A better forum.

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

That's the the kind of institutional disruption I'm looking for! We're going to overpower the competition with odor.

YES! I want to smell like sunscreen. I love that smell.

 

[Qlip]

YES! I want to smell like sunscreen. I love that smell.

I did a quick search and it seems like there is a product out there in development that will allow the electronic transimission of scent, the oPhone, maybe I can hook into its APIs. I'm holding out till they upgrade to a big O. But what I'm hearing here is uber-profile personalization, like your own goddamn MySpace page.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Smellvatars.... that is we each get to choose a scent that represents us. We can have songs play on our profile page and choose visual avatars. Why not olfactory avatars?

Mine would definitely be called "should have showered sooner than 3 days ago but let's just put deodorant on over top of that funk and also this perfume should do the trick and it looks like a hair-up kinda day but why the fuck am I such a dirty hippie?"

Title of my new dating profile right there.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I did a quick search and it seems like there is a product out there in development that will allow the electronic transimission of scent, the oPhone, maybe I can hook into it's APIs. I'm holding out till they upgrade to a big O. But what I'm hearing here is uber-profile personalization, like your own goddamn MySpace page.

Wow, I did not know that. And yes, I want my own goddamn MySpace page with smells.

Mine would definitely be called "should have showered sooner than 3 days ago but let's just put deodorant on over top of that funk and also this perfume should do the trick and it looks like a hair-up kinda day but why the fuck am I such a dirty hippie?"

Title of my new dating profile right there.

Just give it a nice, one word name, and you could bottle that and smell it to people. Maybe you could call it "Portland"?

 

[PeaceBaby]

I applaud your initiative!

To aid your research:

I know phpBb has a ton of features ...

Our forum here runs on vBulletin. Like you mention though, both vbulletin and phpBB have been around the scene for a long time now. You can also look at XenForo (created by a former vBulletin employee), IPS Community Suite and Vanilla Forums to see what's happening in the online community space. Discourse is a flat forum that's made for mobile specifically. I haven't installed a forum for anyone lately so I wonder what else is new.

When in doubt, or see features you might wish to incorporate, you can use Detect which CMS a site is using - What CMS? to reveal what (is being loosely termed a) CMS is in use.

 

[1487610420]

GitHub - NodeBB/NodeBB: Node.js based forum software built for the modern web

http://code.ourjs.com/

/thread

 

[highlander]

If they site allowed @highlander to execute roosters it would be better.

YES!

 

[Qlip]

I applaud your initiative!

To aid your research:



Our forum here runs on vBulletin. Like you mention though, both vbulletin and phpBB have been around the scene for a long time now. You can also look at XenForo (created by a former vBulletin employee), IPS Community Suite and Vanilla Forums to see what's happening in the online community space. Discourse is a flat forum that's made for mobile specifically. I haven't installed a forum for anyone lately so I wonder what else is new.

When in doubt, or see features you might wish to incorporate, you can use Detect which CMS a site is using - What CMS? to reveal what (is being loosely termed a) CMS is in use.

GitHub - NodeBB/NodeBB: Node.js based forum software built for the modern web

http://code.ourjs.com/

/thread

phobik, this is more along the lines of what I'm looking for, open source projects. Although my thread is not over! I'm looking to build a great forum experience, something that doesn't feel like it was put together from a grab bag. I have been looking at nodeBB, it's in my wheelhouse language wise, but It's not clear that it's a base that I'd want to contribute to or extend.

I still want to know what peoples' dream forum experience is.

 

[1487610420]

phobik, this is more along the lines of what I'm looking for, open source projects. Although my thread is not over! I'm looking to build a great forum experience, something that doesn't feel like it was put together from a grab bag. I have been looking at nodeBB, it's in my wheelhouse language wise, but It's not clear that it's a base that I'd want to contribute to or extend.

I still want to know what peoples' dream forum experience is.

what's the criteria?

 

[Tellenbach]

It might be fun to have a pop-up derail thread where people can post nonsense or non-serious comments. The comments would still be associated with the thread but they would be sequestered in a separate pop-up window and people can choose whether or not they want to view them.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I did a quick search and it seems like there is a product out there in development that will allow the electronic transimission of scent, the oPhone, maybe I can hook into its APIs. I'm holding out till they upgrade to a big O. But what I'm hearing here is uber-profile personalization, like your own goddamn MySpace page.

It might be fun to have a pop-up derail thread where people can post nonsense or non-serious comments. The comments would still be associated with the thread but they would be sequestered in a separate pop-up window and people can choose whether or not they want to view them.

Wouldn't that require someone to curate it? Like moderators? Maybe you could have it so users could flag it if it was off-topic. I would probably never flag something as off-topic, though, because I personally don't care.

 

[Tellenbach]

Wouldn't that require someone to curate it? Like moderators?

It would be both voluntary and subject to moderator purview. I don't know if you've ever seen VH1's pop-up videos show. As the video is playing, pop-ups of random comments appear. It'd be something like that.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It would be both voluntary and subject to moderator purview. I don't know if you've ever seen VH1's pop-up videos show. As the video is playing, pop-ups of random comments appear. It'd be something like that.

Yeah, I've seen that. Might be cool. Just offering my input.

 

[Tellenbach]

As an example of what I mean. There are threads with music recommendations and video clips posted. Someone may want to tell a story or comment about a particular song without posting any recommendations. They can do so in the pop-up derail thread.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

As an example of what I mean. There are threads with music recommendations and video clips posted. Someone may want to tell a story or comment about a particular song without posting any recommendations. They can do so in the pop-up derail thread.

Yeah, that would be pretty useful.

 

[highlander]

Our forum here runs on vBulletin. Like you mention though, both vbulletin and phpBB have been around the scene for a long time now. You can also look at XenForo (created by a former vBulletin employee), IPS Community Suite and Vanilla Forums to see what's happening in the online community space. Discourse is a flat forum that's made for mobile specifically. I haven't installed a forum for anyone lately so I wonder what else is new.

When in doubt, or see features you might wish to incorporate, you can use Detect which CMS a site is using - What CMS? to reveal what (is being loosely termed a) CMS is in use.

I think the content management system is an important aspect. You want to be able to extend the forum to be a customizable website with a blog and other custom content as well - easily. Think about what we do with the Wiki make that a built in feature. I do think you need to understand what's going on in the online community space in general as it is evolving. Xenforo is a newer platform and getting upgraded. The disadvantage of it is that there is not as much customization available. The end result is there are a lot of sites running it that are bland. The biggest advantage I can see, other than it being upgraded, is that it is mobile ready which is extremely important. Outside of being mobile friendly, I think it is important to allow customization. The map plugin is a good example of that. So is a chat plugin. There are some features of Xenforo and DBSEO/VBSEO that support search engine optimization. That's a helpful thing too. Maybe if you look at the most popular forum software and some of the most popular customizations, it would give you an idea as to where to go.

what's the criteria?

He's looking for ideas not criteria.

 

[Qlip]

what's the criteria?

I think the content management system is an important aspect. You want to be able to extend the forum to be a customizable website with a blog and other custom content as well - easily. Think about what we do with the Wiki make that a built in feature. I do think you need to understand what's going on in the online community space in general as it is evolving. Xenforo is a newer platform and getting upgraded. The disadvantage of it is that there is not as much customization available. The end result is there are a lot of sites running it that are bland. The biggest advantage I can see, other than it being upgraded, is that it is mobile ready which is extremely important. Outside of being mobile friendly, I think it is important to allow customization. The map plugin is a good example of that. So is a chat plugin. There are some features of Xenforo and DBSEO/VBSEO that support search engine optimization. That's a helpful thing too. Maybe if you look at the most popular forum software and some of the most popular customizations, it would give you an idea as to where to go.


He's looking for ideas not criteria.

Yeah, pretty much this. Although, I have managed to start forming my list of criteria. So far, some of the key features I'd like are:

• open source
• node.js based (that's what I work in)
• scalable
• tres searchable
• feature and experience parity between mobile and desktop
• extensive user privacy and security features
• gui-style drag and drop link/thread/post/content manipulation
• multi-modal conversation forking (very much in the vein [MENTION=20113]Tellenbach[/MENTION] suggested)
• tools for user thread/post curation
• completely semantic html (for accessibility and seo)
• fallback static mode, for non-javascript browsers running in Tor

Thanks for your pov on what kinds of things you find key in forum software and your suggestions on how to approach further research. Checking out popular customization is a great way to make sure my ducks are all in a row.

 

[Tellenbach]

A doodling board on the front page where people can draw random stuff; the board can be wiped daily. Custom smileys/emojis - You draw them yourself and upload them.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think someone may have said this already, but if so, I'll second it: a built in chat interface. It might kill Vent, though. On the positive side, it would be a lot more convenient.

 

[Raffaella]

A CREDIT SYSTEM
[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]
[MENTION=9627]Xann[/MENTION]