality would provide the "Widget" functionality that bloggers are familiar with from using things like blogger/WordPress etc.

 

[jmurrayhead]

I agree with much of what you said, but the idea of having your home page pulling it all together is (IMO) based on a false premise, and as a result doesn't work. The vast majority of a community/forum site's regular membership does NOT read the home page. They also don't pay all that much attention to the sidebar.

This is because the site is working around the forum, rather than the forum working around the site. I want my front page to show recent articles/content and other relevant information that has to do with the theme of my site. Again, this isn't just for the community...it's for bringing in new visitors who may then later join the community.

I totally agree that vBlog was a horrible example, and what I'm trying to clarify is that vBlog is NOT what I'm basing my points on. It's so far beyond the pale as far as lack of integration it's absurd. vBlog wasn't the source of the problem, it came along quite a bit later and just made it worse.

Agreed.

But while quality content IS the key, my point is that it's the job of the software to encourage the creation of quality content by the membership by directly rewarding those posting members by making sure they have as much exposure to the rest of the membership as possible. The members NEED to get the responses, the "likes" and all the other feedback from their peers in order to GET that positive reward for posting.

And they can still get all the "likes" and feedback from their peers without the content being in a forum post. Looking at the table structure of the XenForo database, it is perfectly capable of handling this.

Quality content on the homepage is VERY important as well, and it's key in drawing in new members, but it plays a very minor role in encouraging community interaction with EACH OTHER which is the key to community building.

They can interact in the forum. That's what it's there for.

Anyway, instead of arguing this to death, I'm just going to once again say, if it's good for you and works for what you're trying to accomplish, I'm happy for you. However, it doesn't nearly cover my needs for developing a web site. I'm glad you decided to share it with everyone here, because it most certainly will work for others, as well. This, however, will by no means be something that I "learn the hard way". I will get it to work for my site.

 

[Deepmartini]

And I'm sure when the real Xenforo CMS is finally released. it will blow all our ideas out of the water!

 

[Tigratrus]

Let me respond to the specific point Onimura raised since there appears to be a fundamental lack of communication.

If XenForo were to create their own blog add-on, I imagine it would go the similar route I have taken.

Sure, you can use a forum as a blog and restyle it, but it's still a thread at its core, and things like report handling, moderation que, Likes, Recent Activity, Searching Posts/Threads by a user will still all point to it as a thread, and you may actually generate more confusion that way because the user thinks they created a blog entry when they see a list of threads. Trying to make it appear as not on the outside doesn't hide what it is on the inside. The very reason why XenForo was built the way it was is to allow add-ons to appear on the same level as the forums, something no other forum software product has ever done. That's why Alerts, online activity, recent feeds and so much more is so useful when you get it right.

The point is, WHY does it have to BE called a "Blog"? Why does it need to be a separate form of content? With few exceptions (that could readily be handled by gathering a few bits of info when the post is made) this is really about being able to group and present certain content by a specific member in a slightly different way if the viewing member wants to. I'm not trying to trick anyone by calling it one thing while it's something else (that's an admin viewpoint rather than a member/user view), I'm talking about extending the forum system to fill the need that members would feel for blog type functionality.

My fault by using the terms, but I'd hoped that that would clarify what I was talking about.

Yes, they're separated, but that's because they should be as they are different types of content (a thing XenForo actually keeps track of by having content_type fields in the database). A blog entry shouldn't be a thread much as a gallery album shouldn't be put into a thread and simply restyled. Toss in things like user-level moderation, permission groups, etc. and you end up piling a lot more on the forum core overall than simply using it only for what you want it to work on: The blog or gallery.

It's an error (IMO) to group blog posts and gallery entries together conceptually as they are fundamentaly different in a way that Blog posts and Threads are not. A Gallery system does have fundamentally separate needs in order to have a meaningful search system
That said, I DO feel that all DISCUSSION about gallery items properly belongs in the topic area (forum) that the gallery item is best aligned with. That way when someone posts a question or comment on an image or media object, the thread is created where it's most likely to spark discussion and appreciation, both immediately and down the road. What I primarily object to is having multiple separate commenting systems that fragment the community discussion into separate stovepipes and kill member awareness and appreciation of the efforts of their peers.

If we were meant to just toss it onto the core forum (meaning forums are used for all this content) so quickly and easily (and to be honest, the approaches here seem to be nothing but a patch and don't cover a proper integration level), Kier and Mike wouldn't have created the software to integrate and extend so deeply as it does now. Even then, taking the approaches listed here, you're doing the exact same thing by creating an add-on, taking a different approach with it, but again it's an add-on. The difference here I guess is presentation, but still, it goes on to making something appear what it is versus what it actually is.

It's an elegant solution that avoids content duplication (both for articles and for blogs) while presenting it in different ways for people that have different focuses. Bloggers can interact with each other in a "Blogging" context while simultaneously interacting with the folks that hang out mostly in the forums and vs versa. Many members will probably simply troll through the "blog" forum as an activity stream to keep up with what everyone is doing, and if one sparks their interest they can jump straight to all the posts in that particular "blog".

The other thing is the use of a single content type for things that are so VERY similar will allow for vastly easier maintenance:


For example:

How is a separate blog system going to handle the ability for admin/mods to moderate Blog posts and move them to the forums or vs versa?
How is a separate blog system going to handle the potential of having multiple different Galleries addons being used by different sites, if they have (which they should) a popup to insert images into forum posts, will it work in the Blog?
How about the ever increasing plethora of addons that XF sites might decide to use? Will they work in a separate content type system like a Blog?

One of the big complaints I see about vB Blog is that it wasn't integrated enough, and they assume that XF should have it built into the core. How vB Blog came about really shone a bad light on first-party integrated products, but there were bigger things at work during the time. However, add-ons are treated like a core feature with XenForo. The days of add-ons being second-rate and come as an afterthought are over with XF because Kier and Mike made sure that didn't happen here, and if you look around at properly integrated add-ons that make use of XF's features, you can tell.

Old arguments don't hold well with XenForo simply because the approaches its taken on numerous levels are completely different, and are much more easily integrated and obvious than vBulletin ever had it.

As I said above, many people seem to feel I'm talking specifically talking about vBlog and it's particular issues. I'm not. I'm talking about the fundamental impact of splitting things up into different content types when they really are vastly more the same than they are different. In my direct experience, the huge penalty that it can inflict on a community interaction, and the associated reward that members get when other members interact with/like/comment on their content tremendously outweighs the convenience of being able to deal with the content type separately from a developer point of view.

 

[Paul B]

Sounds to me Tigatrus as if you already have the functionality that you're after - threads and posts.

Why not just create a 'blog' style layout and apply it to the designated 'blog' forum?

If alerts, quotes and news feeds are going to show it as thread/post content then I see no benefit in developing an add-on which will essentially just apply styling to a particular forum.

To respond to a specific point though:

How is a separate blog system going to handle the ability for admin/mods to moderate Blog posts and move them to the forums or vs versa?

Why would content be moved from blogs to posts and vice versa?
They're different content.


Maybe I just don't understand the concept *shrugs*

 

[tmb]

Not sure I understand the point of calling a long forum post a blog but if that is how you want to do it then go for it.