Profile Posts

[Reverie]

Most forum software has profile posts embedded, or able to be added to their forums I believe now. I was trying to think as a previous forum owner, and as a member of a forum.... What are some more interesting things we can use Profile Posts for?

- An away message - At least saying "I'll be back on the xyz date" without spamming the forum per se makes some sense if you don't like people to make topics when they are leaving.
- Post how you are doing
- Post sharing news about you, your life, your community....

These are things I've seen, but could there be more uses we have yet to think of?

 

[John]

I like them for memes. I think it’s kind of funny to post like gifs/memes/songs that kind of reflect the person.

 

[Reverie]

I like them for memes. I think it’s kind of funny to post like gifs/memes/songs that kind of reflect the person.

I do like the addition of songs and gifs! It is a cool way to help express oneself!

 

[Tracy]

Hate 'em, wish they could be turned off.

Spoiler

But I'm somewhat an anti-social bastich!

 

[Cory]

I guess they could be used as a personal blog of sorts. I remember ZetaBoards had a blog feature attached to the profile, not sure how popular it was, but it seemed a lot of people used it.

 

[ClicketyKat]

On some forums they're used more than others. What I like to see on profiles and what gets my attention are when members post things that are on their minds and you can tell it means a lot to them. Those can be anything from a family member passing away to an engagement to looking forward to spending time with the family. It's personal stuff and it creates a good conversation and community feel.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

We've rebranded them to "status updates" per IPB's approach.

They're still most commonly used by my co-admin and I, however.

 

[Reverie]

I remember people discussed when it was semi added on Zetaboards - to be kinda embedded into the user post area somehow so you could see how they are all currently doing and etc while you're interacting with them on the board. It's interesting. I do like the status update basically, it does make it a bit more of a community knowing what's going on in one's life.

 

[Shortie]

As much as I know statuses or profile posts are available on forums, I always forget that they are there and forget to use them. I suppose in a way it is like having a small social media section on a forum where you can post updates regarding yourself or just little things that are on your mind without spamming the forum with it.

I do need to get better at using that feature on forums.

 

[Arantor]

It always feels so weirdly out of place to me. Like, great, we have this - but now what? It's a content silo for one, it's disjointed from everything else and it feels like a distraction than a benefit.

 

[Reverie]

It always feels so weirdly out of place to me. Like, great, we have this - but now what? It's a content silo for one, it's disjointed from everything else and it feels like a distraction than a benefit.

I can agree with this as well. I would like for it to be connected somehow. I remember when forums had blogs, it's kinda like this has taken that place as well.

 

[Tracy]

It's a content silo for one, it's disjointed from everything else and it feels like a distraction than a benefit.

This is a MAJOR issue with almost every forum script.. even those with 1st and 3rd party add-ons... there needs to be a more centralized method of retrieving the data, either via a newsfeed or search function. WAY to much of the data is siloed off into individual partitions and it can be a pain to find, and in many cases similar data has no linkage.

 

[Arantor]

almost every forum script

It's a problem in *every* forum script as far as I'm concerned. Even ones like IPS that gloss over it to some degree still silo it off. I haven't seen one yet where it isn't actually a problem.

 

[Tracy]

It's a problem in *every* forum script as far as I'm concerned. Even ones like IPS that gloss over it to some degree still silo it off. I haven't seen one yet where it isn't actually a problem.

I haven't tried every forum script... so I can't speak to the totality of it.
There ARE some that seem to want to cram everything into one "NeverEnding Page", but they are somewhat limited on their extensions to much else than "posts".

 

[Arantor]

Me either but I've tried most of what's out there - my local has versions of phpBB, MyBB, SMF, ElkArte, XF, IPS, vBulletin, Woltlab, Vesta Athens, MiniBB, Flarum and NodeBB on it, I might grab a copy of UBB.Threads sometime later this year for comedy value, and if I can ever get Discourse working that'd be interesting (I've been a user of it, never an adminstrator, but plumbing their Docker image into my Docker setup is not trivial). AsmBB might be hard to run locally, Misago I should try sometime, and that's just what's on my immediate radar...

IPS's Activity Feed is pretty much the one 'never ending page' that actually attempts to pull across the different modules and is the most cohesive I've seen yet, but it's still got rough edges that become apparent when you look because it's still several silos being fed into one, rather than one unified thing.

 

[Tracy]

IPS's Activity Feed is pretty much the one 'never ending page' that actually attempts to pull across the different modules and is the most cohesive I've seen yet, but it's still got rough edges that become apparent when you look because it's still several silos being fed into one, rather than one unified thing.

Yep, they are the nearest.. but I don't honestly think anyone has figured out what it's going to take yet. It's definitely not cloning current social media apps/sites... it needs to EXCEED that.
What does that entail.. I have no clue.. If I did... I'd be making a LOT of money right now!!

 

[Ravenfreak]

I like having them as a place for people to post random thoughts without going off topic on the main forum. It's sort of like having a shoutbox, but without the fear of losing activity on your main forum. It's just a nice little place for those to post updates here and there about whatever they want.

 

[kolakube]

I've never minded having the feature enabled as it gives people another place to attempt to be active. I've seen them used to:

1. Social media like updates for the forum community only (this is probably the designed goal of the feature)
2. A place to promote themselves/create a micro blog
3. Used as semi-private messages (hey X, where did you post about Y?)
4. Leave reviews about a user