I never said anything about back and forth between two people. Response diversity is a great way to put it-- most people skim through threads and decide to reply if they have something to add.
Also, private messages are horrible on this system. Among the things it’s missing is reply to all, for cryin’ out loud!
In all honesty facebook is pretty sweet. Strip away all the personal information bullshit and make some minor tweaks and you’re set. For thread creation: Make a page for a topic. You have the wall for general discussion, and you can comment on posts to form specific threads for a side topic. The info section of a page can be updated as new information comes in
For member to member discussion: walls, messages, instant messaging if someone is online. don’t want instant messages? No problem, appear offline to chat.
An ignore feature that actually functions would have to be added. I have several people blocked on fb that I can still see their posts in groups.
Turning off avatars makes Zenforo somewhat cleaner and more like the minimalism of the present QT3 system. That said, what’s here ain’t broke.
I like (and even occasionally “miss”) the “like” feature. I’d strongly disagree that it’s a popularity contest feature (although in occasional contexts it might look like one.) Rather, it’s a way to telegraph the things that one might telegraph in person with a smile, laugh, or slap on the back. “Liking” caught on because (at least part of the time) it scratches a social itch to display one’s sub-post-level-quanta-of-appreciation.
Like.
Xenforo is where it is at. Like is great, @name’ing people is great, the alerts are great, the embedded YouTube stuff is great and being able to attach photos directly to the forum is also great.
While this might be nice for a smaller forum, i don’t really think it’s a feasible* feature to have enabled for something like Penny Arcade or StackOverflow or whatever. There’s a reason sites like imageshack/img.ur exist after all :)
Anyway, i know you can also enable it on vBulletin (or maybe it’s an addon) and Vannilla.
*i don’t really have a clue about how it’s done but i assume they’re saving it to the server where the forum is hosted on.
Sure - Still, it would be nice if posting images was more streamlined somehow. Fiddling with code sucks.
Ditto. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post. Or alternatively upgrade to the latest version of vBulletin.
First, no concept of “pages”. I use an auto-pager Chrome plugin and it makes Qt3 forum browsing so much better. It’s still not perfect, because sometimes the autopager confuses the last post read functionality and throws it off. So, I’d like some way to mark an individual post with a “bookmark” so that when I transition between laptop and mobile device, I don’t lose my place in a longer thread.
I don’t know if I agree with your negativity about 2-3 person discussions. In some subforums, e.g., Politics & Religion, it’s might be valid in that it’s the sign of an echo chamber. In other subforums, e.g., Hardware & Tech Stuff, it could be the sign of a good solution being offered right off the bat.
As a random, crazy thought: much like some e-mail programs mark an e-mail as “read” when you’ve lingered on the preview message for a user-defined preset amount of time, perhaps that’s one of the data points for automating the upvoting. Track how long people spend scrolling through a post. Account for post word length as much as possible, i.e. if people linger over long posts, that’s good. If they skim over short ones, that’s neutral, but if they skim over long ones, or skip them entirely, that could be a bad sign. Important: Just as a data point, not the exclusive way to upvote a thread. You’d also likely need some client-side browser plugin to track the time spent on a post/page.
I will try again, and will try to respond to what the OP ask, without ranting much.
This one. QT3.
That Xenforo one is incredible, but I don’t like the aesthetics.
- What are the essential features of forum software? What do you use every day?
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See what thread have unread posts.
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Link to jump to the last post / last unread post.
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Good aesthetics.
I honestly prefer vBulletin over any other forum software. I like both the 90’s looking software’s and the smooth & sexy now day software’s. I think vBulletin 4 has pretty much covered that. My second choice would be Xenforo.
Forums should come equipped with ongoing forum games, like the 20:20 movie frame game, or thread’s that are just enjoyable to routinely watch, like the animated .gif thread.
NSFW tags that don’t merely hide the content with javascript but do some sort of AJAX request to inject the content in the page so that people browsing who don’t want it to even end up on their computer (without clicking) don’t have to worry.
Christ, I can’t get past the question verification barrier on BrokenForum. I’ve tried everything I can think of. Anyone want to help a brother out and PM the freaking answer?
What’s the question?
“In the epic song “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice, what was the frozen substance that Vanilla Ice praised repeatedly?”
Answers tried:
Himself
Vanilla Ice
Ice Cream
Baby
Ice Baby
Ice Ice Baby
ah fuck, I just figured it out. I won’t post it, but suffice it to say I was thinking too hard.
Hint: cold, hard snack that melts in your mouth and in your hands (and in your pants!).
I actually got stuck on this myself, so don’t feel bad. Unlike you, I didn’t have the balls to ask anyone. I just silently gnashed my teeth until I stumbled upon it.
Something Awful and Boardgamegeek are my favorites. I don’t know what software they are using, in fact it may be homegrown. Something Awful for the amazing number of emoticons and Boardgamegeek for the ability to thumb up conversations.
This is my least liked forum for software, very dry and usenet like. Frameworks for discussion have moved on, I wish this place would do so as well.
Yeah, you can say what you want about SA, but god damn if they don’t have a lot of cool features on their boards. A lot of bloat too of course, but a lot of really nice features that make it easier to browse and keep up.
By the way, I love Qt3 for never letting old threads die. Never change. <3