Right then, what does a community platform need?

[Arantor]

A genie comes down and asks you what your dream community platform needs. No limit to the wishes. No limit to your dreams.

What do you wish for?

What I wish for:
* a place where users can register (either directly or by one of the common SSO options such as OAuth)
* a place where users can be managed in terms of groups and permissions
* a place where users can be banned
* users can have multiple avatars
* a way of creating topics
* a way of sorting topics into different categories
* different kinds of topics, such as discussions, gallery items, downloads (in other words; no siloing of content between articles systems, galleries, download areas and no creating weird duplicates to sync between things)
* different kinds of topics might need different kinds of editing tools
* a way to create semi-structured content, e.g. defining a structure where an item in a collection needs x,y,z fields filled in but can be presented nicely (e.g. a recipe book)
* ways to automate certain actions and workflows in the system, e.g. 'posts containing xyz will not be permitted', 'users with less than 10 posts, posting a link in the post, post is immediately marked moderated'
* nice themes out of the box
* a community to try it out and let me know what other features it needs
* plugins that can be easily enabled/disabled

I'm sure there's more. The genie has looked at me with a slightly disapproving face right now, I think he'd like other people to suggest ideas.

 

[Cedric]

* An easy method to modify or create new themes. Single CSS file if possible like the one we had on ZetaBoards.
* A file manager to keep all uploads, attachments in an easy overview with the ability to list per date, forum/thread or size.
* A fast responsive UIX
* An easy admin control panel, based on IPB more than any other software.
* A portal/CMS option.
* A moderator panel like the add on from XF.


Will post more later.

 

[Tracy]

And I will initiate with a simple statement.
The ability to create authoritative content that is easily findable, SEO friendly and able to be linked directly to similar subjects is a major priority.
To extend that beyond one sentence... get rid of the "silo" functions that most forums (and even add-ons for those scripts) consist of. Centralize and ease the finding of pertinent information that is searched for.
As to the SSO cry....
The simple fact is, on my site alone I offer these "SSO" logins.


And yes, at one point Twitter was also there, but sorry Elon.. you don't get my phone number to sell to try to recoup what you lost due to your stupidity/ego.
And I'm sure several other paid scripts do the same.
SSO is NOT really that big of an importance to folks.. many of the major paid scripts offer the ability to use social media/major email provers as sign on options (as shown above), which are a higher incidence of the MAJORITY of users compared to "I use this SSO service so I need it for all my sites" type users. MOST users will never use a true SSO provider. If your free script doesn't provide that.. then it's time to start yelling at that scripts developer(s).

Honestly.. it is usually the admin that wants the site to "look pretty". In fact, a large number of the major sites in my niche specifically aren't "fancy". The users aren't there because "it looks pretty" but because "I get good information here".
Now, I gladly admit that for ME a lot of that is based upon my being around "forum" structures since the days of BBS's in the 1980's up until now... but even currently with many of the younger users, those in my niche don't "complain" because the site is not "pretty" enough, but because information is hard to find. They are more into the actual data and the ease to find it.

 

[Arantor]

In addition:

* ability to create pages
* ability to add widgets to pages pretty much anywhere (and collapse them sensibly on mobile)
* ability to create pages just out of widgets to make dashboards (including in the user profile area if so desired, to potentially give users a space to customise, within reason)
* users should be able to both ignore and block users
* ability to set up connections between topics, e.g. 'reply to this post as a new topic' as a convenience option, but also be able to group collections of topics together in their own group that are all linked to each other (sort of like a curated 'related topics' but *actually* related)
* custom fields everywhere are pretty much a given
* ability for user to set their own bookmarks on any content
* ability for moderators to set waypoints throughout a particularly long topic, e.g. if someone is posting a book, ability to mark where the chapters are by post (threadmarks) would be neat

 

[Arantor]

A few more thoughts. These are less bullet points and more chunky thoughts. One per paragraph.

I think, as I've sort of alluded to, that the different types of content need different authoring tools - not just the generic WYSIWYG editor-get-on-with-it deal that we normally get. Crucially, I think general discussion posts don't actually need more than Markdown in most cases. I know this is potentially controversial but hear me out. The actual discussion part doesn't generally need more than Markdown because 99% of what is talked about is just that, talking. Markdown gets you all the basic formatting that you really do need and basic media embedding. Social media taught us that users generally are fine with this more than we used to think normal, and it's not like we can't have more fancy options for the few cases we do need it.

I think a calendar should also be a core feature at this point. Events are types of thread, albeit with a time component attached which we could surface, and do things like RSVP and invitations and recurring things, that's all old ground. But what if you could bring other things into the calendar? A community is more than just its events; why not connect it to the site blog if you have one? Ditto things that are otherwise time based - think threads that talk about competitions that aren't necessarily events in our current world (but probably should be).

I think some kind of achievements system should be default. I don't know if I'd hook this into a forum currency by default but I'd certainly encourage users to have a route of personal progression through a site. I'd not have post count groups by default but if people wanted to do some kind of progression ladder, this would be the tool for it, with the intent being that it's task focused rather than progress-focused (instead of making it just the next number of things to have done, make it possible to connect it to user activity, e.g. contribute to x different topics that aren't yours, add x media items etc).

I'd want to integrate something like bootstraptour.com by default and let admins set it up to spotlight whatever features are useful (or not) for their site. If you are in a niche where you're customised, this is extremely nice to have.

More controversially, I'd do something radically different with permissions to what is normally done today. Today we have the world of users -> groups -> permissions, whether you put this through a lens of 'this is the default permission set for this group, this group can do this by default, and this in this specific board' or something else. I'd do something more radical: roles. Groups are a useful way of grouping people but too often they get used for aesthetics and not privileges (esp if you don't use achievements but groups for flagging certain things), and this often gets out of hand - so instead let's say 'everyone starts with the role "regular user"', 'persons A, B and C, plus groups X, Y and Z are all "moderators" in area 1' and 'group Z is moderator in area 2'. It's a departure for sure but it separates the notion of groups and permissions quite neatly in my experience. Reality is that most users on most sites are not special, and making the special cases easier to reason through for larger sites is actually more difficult than you'd think.

I am honestly on the fence about infinite scrolling. I think some people love it. I think some people hate it. I think many implementations of it are awful but I think a reasonable implementation that can be turned on/off might be a nice enough core feature.

I am also very deeply on the fence about threaded comments. There are people who swear by them (e.g. Reddit, some WP folks), there are people who utterly loathe them (anyone who's been using a conventional flat forum for the last 20 years), and there are people who think there's a middle ground (e.g. Discourse). I really don't have strong opinions on this, I can see both sides of the argument, though the 'how do we make the UI less confusing' question keeps haunting me as Discourse proved admirably in its early days how confusing this was.

Important to note: not all content types are 'topics' in my hypothetical world. Discussions are obviously topics; Q&A naturally are topics. Articles too. So are media items. They're items of content with some kind of discussion attached in the form of comments. Helpdesk tickets too, really. But content pages aren't, neither in my head are wiki pages, I think there's a place for such less-structured content but maybe not necessarily in the core of a community suite (certainly not until later if that's a decision that gets made)... a wiki is a specific organisation of pages with an inherently less-structured format (much more structure = use a different tool rather than hammering it with a wiki).

I think that's enough for now. The genie is looking at me with a very distinct 'can you let someone else have a go already' look.

 

[Cedric]

Don't limit yourself to post here, all in all good ideas, and you need to go with the flow. Momentum creates ideas, that's what I have experienced many times. I can all bullet points being forming a great forum software. I agree about the roles, it's different, but that sounds like a good way to define users. Calendar needs to be default - idk who ever thought it was not needed on XF, but it's a lame decision. The editor for general use doesn't need to be packed with features, but perhaps able to switch to some packed editor inside a post/thread would be beneficial?

I like infinite scrolling myself, but to an limit of a certain amount that should be editable by admins.

 

[Arantor]

I'm just excited

The thing about editors needs more musing for sure. I'm just throwing things out there at the moment, seeing what grabs peoples' attention.

 

[Reverie]

I think a calendar should also be a core feature at this point. Events are types of thread, albeit with a time component attached which we could surface, and do things like RSVP and invitations and recurring things, that's all old ground. But what if you could bring other things into the calendar? A community is more than just its events; why not connect it to the site blog if you have one? Ditto things that are otherwise time based - think threads that talk about competitions that aren't necessarily events in our current world (but probably should be).

I can envision a topic having the ability to "Add to calendar" type of feature. For contests, for celebrations, for things that are similar. I love the idea of this!

I think some kind of achievements system should be default. I don't know if I'd hook this into a forum currency by default but I'd certainly encourage users to have a route of personal progression through a site. I'd not have post count groups by default but if people wanted to do some kind of progression ladder, this would be the tool for it, with the intent being that it's task focused rather than progress-focused (instead of making it just the next number of things to have done, make it possible to connect it to user activity, e.g. contribute to x different topics that aren't yours, add x media items etc).

Similar to this I think the automatic feature for "achievements" is great. Using the forum successfully and making it almost gamified will keep newer userbase interested. "Created your first topic" "Created 10 topics in x area" "posted on someone's profile" just small achievements and maybe more customizable for the bigger ones and niche specific forums.

If statuses are brought over, having it more embedded into user profile within the post. That way it is more "Oh I see it! - let me ask how they are doing etc based on their status update"

 

[Arantor]

Don't know if I said it here, but another thing I'd do is ditch the classical PM systems of yore. Things that replicate either email-like setups or even thread-like setups feel so counterproductive in my world.

I'd go for something much more messenger-like, or group-chat like. I'd also emphatically refer to it as DMs or Messenger to de-emphasise the 'private' aspect; a forum admin is the site owner, DMs are not end-to-end-encrypted (because this takes a level of engineering that's somewhat impractical for something you can just plonk on a commodity server)


Random side thought: I think I won't attempt to do what the old school packages do and support subfolders and stuff, it's either domain or subdomain. No example.com/community/ level stuff. This is mostly a technical simplification more than anything else. It also does things to ensure people don't try to run it in a sub-folder of WordPress which is always asking for a truly bad time.

 

[Reverie]

I find that to be a good idea. I remember when a instant messenger system was tried on Zetaboards and it was terrible, but I think there has been a lot of growth since that and more possabilities. I would like it somehow still embedded, and I'm not sure if I would necessarily like it to be a popup - but wouldn't be bad like the Discord integration thing.

 

[Arantor]

Presentationally I could see that going either way, maybe even both; have a full screen layout by default, and a format you can add to a tab at the bottom if you want to have multiple open (e.g. on desktop). No strong thoughts there yet.

 

[joelr]

because this takes a level of engineering that's somewhat impractical for something you can just plonk on a commodity server)

It's interesting that you assume forums will be hosted on commodity servers. What if you assume that the community was hosted on a cloud platform? How much more could you do in your server architecture?

On an unrelated note, here are some things that I would like to see in a next gen community platform. All very "chunky" ideas:

- Better (automated) ways of organizing and structuring content that comes in unstructured.
- Development of custom tools / forms / automation within the community
- Personalization. Group the user into a cohort of users who act in similar ways, provide personalized content recommendations, etc.

 

[Arantor]

How much more could I do in a server architecture if it were cloud hosted? Plenty but I'd a) actually have to run it and b) deal with all the people complaining how expensive it is and $deity knows I don't have the temperament for that.

Besides, I'm certain that the hobbyist end of the market would appreciate a solution that doesn't require vendor lock-in etc.

 

[joelr]

How much more could I do in a server architecture if it were cloud hosted? Plenty but I'd a) actually have to run it and b) deal with all the people complaining how expensive it is and $deity knows I don't have the temperament for that.

Besides, I'm certain that the hobbyist end of the market would appreciate a solution that doesn't require vendor lock-in etc.

This is an interesting question on its own, but do you actually see business viability in the forum hobbyist market?

If you want to win over forum hobbyists:
- be cheap
- offer theming
That's it. I'm not trying to be disparaging or dismissive, but I'm not sure forum hobbyists are going to be paying for the innovation premium for next gen community platforms (especially when so many other options exist for free).

 

[Arantor]

I really didn't want to get into this in this topic but, well, here we are I guess.

You're assuming that I'm seeing it at all from a business viability standpoint; I *never* considered it from that standpoint because... well, if I spent 14 years contributing to forum systems already, why would I start monetising it *now*? I may not be good at business but I'm not *that* bad at it!

Reality is, what I'm looking at isn't about trying to dethrone XF or IPS. It's about my take on the market as a whole. We both know that IPS may have committed to the self-host market for v5, but that's not going to live forever, and it's going to go into the cloud longer term, and that's *fine*. That's what *their* customers want.

My question becomes: what do *I* want? Me, if I start a forum I want to be able to put it somewhere and hook it up to other things I'm doing on the same project. I want to be able to customise it, add my own plugins and so on - that right there rules out IPS Cloud because there is no universe I'm going to be in the place where a project I run has the finances to have the plan necessary for me to have custom dev that isn't in the store. Which means I'd be looking at XF Cloud with plugins, or WBB with plugins or... maybe there's room for something else.

But more broadly, one of the big arguments against cloud is adjacent apps - for example I have an upcoming project, that's currently got a MediaWiki on the side - no guarantee it'll stay a MW, but it's a storage of content in that semi-unstructured format that wikis are good at (and that CMSes in general suck at, which is why it's a wiki), and I don't want to have to host that on a different server, as I'd be forced to with cloud. What it also gives me is the opportunity to do interesting integrations between the two for a more cohesive experience; one thing I've been playing with is the @ autocompletion, not just feeding from member names, but also wiki articles to hook this together (in particular this project has a variety of place names with accented letters; this wasn't my choice, so being able to do some kind of vaguely-autocomplete these things is useful)

In addition, I find the increasing commercialisation of the internet distasteful. I remember there being a lot of hobbyists just happily doing the hobby thing - they'd have a space all of their own that they could do some basic customisation on, and they seemed *happy* that they had a space they could call theirs and invite their friends to and so on. It let them do things on their schedule to their plans, rather than the Facebook style groups features where you get what you get, tough luck if that's not what you need, and you're at the mercy of whatever moderation happens to be going on.

In short, I'm not interested in building forum software. I'm interested in building community software; to me the difference is very stark. One is about creating a space for people to talk, the other is about creating a space for people to come together - which doesn't have to be to talk, but it can be, as well as to share pictures, videos, whatever - all the things forums do fairly poorly at present.

And there's so many unknowns in what I'm playing with at the moment - I believe, for example, that it should be possible to decouple topics from being stuck in individual boards (making a board much more taxonomic in nature than enforced structure), so that a single topic could live in two boards if that makes sense. And that's fine until you start to consider 'but what if topics have custom fields', where it could conceivaby apply differently depending on which category you start it in! I really don't have the answers, but that's OK because right now I'm more interested in asking questions and seeing where they lead.

What's clear is that the current hobbyist market - the phpBBs, the MyBBs, the SMFs - are evolutionarily dead-ended right now. They're not going to consider any major uprooting in form or function. Now on some level you could argue that's a good thing but it's really not: these were tools of an era, the needs have changed, the tools have not. Moreover, the push on the other end of the market just seems to me to squeeze people out of making communities at all.

I dunno. Maybe it's all destined to be a waste of time. Maybe there's no point doing anything.

 

[Tracy]

I remember there being a lot of hobbyists just happily doing the hobby thing - they'd have a space all of their own that they could do some basic customisation on, and they seemed *happy* that they had a space they could call theirs and invite their friends to and so on. It let them do things on their schedule to their plans, rather than the Facebook style groups features where you get what you get, tough luck if that's not what you need, and you're at the mercy of whatever moderation happens to be going on.

Some of us are still there, and we don't have to be at the "free script" level... I'm sitting at about $1200 a year (easily, probably more but I dare not actually add it all up).. but I pay that because I want to run the site, and I enjoy being able to post on it... if others get benefit from it and decide to participate in it, then that is gravy... but the ultimate issue is... WAY to many are looking at forums (or an internet presence) as a money making proposition.. and that "look" is not limited to any particular generation.. it's a societal shift. The desire to give back to others is quickly taking a back seat to "give me what I want now". That's easily shown by the increase of "consumerism" on the internet and the regression of "participation/giving" in many (but not all) topical areas. The simple fact remains that the base that are actually willing to give is slowly declining while those that "require" answers given immediately continues to rise. Hell, you can see that over on the XF site by those that post for support and 6 hours later are whining because their issue was "not answered"... never mind the fact that most of them never even submitted a ticket.

As to the initial question... each site will be an individual on what it "needs". What is important for my site will not be a high priority on a gamer/chat/BS/vehicle site. Each are, by their very nature, individualistic... and that's the issue that presents to those that say "we need to be more social media" based... That is also why you can't really compare a "forum" to "social media".

 

[joelr]

Maybe it's all destined to be a waste of time. Maybe there's no point doing anything.

Now that's the spirit LOL

Now that you've provided context, it sounds like you're not doing this for financial success. You're interested in this question more for your own person needs and wants. Which is fine. Go forth and build your own personal version of community software!

In addition, I find the increasing commercialisation of the internet distasteful. I remember there being a lot of hobbyists just happily doing the hobby thing - they'd have a space all of their own that they could do some basic customisation on, and they seemed *happy* that they had a space they could call theirs and invite their friends to and so on.

I can appreciate that sentiment. But those were simpler times 15 years ago.

The web has grown up. The internet is ruthlessly competitive now.

I appreciate the fact that you're wanting to be a steward to these simpler hobbyists and I can sense your protective guardianship that you have over these "happy and simple folks". But how much more time do these folks have? What do they need that SMF doesn't already give them?

I've debated for a long time myself how to support community owners. It's something that I am passionate about, as a volunteer community advocate and guest writer for IPS. There comes a point, and this is difficult to admit, where you're going to need to cut off the hobbyists who can't make it to focus on the prosumers who will make it. And it's not about cloud or cost. It's about those community architects who are willing to invest in content, in execution, who have the finances, who are prepared and willing to upskill their community management skillset.

We (legacy forum and independent community owners) are collectively bleeding. You can't save everyone. So who and how do you focus on the ones that you can help?

 

[Tracy]

We (legacy forum and independent community owners) are collectively bleeding. You can't save everyone. So who and how do you focus on the ones that you can help?

And that's a major issue... way to many still have a "pie in they sky" philosophy... but they have to realize, if you want to "grow" then you have to pay to get there in todays society... either by paying for software, interaction or similar.. Even those hobbyist sites that want to compete can no longer efficiently do it on free scripts... they simply have to realize that there is a now a cost involved, and if they aren't willing to pay it... then they simply (and sorry to sound like an asshole - not) have to realize that they need to find another playground.
Everyone is created equal... but they don't remain so.

 

[joelr]

Yup. Totally agree.

We used to all be on a level playing field with the same forum script available for everyone. There's going to be bifurcation in the market where those who pay - through money, through better scripts, through upskilling of their community management - will be the ones who will survive.

 

[Tracy]

There are a few of us that will probably continue (albeit using paid scripts) with no real interest in "gaining tons of users" or any of the other things that most admins pursue. Some of us like running the site(s) for themselves, and simply decided to allow others to come into the playground and desire to pas on information to others in a somewhat controlled environment. Classic case is my site... honestly.. don't care if anyone joins, but I make functions/features available if they choose to.
And it allows me to give out content to others, whether I generated it or some of my users did.

Astrophotography Forum Images

astrowhat.com

And honestly.. considering the competitiveness of my field... I'm getting some decent hits/visits from simple search engine results for my site on particular topics.... most of which were generated by me. Once more... that simply goes back to my base philosophy that I like producing content that benefits others.



I in now way claim to be "all knowing" in the field... but certain abilities allow me to pursue certain aspects that others find interesting.