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

 

[Deepmartini]

Perhaps you should each draw a visual representation of what you mean and post it here in this thread for clarity? That way we call can understand. There is some good stuff here but it's confusing for the average lay-person.

 

[Tigratrus]

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:

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*

It's a lot more than just a style applied to a forum. It would create a XenPorta style page for each member that shows just THEIR posts in excerpt format, with modules around it. Effectively it would be very much as if each member had a WordPress style blog. But the CONTENT for the WordPress style blog page would be drawn from the "Blog" forum.

Regarding your specific question of why would you need to be able to move post from the blog system to the forums and vs versa:

It's been TREMENDOUSLY common that we have new members post a general question as a blog post, despite very VERY prominent warnings that they should ask questions in a relevant forum where they are far more likely to get an answer. Many other folks also experienced this same phenomenon both on vBlogetin, and later on vBlog. Asking them to repost the content is a bad first experience for a brand new member. It would be vastly better to simply move it to the relevant forum directly (just as you and the other mods do so often here ).

In the other direction, people frequently start out creating discussion threads about their project, and often one of them becomes so big it's REALLY cumbersome and they want to move it to a blog which can better split the content up on specific topic/update lines while still grouping all their topics together into a chronological history. Being able to simply split off the original OP into the relevant sections and move it into the "Blog" forum would effortlessly accomplish that while retaining the creation dates etc.

Consider the usage this could have right here on XF.com... Look at any of the ginourmous addon release threads. Wouldn't it be nice to simply split those into separate "Entries" with each update being a new entry? Then it would be a lot easier to find things and moving forward the "blog" owner could branch out with separate entries for different aspects (I.E. Installation, Upgrades, Integration, Specific variable usages etc whatever makes sense to them) of the addon and therefore group the discussion into topic focused areas that would make it a lot easier for people to find answers to their problems without having to dig through 30-40 pages of a single post.

I know there will be a better system coming for managing releases, that's not my point, I'm just trying to show how moving content back and forth is useful in a wide array of situations. Obviously the specifics will vary from community to community.

 

[Deepmartini]

Tigratrus, have you spoken to Xenforo? You have a lot of knowledge and ideas. Hopefully, someone takes notice.

 

[xFan]

i'm soo waiting for xenforo cms

 

[Jose Amaral Mota]

If thread prefixes were added, would you not be able to search what is promoted as a [Blog Content] and [Article Content]....

OP: Still can not see how this would make this easier to create... You would have to apply another set of permissions for thread(s)... ( I guess it just creating a forum and apply [Blog/CMS perm. opt.], then it will show as what is attended. It seems that the method would be easier, as you still have the 'Like' and everything else connected to it.

I would like to here from someone that know if coding this is a better method or keeping it completely separate is better. What would be pro/cons for each...

 

[Peter-Jan]

It's a lot more than just a style applied to a forum.

Tigatrus, your ideas are great, based on real world experience and in line with MVC, but we need to start talking concrete user cases to clear up confusion in this thread and avoid further miscommunication.

How this integrated XenForo homepage/forum/blog system would work

The 2 key objectives are:
1. Integrate DISCUSSION (posts i.e. comments) on forum threads, homepage articles and blog entries.
=> Lowest possible community fragmentation.
2. Manage PRESENTATION of content i.e. give every new discussion its optimal format (being forum thread, homepage article and/or blog entry.)
=> Quality/Brand management

The 3 content forms are:
1. Forum threads, started by user
2. Blog entries, started by user
3. Homepage articles, which are forum threads/posts and/or blog entries which get promoted to the homepage by an editorial team (mods/admin)

To integrate these 3 content forms into 1 system, we need to make sure that every blog entry is also forum content (either a forum thread of forum post).

To achieve this in practice:
- When a user posts a blog entry, he must select to post a duplicate as
a) a new thread in a forum (for blog entries that are about topics that are discussed in specific forums)
b) a new post in a thread (for blog entries that are updates in very long threads e.g. developers posting instructions about add-on)
c) a new thread in the "Blog Forum" (for all personal blog entries for which the user did not select a forum (a) or forum thread (b)

This would make the Blog a way for users to showcase their most valued (and timeless) forum threads and posts + some personal blog entries that don't fit in the existing forum structure (and thus go in the "Blog Forum"). Obviously it would make sense to allow users to promote their new forum threads and forum posts to blog entries. (Going even further, why not allow users to promote forum content of any user to their blog as quotes?)

This "Blog Forum" thus exists as 'catch-all' aggregator of all blog entries that don't fit in the forum structure. In other words, the "Blog Forum" makes sure all blog entries and comments become part of the forum structure. Users would not be allowed to post in this "Blog Forum" directly (that is, a forum thread that is not a blog entry) and it would thus make no sense to show this "Blog Forum" as part of the /community view users see. (In MVC speak, this "Blog Forum" exists to make sure the Model is consistent, but we don't show it in the View.) I'd argue the best way to show the "Blog Forum" aggregator is under a Blogs Tab where entries are ranked according to popularity (such as pfblogs.org does for personal finance blogs) and where users can search the "Blog Forum" blog-only content. (Blog entries that are "promoted content" i.e. posted as normal forum thread (a) or forum post (b) can be searched via forum search.)

How, what about articles in our homepage CMS? Well, whereas Blogs are promoted content by the users, articles are promoted content by the admin/mods. Quality content can be found in the blogs as well as the forum, but all blog entries are part of the forum structure anyway, so all articles are essentially promoted forum content (either thread of specific post)! What if you want to have paid or guest authors to write articles for the homepage? Well, simply tell them to write the article in their blog and promote it to the homepage! The Blog is a showcase of the user anyway, so for an author who only writes homepage articles his blog becomes an overview of his article history (until he promotes other forum content to his blog).

I hope this make things a bit more clear.

 

[Andy.N]

PJ,
You touch a big problem that many forum admins have been struggling for a long long time. There seems to be a real separation between homepage/article section and the vibrant happenings that is the forum.
Repeated users tend to hang around on the forum because there isn't much updating going on in the front and first time visitors hardly know about the forum if they come across the site via a search.

I hope things will change in the future so that it integrates seamlessly and the division is gone.

 

[Peter-Jan]

Andy,

Seems like you, Tigatrus and me are in a fundamental agreement that limiting fragmentation is a key requirement of a potential XenForo CMS system.

I'm eager to know what others think about this idea in general and the suggested solutions specifically.

 

[Jose Amaral Mota]

After reading everyone idea about how a CMS/Blog/Gallery though these threads... It accrue to me that most here do not care about 'Add-on Releases' and what they can easily provide. If a addon is supported enough, then it should continue to mature, but now I get the sense that members here and that includes myself think 'who cares whats going on with the going ons of that forum' (I do not think that anymore, as I read enough to understand I was defeating the purpose of that forum), as I want what XenForo Developer to create all these things...

I am now going to stay away from responding to these type of threads, as it take away the spirit of why that forum was created for... To enjoy what other or your self created.... Why would any third-party(bit harsh to call them by that name, as the members do make addons and contribute it to the community) Xen-Mod-Dev. want to continue to create anything else, if in a few month it will be introduce into core and or release as a addon. This is what happen over at vB with these types of bombardment of the same request by few members.

I am going to support those who create these modification, as I have no problem with XenForo asis and if I need something (I could try to learn in my own time...) that is not readily available, then I can place request for a modification to be made. I going to let Kier and Mike invision this software and not add unneeded pressure by repeatedly requesting over and over about adding this and that to core...

 

[Peter-Jan]

To me it doesn't matter one bit whether it's done by XenForo themselves or by a reputable add-on developer. All I care about is the end result.

AFAIK everything that has been said in this thread can be achieved with add-ons.

 

[feldon30]

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.

The vB Blog never had any social integration and it was hidden away from the forum. Just like Social Groups were hidden away and you had to go visit them just to see if there was a new post. Most users were totally unaware that their friends had blogs or when a new blog post had been made. It was just sloppily bolted on.

The vB Blog has many problems which have kept it niche, poorly integrated, and thus largely unadopted. Onimua seems to have addressed those problems with full integration and making sure that the social features of XenForo work the same as you expect in the Blog. Try it before you knock it.

Today, I would still deploy Wordpress for content, and a forum for a forum. I'd hoped that XF 1.0 would include a bridge. Anyway, not everyone should be writing blogs -- good authors are rare.

The point is, WHY does it have to BE called a "Blog"? Why does it need to be a separate form of content?

It sounds to me like you have never had actual Blog authors on your site, or maybe don't fully understand what a Blog is. A blog is not just whatever nonsense post jumps into someone's head and they post it in a "Blog". A blog is supposed to be well-considered articles/stories which go beyond a typical forum thread. A blog post is meant to be read and referred back to. 95% of forum posts are off-topic fluff. So much of it is one-use entertainment that, once it drops off the first page will never be seen again. I am not dissing forums, but out of a forum with 100,000 threads, the useful threads that people refer back to will typically number in the dozens.

Blog posts, good ones at least, stand above the level of the average forum post. They are (or can be) memorable, useful content. To mix blog posts together with threads and posts really devalues the idea of "content creation". Look around on your forum. How many people would you consider a "content author"? If you are giving 0 post users the ability to write blog posts, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Tigratrus]

The vB Blog never had any social integration and it was hidden away from the forum. Just like Social Groups were hidden away and you had to go visit them just to see if there was a new post. Most users were totally unaware that their friends had blogs or when a new blog post had been made. It was just sloppily bolted on.

The vB Blog has many problems which have kept it niche, poorly integrated, and thus largely unadopted. Onimua seems to have addressed those problems with full integration and making sure that the social features of XenForo work the same as you expect in the Blog. Try it before you knock it.

Today, I would still deploy Wordpress for content, and a forum for a forum. I'd hoped that XF 1.0 would include a bridge. Anyway, not everyone should be writing blogs -- good authors are rare.

It sounds to me like you have never had actual Blog authors on your site, or maybe don't fully understand what a Blog is. A blog is not just whatever nonsense post jumps into someone's head and they post it in a "Blog". A blog is supposed to be well-considered articles/stories which go beyond a typical forum thread. A blog post is meant to be read and referred back to. 95% of forum posts are off-topic fluff. So much of it is one-use entertainment that, once it drops off the first page will never be seen again. I am not dissing forums, but out of a forum with 100,000 threads, the useful threads that people refer back to will typically number in the dozens.

Blog posts, good ones at least, stand above the level of the average forum post. They are (or can be) memorable, useful content. To mix blog posts together with threads and posts really devalues the idea of "content creation". Look around on your forum. How many people would you consider a "content author"? If you are giving 0 post users the ability to write blog posts, you're doing it wrong.

Feldon:

I don't want to get into a long answer here as I've got a lot to do today, but here's the boiled down response:

You're making a lot of assumptions about what I do or do not know about forums and Blogs. You're also generalizing a LOT about what kind of content is in a forum. We run a specialized DIY site and have a far higher content to fluff ratio than you seem to feel is the norm. People don't spend lot of time on the forum talking about mindless entertainment, most of the posts are on topic.

We HAVE had quite a few decent Blog authors, and for your information we do NOT give zero posts members the ability to start a blog.

The solution I'm proposing is actually quite a bit more sophisticated than you seem to be giving it credit for, and I HAVE worked with Onimua's blog, in fact I talked to him about it before it was even released. Perhaps you should wait until I can show you what I'm talking about before YOU knock it? Sound fair?

 

[Paul B]

Hopefully Onimua's add-on will remain true to its roots and those who want a separate blog can continue to use it.

Those who want to have a blog as part of the forum can use Jaxel's add-on.

Both parties catered for.

 

[Tigratrus]

Hopefully Onimua's add-on will remain true to its roots and those who want a separate blog can continue to use it.

Those who want to have it as part of the forum can use Jaxel's add-on.

Both parties catered for.

Exactly. There is no "one true way", what works best for a particular community depends on the needs and characteristics of the community in question.

That's why having XF having a vibrant, engaged 3rd party dev community is such an important thing.

 

[Forsaken]

Exactly. There is no "one true way", what works best for a particular community depends on the needs and characteristics of the community in question.

That's why having XF having a vibrant, engaged 3rd party dev community is such an important thing.

If theres no one true way, isn't your signature a bit condescending, as Onimua has already built a blog add-on, yet you say it's 'sooo close'.

Just my opinion, but I've thought that for a while, and it kind of irks me, and I'm sure it might bother Onimua a little.

 

[Tigratrus]

If theres no one true way, isn't your signature a bit condescending, as Onimua has already built a blog add-on, yet you say it's 'sooo close'.

Just my opinion, but I've thought that for a while, and it kind of irks me, and I'm sure it might bother Onimua a little.

Fair enough. Changed.

My sig wasn't meant that way at all, and I've always been clear that I think Onimua has done a great job with his addon. I happen to have a fundamental difference in opinion about the community fragmentation that multiple content types with separate commenting systems creates, and this thread is about what I see as a viable solution that addresses that problem while still providing the functionality that CMS and Member Blogs bring to a site.

 

[adin]

There seem to be a lot of ancillary requirements for a blog system that gives the same 'ease of discovery' that individual wordpress blogs do — not that they change the MVC methodology, nut wouldn't want such a clear vision to get ruined by not supporting some things that probably need to be on the requirements list (just starting, not complete for sure!):

• xml-rpc
• trackbacks/pings
• easily definable/discoverable URL's without mod_rewrite lists a mile long (own subdomains!?)
• their own xml sitemaps so they can be discovered independently of the main forums
• ability to have own extensions/modules/templates
• own rss/atom syndication (via XF)
• owner moderation of comments (already covered, i think)
• lower information density/visual input (i.e. focus on *content*)
• ...?

Overall, I see successful blogs as usually characterized by (relative) ease of discovery, ease of transmutability (syndication), ease of consumption, and ease of feedback. Get these with the speed and elegance of MVC implementation and you have a winner!

 

[Forsaken]

There seem to be a lot of ancillary requirements for a blog system that gives the same 'ease of discovery' that individual wordpress blogs do — not that they change the MVC methodology, nut wouldn't want such a clear vision to get ruined by not supporting some things that probably need to be on the requirements list (just starting, not complete for sure!):

• xml-rpc
• trackbacks/pings
• easily definable/discoverable URL's without mod_rewrite lists a mile long (own subdomains!?)
• their own xml sitemaps so they can be discovered independently of the main forums
• ability to have own extensions/modules/templates
• own rss/atom syndication (via XF)
• owner moderation of comments (already covered, i think)
• lower information density/visual input (i.e. focus on *content*)
• ...?

Overall, I see successful blogs as usually characterized by (relative) ease of discovery, ease of transmutability (syndication), ease of consumption, and ease of feedback. Get these with the speed and elegance of MVC implementation and you have a winner!

I suggested xml-rpc to Onimua already .

 

[Radgul]

Hello
First of all I want to say that I love some of xenforo’s functions. Everything looks so clean and easy here.
I registered here because I found this thread and want to say:
Tigratrus – your brain is made of gold. What you are saying is exactly what I need.
Could not say it better myself.
It would be great to see this implementation here with possibility to turn it off for those who dislikes this kind of functionality.

Today I use expression engine to publish my news and vbulletin as forum (use it from 2002).

 

[Tigratrus]

Hello
First of all I want to say that I love some of xenforo’s functions. Everything looks so clean and easy here.
I registered here because I found this thread and want to say:
Tigratrus – your brain is made of gold. What you are saying is exactly what I need.
Could not say it better myself.
It would be great to see this implementation here with possibility to turn it off for those who dislikes this kind of functionality.

Today I use expression engine to publish my news and vbulletin as forum (use it from 2002).View attachment 13412

Thanks!

As Brogan said, having both Onimua's excellent LN Blog for those that want a fullbore, bells and whistles system and Jaxel's solution for those that prefer a simpler, more tightly integrated solution that avoids fragmentation and (potential, not sure exactly how a separate content types will interact with forums focused addons/mods down the road) problems with making other forum addon's (Gallery, Downloads, e-Commerce etc) work with the blogs... Well I think having both available will be great for the XF community as a whole!

VERY excited to see how XenDiario (Blogs) turns out! http://www.8wayrun.com/blogs/user/jaxel.1/