Xenforo network

[karll]

This is an idea I've had for a while ... or it's more of a hazy dream, not entirely coherent, I'm afraid. And I'm sure others must have had similar ideas:

There are millions of people out there wasting their time on Facebook every day while they should really be posting on Xenforo boards. So, how could this situation be improved? Well, what if there was a sort of Xenforo site similar to Facebook? Where all Xenforo boards (or a subset of them) participated. Users could choose to use global usernames, or local usernames valid only on specific boards. (I think Wikipedia does something like this for different language versions of their encyclopaedia.) I suppose participating boards ought to have the same or very similar rules & terms. A user could join a new board as easily as FB users join new groups. And there would be a search feature for finding boards to join according to their area(s) of focus.

The technical side of this idea is probably where it all breaks. No idea how it would work, really

Mostly I'm just curious if others have had similar ideas, or if anything like this exists out there, why it was a success or failure etc.

 

[Amaury]

Facebook isn't a waste of time.

Anyway, XenForo is a forum software. Turning it into a Facebook-like thing would kill the point of the software, personally.

 

[Slavik]

Its a concept which in theory works well, in practice, not so much.

It requires a level of trust and co-operation between site owners, which, very very rarely exists, and the concept has been tried, and failed by multi-billion dollar companies. The only time it works is when said company buys out or owns the services it wants to integrate with (a-la-google).

 

[Adam Howard]

Its a concept which in theory works well, in practice, not so much.

It requires a level of trust and co-operation between site owners, which, very very rarely exists, and the concept has been tried, and failed by multi-billion dollar companies. The only time it works is when said company buys out or owns the services it wants to integrate with (a-la-google).

off topic ... I wonder what Google would do with a forum development. Sort of curious how it would be received if Google bought out XenForo, for example.

 

[karll]

Anyway, XenForo is a forum software. Turning it into a Facebook-like thing would kill the point of the software, personally.

Well, the idea was only to borrow some of the strong/good aspects of FB, not to turn XF into an exact replica.

Its a concept which in theory works well, in practice, not so much.

It requires a level of trust and co-operation between site owners, which, very very rarely exists, and the concept has been tried, and failed by multi-billion dollar companies. The only time it works is when said company buys out or owns the services it wants to integrate with (a-la-google).

I suppose to get the proper FB effect, it would need to be a network of thousands of different boards. And it might prove technically challenging to get the "New / recent Posts" from all those boards into an "FB wall" in a timely fashion? Lots of things that could go wrong (technically) with so many independent sites trying to work together... But I think it could work. A central database (NoSQL?) that gets updated with new posts / threads /etc from the participating boards at certain intervals. The central database wouldn't have to keep old data even, as its purpose is merely to act as a front-end for current info on all the boards.

 

[Sheratan]

off topic ... I wonder what Google would do with a forum development. Sort of curious how it would be received if Google bought out XenForo, for example.

Don't give Google any idea, please.

 

[mistypants]

Isn't this already kinda covered by the whole sign up with Facebook/Twitter stuff? It makes user registration quick and easy, while allowing boards to remain independent. Promoting your site is up to you.

 

[petertdavis]

Sounds like you're describing Tapatalk.

 

[Adam Howard]

Don't give Google any idea, please.

 

[karll]

Isn't this already kinda covered by the whole sign up with Facebook/Twitter stuff? It makes user registration quick and easy, while allowing boards to remain independent. Promoting your site is up to you.

A bit, except those sites have a lot of "noise" not at all related to Internet forums. And those sites are not specifically and exclusively supporting Internet forums. I want a wall of new/recent posts/threads from Internet forums. (Also, FB is evil in more than one way, of course.)

Sounds like you're describing Tapatalk.

I suppose that is more like it. Maybe this is something Tapatalk could become? Maybe I should talk to them

 

[typb]

Sounds like you're describing Reddit.

Fixed

 

[petertdavis]

Fixed

Please don't misquote me.

 

[petertdavis]

I suppose that is more like it. Maybe this is something Tapatalk could become? Maybe I should talk to them

I know there are some forum networks who've used Tapatalk to publish an app that includes numerous forums. Forum Foundry just released one recently called the "Outdoor Forums" app. Might be interesting for you to have a look at what they did.

 

[karll]

I know there are some forum networks who've used Tapatalk to publish an app that includes numerous forums. Forum Foundry just released one recently called the "Outdoor Forums" app. Might be interesting for you to have a look at what they did.

Interesting. Of course, this is on smartphones (apps) only. I wonder if Tapatalk would find it interesting to take the concept to the browser as well.

 

[Pinn]

This is the solution http://xenforo.com/community/threads/new-features-for-visitor-messages.67567/

 

[TeflonDon]

Facebook...Google...Tapatalk

Edit: Why do images show as X all the time now?

http://i.imgur.com/wqMWK7z.gif

 

[karll]

Actually, maybe what I'm describing is @s.molinari 's Skooppa?
http://www.skooppa.com/first-concepts/

 

[Pinn]

Yes it is s.molinari!

 

[DRE]

This addon has been done before on vbulletin. It was called the network. I was connected to JUOT, AMB and i think one other forum. Ask @BirdOPrey5 about how it's done cause he was the one that invited me and hooked it up. He's an awesome coder. The best IMO

 

[BirdOPrey5]

"The Network" plugin for vBulletin allows 2 or more sites to share one or more forums.

It basically runs on a cron job... every X minutes it looks if any new threads or posts were made in a "Networked" forum, and if so, it sends them via http to the other forum(s) in the network. Each forum confirms receipt and the send queue from the originating forum is cleared upon a successful send.

Posts on the other forums are posted as guests with a username followed by a code for each site. So posts from people on my forum look like username@JUOT when posted on someone else's forum.

Of course there is a network password you must share with other admins before they can join your network.

It's not fully polished but it worked. Even shows avatars if they are stored in the file system.

The original author of it is zethon on vBulletin.org.

There's no reason it can't be made to work across forum software... you could network a VB, XF, phpbb, and whatever forum together if the code is written for each.