XenForo 2.0 Discussion

[jauburn]

I think "blog" add-on would be a waste of time, not many interested in that. I don't understand the point of having a "blog" on a "forum" where you expect people to comment on your "blog" which they can easily do on the "forum" in your "thread."

Some other more important features should make the cut.

Yeah, the blog component on the busy forum that I used to run was a waste of effort. No one used it. Well, a couple of times a lot of spammers used it. That was fun (not).

Same with social groups. Dumb. A novelty when introduced, some initial flurry of activity, and then death.

But in fairness, a huge issue with both of these components from vbulletin was always that they were not integrated into the forum properly. That is, there was no way for the content to be "discovered" readily by users, so posts would just sit. In xenforo, that would likely not be the case, as the notification system would or could make content visible, as would the sidebar integration.

Still, there's not a lot that forum add-ons of any stripe could do that a forum itself or a forum thread could not. There have even been "classifieds" add-ons, as we all know, but the most successful implementation of a "classifieds" section that I've ever seen--on the photography forums fred Miranda and POTN--both just use a forum and forum threads! So again, the add-on is unnecessary.

First and foremost, what the whiz-bang technologists often forget is that the primary obstacle to acceptance of a new way of doing things is not the forum owners (who will shell out the money) but the forum users, who really have little to no interest in "learning" a new system in order to, say, post a blog piece, create or participate in a social group, post a classified ad, etc. (People who are really interested in blogging will figure out WordPress.) I've heard it said that typically 1% of everyone who signs up to a forum actually posts anything, and I believe that's about right. So you take that 1%, try to find the few who will appreciate and use add-ons that require more learning, and try to convince them of the usefulness of these additional features, and you're talking about a pretty damn small number, which ultimately raises the big question: why, as admin, are you even bothering? Concentrate on the forum. If you need a content-related addition, see if it can't be done with the forum (it probably can).

 

[Deriel]

I think, reading a lot here that xF will follow the IPB approach - a core (a very good one) with various attachments (officials add-ons). Good to me.

(time will tell)

 

[jauburn]

I think, reading a lot here that xF will follow the IPB approach - a core (a very good one) with various attachments (officials add-ons). Good to me.

(time will tell)

I'm not sure what the difference is between the IPB model and the vBulletin model--other, perhaps, than the add-ons offered. In each case you have a core, of sorts, and various team-supported add-ons. I have no qualms with that model whatsoever. I'm just saying I don't think it's unique to IPB.

 

[dutchbb]

No blog or social groups please. Next thing should be a completely integrated CMS and better (more advanced) profiles.

 

[jauburn]

No blog or social groups please. Next thing should be a completely integrated CMS and better (more advanced) profiles.

Everyone probably has a "next should be" list. I'm not sure how the developers ultimately decide which way to go. Would be interesting to know. Is it more like "I think we should add this feature" or "I think we should add this feature and so do x number of users as well" or "here's our core business statement and this feature and that one would fit perfectly under that mission" or something else altogether?

That's the question. And it should, out of respect, be answered by the xenforo developers, I think, so that people like us don't waste their time shooting in the dark or using this thread to send up prayers.

 

[Joe Blow]

I'm hoping that Xenforo moves to provide a real alternative to social media, and develops features to increase user participation. Forums cannot stand still, they must continue to evolve or risk obsolescence. It can't just be about threads and posts anymore. That time has past. Forums as they currently exist are part of the old 90's internet. The evolution needs to continue to improve user experience and participation. CMS, blogs, live chat, plug-in content - there needs to be more ways for people to interact, express themselves and consume information. It doesn't have to be core, but the core needs to allow for it so others can develop it.

Let's move online communities forward into a new era. Keep what's great about forums, which is the sense of community and topic based discussions and keep innovating, and evolving.

 

[KaiKimera]

I do not know, maybe there is already talking about it.

I would like to integrate a catalog of add-ons. To be able to install add-ons from the control panel.
And there displays updated addons.

 

[Davyc]

Whichever way 2 is going to go the fundamental foundation for decisions should be based on innovation, interaction and information. As has already been stated by others, people use the internet in different ways to both garner and distribute information. Forums can't be Facebook or Twitter or Linkedin or Pinterest et-al; they all follow a similar model that tracks differently to forums, but the one thing they all have in common is users - and plenty of them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with forums - they offer much more flexibility than any of the above. So what's the issue? $64,000 question! Perhaps it's in the complexity in comparison to the other models; perhaps it's just TMI for users to absorb in the usage of forums. Perhaps part of it is the terminology. Whatever it is that is holding back forums and allowing these other Social Interaction and Information models to have the edge because they dared to be different, needs to be scrutinised. Forums are 'old-school' but they remain so because they haven't grasped what the vast majority of people need, or more importantly in this day and age what they want and expect.

Is there an easy answer? I doubt it. But throwing add-ons at it that are very clever and slick is not really the answer; all you are doing there is adding more to the learning curve and that is a real turn off for people because they don't want to allocate their precious time to such tasks. Whatever is dished up needs to be simple, intuitive, easy to grasp and most important of all - FUN and desirable. There is no better marketing tool than word of mouth and if a few people see the benefit of something you can be sure that the word will spread like wildfire.

The one thing that I am sure about, is that with the XF development team at the helm we can be a little less nervous about the future of forums. Looking forward to seeing what is in store.

 

[jauburn]

There's nothing inherently wrong with forums - they offer much more flexibility than any of the above. So what's the issue? $64,000 question! Perhaps it's in the complexity in comparison to the other models; perhaps it's just TMI for users to absorb in the usage of forums. Perhaps part of it is the terminology. Whatever it is that is holding back forums and allowing these other Social Interaction and Information models to have the edge because they dared to be different, needs to be scrutinised. Forums are 'old-school' but they remain so because they haven't grasped what the vast majority of people need, or more importantly in this day and age what they want and expect.

Is there an easy answer? I doubt it. But throwing add-ons at it that are very clever and slick is not really the answer; all you are doing there is adding more to the learning curve and that is a real turn off for people because they don't want to allocate their precious time to such tasks.

You've said a lot that I agree with and was going to write, so thanks. I think one thing that's abundantly clear to everyone involved is that the excitement around forums just isn't what it used to be. Why that's the case is probably complex, as you say. Yes, I'm sure the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and the sheer number of forum-like ways people can interact online today (every newspaper article and blog post has a comments section, for example) siphon off the energy that people used to devote to forum posting. And maybe those old-timers of the 80s and 90s that made forums what they were are just getting older and tired of it all, with a younger generation that is preoccupied with other things and not able to pick up the slack. These are just two more theories about why things "aren't like they used to be."

It's excruciatingly tough to start a forum from scratch today and succeed. Like you, I don't have any answers, really, but I doubt that any additional feature or set of features glommed on to a platform like this is going to change the trend.

 

[Davyc]

It is a tough one to crack.

I much prefer forums because of their flexibility and ability to adapt to a users needs; this is something that is often overlooked by the casual user who uses FB and Twitter who are frequently cornered and restricted in so many ways, but warm to those restrictions in a perverse kind of way. I love options and loads of them because they give me an opportunity to express myself online in ways that I can't with FB or Twitter. However, I admit to finding myself in a minority group nowadays. People never understand the intimacy of a forum where you can associate with like-minded people; whereas on FB and Twitter you are open to the whole world (depending on whether you know how to access the privacy features).

The art of conversation and discussion is dying too - people try to cram into one sentence something that should be voiced in a paragraph or two to fully get across their message in a meaningful way. I find that quite sad because many people have unique perspectives on a variety of topics that can help us all to enrich our lives and understanding; they simply don't know how to express themselves beyond 140 characters or resorting to short-speak code that can often be indecipherable lol.

Your last point about it being tough to start a new forum site from scratch is 100% on the nail. What always mystifies me is why people take the time to register and then never post anything and often never return even to see how things are progressing.

Whatever shape or form forums are going to take in future days they need to adapt to these shortcomings within people - it would be nice to be able to say we will raise their standards, but in the main we often have to, regrettably, lower ours to fit in.

 

[TPerry]

One problem... a lot of your FB/Twitter users can't think more than 140-200 letters at a time.
Get them to try and string a thought together longer than that and they have difficulty.

 

[jauburn]

Whatever shape or form forums are going to take in future days they need to adapt to these shortcomings within people - it would be nice to be able to say we will raise their standards, but in the main we often have to, regrettably, lower ours to fit in.

I think part of the problem with getting any forum off the ground today is the nature of the competition and where google leads you when you type a question into the search engine. Let's say you ask a question such as "which Canon DSLR is best." Go ahead and type it now into google. When I do, the first page is filled with, well, not the typical forums that we all might know. It's filled with links from Cnet, techradar, bestbuy, pocket-lint, tomsguide, pcmag, and other large venues that, while they offer discussions, offer pretty crummy dicussions. Let's not forget Yahoo Answers, which is just about ubiquitous these days in search engines but is also piss poor in the quality of its "conversations." Many of the quality forums, in other words, never come to the attention of the average joe internet user. And even if they did, their format seems so dated or foreign that I'm not sure the joe in question would know what to do. Anyway, this is just part of the issue with trying to grow a forum today, even one with very high-quality content and high-quality members, much less start one.

But back to the topic of this thread, my sense is that the best "features" that xenforo could add in future releases are alternative ways of presenting the information that's there--in other words, alternative front end formats. The old forum model of "click the forum name and then figure out how to post a question" I think is a huge hurdle for most newcomers. While the model is intuitive for us, it's not for others.

 

[Teapot]

One problem... a lot of your FB/Twitter users can't think more than 140-200 letters at a time.
Get them to try and string a thought together longer than that and they have difficulty.

Sadly, the younger you go, the worse it gets My users have trouble stringing three smileys together sometimes...

As for the forum problem: I'm not sure a really great solution exists yet. All I know is that you need to be where the users are - which is either on their phones (apps, push notifications, etcetera) or in their social networks, in my experience. No forum package does either yet - and perhaps none can within the current limitations of PHP.

But while forums still work, I trust the developers here to do it right. Maybe we're not revolutionising internet communications, but that's okay - after all, we have the best forum package out there by far, and for a certain crowd forums still work. If I can get a load of tweens to engage (in some rudimentary manner) with my forum, then there's hope for the concept yet.

The only thing I'd want to ask for is more polish in the social features - profile posts, following, profile pages, etcetera. But I'll accept that, well, the core product comes first - only some of us want what I do, but we all want improvements to the core forum functionality. As I say, I trust the developers to steer us right - they have done an admirable job so far!

 

[erich37]

The old forum model of "click the forum name and then figure out how to post a question" I think is a huge hurdle for most newcomers. While the model is intuitive for us, it's not for others.

agree with that.



XF needs some sort of "features threads" and "featured posts" at the Homepage, preferably with the ability to show a picture the user is able to click onto it to go to a thread.
Example:
https://www.tinhte.vn/tags/apple/


Also the "Post New Thread"-button located more visibly would be an advantage.
Example:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/button-post-new-thread-at-homepage.90557/

 

[RickM]

https://www.tinhte.vn/tags/apple/

Gah! I hate websites that do that - scroll down and its impossible to ever get to the footer. Such a stupid, stupid oversight that so many sites are making these days.

 

[erich37]

Gah! I hate websites that do that - scroll down and its impossible to ever get to the footer. Such a stupid, stupid oversight that so many sites are making these days.

so what ?

put the "footer" into the "header" or to some other location.
Think out of the box.

 

[RickM]

so what ?

put the "footer" into the "header" or to some other location.
Think out of the box.

Oh I know there's a solution. What irritates me is that whoever designed it clearly knows they screwed up, but couldn't be arsed to fix it. It's happened with a ton of sites that implemented scrolling pagination.

 

[gmaister22]

Still nothing new about v2?

 

[Naz]

Still nothing new about v2?

Nope.

 

[gmaister22]

Nope.

Shame..