Your two most important xenForo feature wishes

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BikeGremlin said:
Just... try to keep it a forum - not a "social network" (Reddit too is one).

Less is more.

Engagement farming should be kept to those corporate-owned places.
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The problem with this is a forum is the exact definition of a social network. Forums were one of the first forms of social media.

If you aren't going to compete with social networks and adapt by offering popular options, tools and formats offered by these other platforms and expected by the public then you are severely limiting your growth and ability to survive into the future. Less is certainly not more in the eyes of the majority on the internet.

If you don't adapt, you will certainly die, maybe a slow death, but you will die.

XenForo has been a little slow to bring some of the popular trends to its platform in the past. Combine that with its extremely slow release cycle and the competitiveness of XenForo in the near future is questionable.

In my opinion we are already behind on:
  1. AI Generated and Enhanced Content
  2. Hyper-Personalized Feeds and Alerts - algorithms are already available to curate hyper-tailored content based on user behavior
  3. User Customizable Feed Options
  4. Live Streams / Q&A Sessions - allowing for real-time interaction of and with members
  5. Automated Cross-Platform Content Sharing - when you click "Post Thread/Reply" show a popup to automatically cross post on multiple social platforms
  6. Better Monetization - integrated social commerce (allowing users to buy products online without leaving your site, giving sites another form of income to pay the bills) and integrations with platforms like Patreon
  7. Better Integration and display of Off-Topic (Profile) Posts - most sites do not use, or underuse, "Profile Posts" because the integration appears like an afterthought and Profile Pages could use an overhaul and better feed display. For most social platforms this is a large percentage of content. Members making personal posts expressing themselves and everyday life. If they can't do it easily on your forum they will go elsewhere.

I believe XenForo needs additional developers. It's always good to get fresh blood and ideas into a company also. I believe the current developers are overworked and likely overwhelmed. You only need to look at the ever-increasing active bug reports to see this.

...moving off-topic, so I'll move along
 
bzcomputers said:
The problem with this is a forum is the exact definition of a social network. Forums were one of the first forms of social media.

If you aren't going to compete with social networks and adapt by offering popular options, tools and formats offered by these other platforms and expected by the public then you are severely limiting your growth and ability to survive into the future. Less is certainly not more in the eyes of the majority on the internet.

If you don't adapt, you will certainly die, maybe a slow death, but you will die.

XenForo has been a little slow to bring some of the popular trends to its platform in the past. Combine that with its extremely slow release cycle and the competitiveness of XenForo in the near future is questionable.

In my opinion we are already behind on:
  1. AI Generated and Enhanced Content
  2. Hyper-Personalized Feeds and Alerts - algorithms are already available to curate hyper-tailored content based on user behavior
  3. User Customizable Feed Options
  4. Live Streams / Q&A Sessions - allowing for real-time interaction of and with members
  5. Automated Cross-Platform Content Sharing - when you click "Post Thread/Reply" show a popup to automatically cross post on multiple social platforms
  6. Better Monetization - integrated social commerce (allowing users to buy products online without leaving your site, giving sites another form of income to pay the bills) and integrations with platforms like Patreon
  7. Better Integration and display of Off-Topic (Profile) Posts - most sites do not use, or underuse, "Profile Posts" because the integration appears like an afterthought and Profile Pages could use an overhaul and better feed display. For most social platforms this is a large percentage of content. Members making personal posts expressing themselves and everyday life. If they can't do it easily on your forum they will go elsewhere.

I believe XenForo needs additional developers. It's always good to get fresh blood and ideas into a company also. I believe the current developers are overworked and likely overwhelmed. You only need to look at the ever-increasing active bug reports to see this.

...moving off-topic, so I'll move along
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I think you missed my point.

You can't out-Reddit Reddit.
It is a lot like arguing with idiots on the Net: they bring you down to their level and beat you with more experience.

Forums resemble current social networks in the same way that proper, good cooking resembles McDonalds. LOL. :)
The more forus try to become "social networks" (in the current shape and sense of that word), the worse they get at what made them valuable in the first place: structured, searchable, "durable" discussion.

If you chase "growth" by copying the platforms that are already winning the engagement war, you don’t survive - you just dissolve into them. Now that is a slow (and painfuly pathetic) death disguised as "innovation."

What you're asking for looks like a "Reddit + Amazon + Patreon" packed into a forum shell, at $60 per year licence fee (and, if possible, affordable hosting costs). That is a different thing, completely, IMO.

Some of us want a forum, not an algorithm-pushed dopamine machine. We got that already (and it is corporate owned, and currently heavily supported by Google).

If you wish to make money (or stay current), open a subreddit for your company - and use other currently effective digital marketing tricks.
That makes sense.

But forums are what they are - they lose the point if you turn them into a "Reddit/TikTok on a budget."

Relja
 
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BikeGremlin said:
If you chase "growth" by copying the platforms that are already winning the engagement war, you don’t survive
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I think we have to instead look into adapting, not copying. Find a way to adapt without compromises that end up making everyone dissatisfied.
 
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Mr Lucky said:
I think we have to instead look into adapting, not copying. Find a way to adapt without compromises that end up making everyone dissatisfied.
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That is very general (vague if you like).

From what I can see in this thread, many (most?) requests are aimed towards making XenForo more (or as much as possible) like social networks.

If that is what most forum users and owners want, maybe that is the way to go. It would not be the first time I go looking for a different forum software. Sigh - such is life.
 
BikeGremlin said:
From what I can see in this thread, many (most?) requests are aimed towards making XenForo more (or as much as possible) like social networks.

If that is what most forum users and owners want, maybe that is the way to go.
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I don't mind as long as any improvements changes are optional.
 
Mr Lucky said:
I don't mind as long as any improvements changes are optional.
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Changes are never optional - not in practice.

Stay behind updates for a year or two, and you run into all sorts of unpatched vulnerability issues and even compatibility issues (if you don't run a 100% custom VPS - though even that won't solve the security patches issues).

It's a moot point at best. If the XenForo goes in a way that is away from being a good forum software, the only viable solution is a migration (if any alternative is left - sigh).
 
I believe the core issue lies in how we position and market forums to our members. If we were to disable the traditional nodes and instead shift interaction to profile messages, the forum would start to function more like a full-fledged social network. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—social platforms thrive because they tap into people’s desire for casual, fun, and interest-based interaction.

That’s why I don’t agree with the idea that forums are fundamentally different from social networks. In fact, forums were the foundation that social networks were built upon. The key difference is that while social networks have evolved rapidly, forums have largely remained static—clinging to the idea that they are not social networks.

What we need to focus on is boosting interaction between members. That’s why features like the Feed are so important. Back when we used vBulletin, we couldn’t even get basic notifications, which left users unaware of what was happening. XenForo changed the game by introducing features that promoted engagement, which is why so many communities made the switch.

Now, XenForo must continue to evolve. If it doesn't embrace innovation, it risks falling behind just like vBulletin did. Rather than resisting social media, the smarter approach would be to explore how we can better integrate with it—and even learn from it.

In the end, it’s all about keeping the community active and connected. That means adapting to user behavior, embracing modern expectations, and not being afraid to rethink what a forum can be.
 
I think Discourse, is big in gaming forums particularly isn't it? But I do take the point, and in some cases, some of these huge forums have historic value - ie they've been around a long time and aren't even seen as forums as such but a place unique to their topic.
 
BikeGremlin said:
From what I can see in this thread, many (most?) requests are aimed towards making XenForo more (or as much as possible) like social networks.
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That's not how it appears to me. The majority of replies before the thread morphed into a more general chat centred around content discovery in one form or another, something that's alien to most social media platforms that cater for short life content.

The one strength that forums have over everything else is the potential for enduring content which is why the majority in this thread appear to want better ways of keeping it current.
 
I have locked this thread as it has just morphed into the others.

I'll merge it (them) at some point.
 
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