Right then, what does a community platform need?

[Arantor]

In which case what you're telling me is that I'm wasting my time, good to know. Means I can go find another hobby because it's evident that the line that would be needed to cross to make *any* sort of success out of trying to do something nice for people is one I'm just not prepared to cross.

Enjoy your pay to play, while you still can. But when the pay to play folks all go cloud-first and you're left with what's left, don't say you weren't warned.

 

[Tracy]

Enjoy your pay to play, while you still can. But when the pay to play folks all go cloud-first and you're left with what's left, don't say you weren't warned.

Simple fact of life... eventually most things enter the "pay to play" arena.... I (and others) realize that a point is reached where "free stuff" simply doesn't cut it. Does that hurt others "finer sensibilities"? Yep, most likely... but then reality comes crashing to the ground. Not everybody can play for free forever. Can you use those free scripts.. sure... but honestly, you aren't going to have a lot of features to draw users to you.
SMF is a classic case.. it's a decent script... but it is SO far behind any of the paid scripts it's not even funny.. Let's not even to into myBB or phpBB.
Discourse is sorely lacking in many features needed to be a viable "community" product. Same way with every other "free" script, not to mention many of the paid ones. The issue is.. there are a few that would like to force those free scripts forward.. then they hit that wall that exists.
As for "cloud first"... that is simply an eventuality for almost every script if they want to continue being a viable solution.... XF is a classic case.. their long period of "snoozing" on their updates/new version has resulted in fewer renewals.. I'm sure they are VERY happy right now that they have an SaaS offering.

 

[Arantor]

So what happens if/when XF goes SaaS only? Are you going to go to IPS, assuming they haven't already gone SaaS only by then?

That's the pay-to-play part that's the problem here. And that's where you and Joel are telling me the market's going, in which case the only choices are going to be that you stump up for the SaaS offering or you go play with the crowd you have so much disdain for - if they're even still around.

Or are you going to shut up shop entirely at that point?

I was trying to convince myself there was another option - for a new open source to come along and sit somewhere in the middle of the pack - less outdated than the likes of SMF, maybe not with all the bells and whistles (at least at first) of the likes of XF, but since you're telling me that these are the only two possible forms that could ever exist, one of these two is a burned bridge, the other is a line I'm not willing to cross, I guess you've convinced me to get out of the paddling pool entirely.

This is what I mean when I talk about you being so negative; you're so entrenched by the status quo that you can't conceive of alternatives. Though for once I have to give it to you that you're probably right.

Which also means that since I'm no longer in the running for by-community-for-community software... I guess nothing else I have to say is of any real or practical use. I can, then, in good conscience go find another hobby until the next time when I get drunk and wistful about how things used to be and do something stupid. I'd say it's been fun, but instead I'll just suggest you can tell all your bash.zone friends that Douchey Pete says you were right after all and that some no-name developer from 20 years ago is finally letting go of the past.

 

[Tracy]

So what happens if/when XF goes SaaS only? Are you going to go to IPS, assuming they haven't already gone SaaS only by then?

Then it goes SaaS only (for XF) and if I want to continue, I'll simply fork over the money. Why does one "assume" one has to move from XF to IPS.. IPS currently does not offer NEAR the feature set my current setup does. It's simply lacking 7 of the major features I use.

Or are you going to shut up shop entirely at that point?

See above... you wanna play, you usually have to pay.
The days of freebies are pretty much over, especially if wanting to attract much traffic.... the free script developers have NO interest overall even entering into the 2000's in many cases.

I guess you've convinced me to get out of the paddling pool entirely.

Sometimes that's simply the best solution... I seriously doubt any "shareware" type environment is going to be able to continue as a viable (and significant) force within the next few years. I realize it bites... but reality often does that. Now, if you are doing it because you enjoy it.. then that's another matter. But if you feel that it's a job or similar or that it's "required" of you... then if it's not bringing in the bacon, it's better to walk away from it, if only for a period of time.

This is what I mean when I talk about you being so negative; you're so entrenched by the status quo that you can't conceive of alternatives. Though for once I have to give it to you that you're probably right.

And this is where many simply are "pie in the sky" oblivious... you see, eventually things change.... and this is simply one of those cases. No matter how much you might "wish" it to be otherwise, reality bites, and it can frequently take mighty chomp out of ones particular belief pattern.. Like the old saying goes... poop in one hand and wish in the other and see which carries more weight.
What you call "negative"... others of us refer to as realistic. We don't live in a land of nirvana/fantasy... but one based in reality, one which is usually based upon historical trends and not wishes. There is nothing wrong with trying to change stuff to "work"... but then it can also be like hitting ones head against a concrete wall.

 

[joelr]

I was trying to convince myself there was another option - for a new open source to come along and sit somewhere in the middle of the pack - less outdated than the likes of SMF, maybe not with all the bells and whistles (at least at first) of the likes of XF

In no way did I mean to stop you from pursuing a project if it's something that you really care about and think it's worthwhile. Back to your OP

 

[kolakube]

My question becomes: what do *I* want?

For a software developer trying to innovate, that is the only question that matters. I sometimes wish I could build products without a financial incentive, but I want my work to be what supports my life. There are plenty of reasons that make paying for software a good thing for both the consumer and developer.

 

[Arantor]

I seriously doubt any "shareware" type environment is going to be able to continue as a viable

I guess I can spell it out for you: I was looking at being an open source platform that wasn't looking backward into the 2000s. I thought the fact I wasn't interested in taking payment at any point was spelled out clearly enough? (You assumed, incorrectly, that because I said I was pitching for something in between the current free market and the current paid market that I meant something *paid* in that arena. I meant based on feature offering, but I'm sure you knew that and just wanted to get more snark in.)

You talk about history but I wonder how much history you actually know, especially in open source software, like just how much of it you're actually using right now.

And if you tell me 'but I'm on Windows', Windows contains open source components too, has for years. Whichever browser you're using, that's got open source running through it unless you're still on legacy IE or legacy Opera. If you have an Android device, that's got open source running through it in the form of the operating system kernel. If you're using any Apple device, that's got open source running through it in the form of half of the guts of the BSD kernel as well as large chunks of WebKit that Apple borrowed from the KDE project originally (and that Chrome borrowed heavily from until it decided to start rewriting it)

Your site's running on open source software right now - unless you're running on something like Windows with IIS which I'm sure you're not, because PHP is open source, Apache is open source, nginx is open source, chances are most if not all of the operating system under that is open source. Oh, and so's WordPress, WooCommerce, MediaWiki... you know, piddling little projects that might have a company to back them but are open source and can be downloaded for free right now.

I believe in open source to enable people to do things. But maybe you're right and the time of forums is over and I can just go build and release something else that's open source. Figured it might be worth trying to build a community tool for a community to use but, no, you're right, no point doing something good because I'm stupid enough to believe it might be possible. Screw all the people who don't have the budget for good tools, eh? Screw all the people who live in places where the $160 XF fee is vastly, disproportionately expensive because of currency conversion. Screw all the people who just want to have a corner of the world for their own. Screw everyone, pay to play is the only way.

Frankly, I'd rather not build community software after all, it just enables people like you to have a voice, telling people like me that what I want to do is unrealistic and stupid. I hope you choke on your licences. Not fatally, mind, just choke regularly and uncomfortably.

In no way did I mean to stop you from pursuing a project if it's something that you really care about and think it's worthwhile. Back to your OP

Nah, you're right, it's just not worthwhile unless someone can make some money out of it and I have no interest in doing that. $deity forbid people should want to build things that they want other people to use, just because they enjoy making and sharing. See above, screw all the people who can't afford to pay to play.

For a software developer trying to innovate, that is the only question that matters.

It's really not. Anyone can go off and innovate, but unless other people actually want to use it, none of it matters anyway.

 

[Tracy]

I was looking at being an open source platform that wasn't looking backward into the 2000s. I thought the fact I wasn't interested in taking payment at any point was spelled out clearly enough?

Tell us.... how many one developer scripts have been "successful"? I don't want to discourage you... but even the "free" scripts are having issues apparently keeping a steady supply of quality developers.
Now... those volunteers that devote their time to those "free" scripts... have the number of participants increased or decreased over the last 5 years?
There is a reason that the paid scripts (either SaaS provided or standalone) are the "way of the future".... and one of the major ones is because people don't want to wait around 4-10 years for a "new version" to come out because there were finally enough people willing to donate their time to moving it forward. Heck, XenForo is regularly getting roasted currently because of their slowness in getting bug fixes out, never mind the fact that they haven't had a x.Y.z release in coming up on 2 years, which is a long time for a paid script.
Then you have the reality that the idea of "giving back to others" is not ingrained as it was even a few years ago.
As I told you... if it's something you would enjoy the pursuit of... have at it. Just realize, there is a high probability you are spinning your wheels other than having fun doing it.
On one of my sites I use one of the "latest" free forum scripts.. and it's "abilities" in its base format simply pale compared to the paid scripts I've used. In fact, it's so bad that it barely reaches the point where some of those paid scripts were 3-4 years ago.

You talk about history but I wonder how much history you actually know, especially in open source software, like just how much of it you're actually using right now.

I'm well aware of how much open source software is used... and I'm ALSO aware that "open source" does not equate to being "free software". StellarMate OS is a classic case of this It utilizes open source software primarily.... but you simply have to pay for a license to use it. Then you have the "free" competitor (which is basically the same software package setup) that is out there... one is still stuck on 32bit OS and the other is 64bit. One is regularly updated, the other hasn't been updated in a while... I'll leave it to you to figure out which might be which. Now, guess why one can be kept up to date and the other can't.
"Open source" is not a magical word... it simply started with the idea from an era where folks collaborated and shared their knowledge...you know, one of the things that is not as present now and is shown by how many are content consumers and how few are content creators when compared to even 5 years ago. It's no more than a typical societal shift... they've happened in the past, and they will happen in the future... and those shifts sometimes result in the "death" of certain things that "used to be". Cassette deck ring a bell? How about 8-tracks? Or 78RPM vinyl? There reaches a point that certain mediums will simply die.

But maybe you're right and the time of forums is over and I can just go build and release something else that's open source.

Pretty sure that was what I was getting at... don't re-invent the wheel... you are going to have to think WAY outside the box for a community software that will bring together those that want to read/create detailed information and then those that can't be troubled by doing much more than a 2 line post or uploading a selfie/video. Then you are going to have to figure out how to allow your users to filter out the wheat from the chaff.
There are already more than adequate "forum" scripts (paid and free) out there. Folks like those over at Discourse (guess what... they have to have a revenue stream to continue advancing) and Flarum have brought some "new" ideas... but event those aren't enough to change user patterns noticeably.
I honestly can't see a viable path to the merging of the different philosophies of participation. They are simply at two different ends of the spectrum, and it's going to be impossible to do them both "justice" in one presentation.

Frankly, I'd rather not build community software after all, it just enables people like you to have a voice, telling people like me that what I want to do is unrealistic and stupid. I hope you choke on your licences. Not fatally, mind, just choke regularly and uncomfortably.

Oh, I "choke" every time I have to pay them... but I realize to get the product that I want, I HAVE to pay them, and I do so. And THAT is why I said that those "free' scripts are pretty much a dead-end at some point. Users of them that actually want to extend it beyond a simple "forum" have to look at how to expand... and even with those "free" scripts, some of those expansions require payment. Ergo, the comment of you usually have to "pay to play", especially if you want to try to be competitive. It's simple reality.. they days of the "free & easy" internet is going away.... eras come... then they go.
The simple fact is... I want to provide a service to others... and I fully realize it costs me money to do so... and I have no issues with doing that. I don't "run ads" or "use subscriptions". You see, my site is ran at the level it is because it's what I want to do.. I simply open to door for others to use it.

Now, if you got time to waste... then knock yourself out trying to discover the "silver bullet" that will get everyone back involved.... but I have a feeling all you'll find is disappointment. In many ways (as I mentioned above), the desires of the different segments of society for interaction don't "play well" together and can't easily be combined.

I think you will find that as those "free givers" of open source packages get older... they have less desire to continue to participate..... may have something to do with them actually wanting some "me" time near the end of their presence upon this planet. It's one of the reasons I no longer am willing to give 30-60 hours to folks to help them set up a VPS and their site free of charge. I value my time much more as I get older, and would rather pursue interests of mine.

 

[joelr]

@Arantor Real question: would it better for you to start from scratch, or for you to leverage an existing platform?

Keep in mind that if you start from scratch, you literally have to architect everything. You also have no documentation, no history, no audience, no branding, no converters, none of those structural and ancillary things that are important for prospective customers to trust what you're building.

 

[joelr]

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.

This is a good faith attempt on my part to bring this conversation back to it's original purpose.

- Condensed topics
There are some topics that go on and on and on. People don't want to read everything from scratch. Provide a condensed version of the topic with posts that are the most reacted, the most quoted, and that best represent the conversation.

- Mark as solved
Some questions may have multi-part solutions. (This happens quite frequently in my community, where users will ask for help on 12 unrelated parts.) Be able to mark multiple posts as answers

- Cohort behavior
Provide different onboarding tasks / recommendations for different cohorts of users. A user who does nothing besides view the community should be presented with a very different checklist of next action items than someone who posted a topic and reacted all within their first visit. The latter is significantly higher chance to be a superuser (or at least a highly active user), and should be presented with action items that are much more challenging.

 

[Arantor]

Fully agree on the first point. I know Discourse has made some attempts in that vein to go there, though I'm not entirely convinced most liked posts in a topic is the best way to go. I did opine on another venue about the possibility of using AI to do some kind of summarisation, but there was push-back on the basis that a lot of topics on a forum veer off topic so wildly that this wouldn't be useful. I suspect the reality is that this is a slightly more targeted feature depending on the nature of the forum (that one in particular, definitely has 'megatopics' that producing any kind of summary of would be utterly pointless, and where reading the entire topic is entirely unnecessary because it functions much closer to a shared-but-curated social media feed, e.g. 'The Funny Things Topic'). I also know from a number of venues I've spoken to lately, that 'AI anywhere near me' is anathema - it may be a future, but it's one they don't want anywhere close by, though they're all creative types, and even 'AI, generate me a summary of this topic' was a sour idea when I gently suggested it. I think as long as the admin can set up the feature and/or not engage with it, that works.

The multi-part solution topic also has been a thing I've wondered about; I've never entirely been sold on the way this is normally handled. I also wonder if there is some interest value in having 'marked solved' separately by the OP and by staff, e.g. if the OP marks a given solution as solved, but circumstances change (and the OP doesn't return), where a later answer might be more contextually relevant, e.g. I see this on StackOverflow with web design questions where in 2010 a given bad workaround might have done, but in 2023 there are better solutions. Of course, this could also be solved by better management of 'make this a new topic' but sometimes it really is the same question back again.

In your experience, how often are the multi-solved cases where circumstances have changed but the core question (and relevant detail) is the same? Trying to get a feel here for whether this is a problem hiding under another problem - is the problem here a variant of splitting topics without losing context?

I really like the cohort behaviour point. Certainly over in the LMS world, this is something actively looked at - I worked with a number of universities to develop Moodle tours around this sort of behaviour, though their criteria was slightly different (and where additional context about the users was available), but I think a lot of the onboarding theory is transferrable. I suppose the obvious question is not even about identifying the different cohorts - we can do that much as you've outlined, but how we actually try to configure this, and how we teach other people to set this up. I feel like this is something that would be a hugely black art to get right, and that we'd almost be best served by trying to define common routes across a bunch of common cohorts to give people a starting point, as opposed to the 'magic box just do it for me' approach I'm sure a lot of admins would appreciate. I'm also mindful that there's definitely cohorts that would be 'get this out of my face' very quickly.

One thing I'd also note that people are doing with Moodle cohorts is using the data points they have to manage other outcomes, e.g. identify students who are perceived as being at risk of disengaging and try to alert staff to stage some kind of intervention to prevent a dropout, if possible. I know the topic was received with a certain amount of skepticism when I saw it presented previously, and I had my own concerns based on the data and metrics being used being, well, not entirely what the admins thought they were measuring, but I haven't been in that field for a couple of years and maybe they're going further with it now than they were.

But some very definitely interesting ideas there, the trick is of course how to implement them *nicely*! Thanks for sharing!

 

[joelr]

I did opine on another venue about the possibility of using AI to do some kind of summarisation, but there was push-back on the basis that a lot of topics on a forum veer off topic so wildly that this wouldn't be useful. I suspect the reality is that this is a slightly more targeted feature depending on the nature of the forum

I was going to wholeheartedly agree with you up until a minute ago. But what if ... And bear with me, my thoughts are not fully formed ... How you approach a topic summary of a social / lifestyle / forum game / megatopic is different from the topic summary of more pointed Q&A topic.

In other words, a topic summary can still be applied to both. But how the topic summary acts (or what content to include and summarize and highlight) are different. Perhaps in a megatopic that spans 10 years, it's really just the last few topics that matter the most?

I suppose the obvious question is not even about identifying the different cohorts - we can do that much as you've outlined, but how we actually try to configure this, and how we teach other people to set this up. I feel like this is something that would be a hugely black art to get right, and that we'd almost be best served by trying to define common routes across a bunch of common cohorts to give people a starting point, as opposed to the 'magic box just do it for me' approach I'm sure a lot of admins would appreciate. I'm also mindful that there's definitely cohorts that would be 'get this out of my face' very quickly.

Some thoughts:
- I agree on common routes. To me, there are really only 3 cohorts that need to be defined (at least out of the box): the lurker, the one post poster, the superuser.

The one that's most puzzling is the lurker. Are they not engaging because they don't know how, or if they don't want to? This is capacity vs willingness.

- Get out of my face. I agree. Any feature that prompts users in a call to action should be dismissible / minimizable / or a subdued part of the user interface.

 

[joelr]

* 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)

I was going to suggest automated taxonomy (courtesy of AI, which solves everything of course! ), which would attempt to curate related topics.

 

[ladyquack]

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?

Mine are all strictly related to RPG forums, but I'd personally wish for:
- A better way to manage OOC accounts, character accounts, and a way to introduce NPC character options.
- I do really like the idea of multiple avatars per account. On my site, we have a section to write threads that don't occur during the same time frame as the rest of the forum, so it'd be nice to have a way to visually differentiate characters in those different time frames.
- I don't personally care for the isotope filtering scripts for memberlists that are used on many Jcink sites, but I do like the overall concept of it and I'd love to have that for creating face claim lists and character censuses.
- Definitely like the idea of a "Mark Solved" option for topics. I had a modification installed on my site that did that, but I'm not a big fan of having lots of modifications and would love to cut back.
- A good mobile theme. A lot of my members post via mobile.
- A better way to manage affiliates.
- A semi-easy way to modify themes.
- A better way to have multiple member group icons without having too many member groups.
- Built-in drafts system.
- Built-in bookmarks/thread listing system that can display current threads for child accounts as well as current threads for all children accounts on parent account.

I have other wishes in mind too, but I'm trying to keep this short LOL.

 

[Arantor]

And bear with me, my thoughts are not fully formed ... How you approach a topic summary of a social / lifestyle / forum game / megatopic is different from the topic summary of more pointed Q&A topic.

My thoughts also aren't fully formed yet either! But that's what's so good about this, it's about bringing our different perspectives together to be able to look at it and go 'you know what, that would be neat'.

The conclusion we came to was that the megatopics don't really need a summary. They're the big ongoing threads like, as I said, 'The Funny Things Thread', you can drop in at any point and drop out and you will have missed minimal context since inevitably it's 'post a funny thing' maybe followed by 2-3 posts of witticisms, before the next funny thing. You're not expected to read the whole thread, let alone try to summarise it, and the joke conclusion we arrived at was the summary being 'This is a long list of things people found funny.' coming from an AI that couldn't 'understand' humour. But that's the way that group of people rolls in terms of sarcasm, I guess.

In fact, lemme look real quick at that forum's 'megatopics'... The Official Status Thread (127k posts), The Official Likes Topic (67k posts), The Official Funny Stuff Thread™ (41k posts), In other news today... (31k posts) - none of these can be meaningfully summarised. But that's OK.

Forum games in general don't really need any kind of summary - there's no meaningful summary in 'race to 1000' or going around a theme with A-B-C, and it wouldn't be worth the space or effort to make one. But the natural boundaries of such are a given board/category.

More regular discussions can be summarised, with or without 'a solution' to the topic at hand, but I wonder at what point it's worth doing that summary. If the conversation is still very much in flux, there's not really a lot of point having a summary for it because it could still go back and forth, but perhaps after it has noticeably tailed off, come in with a summary of what was discussed. I think this needs experimentation as to what's useful, what's interesting and so on.

Of most use, definitely, are the cases where you want to arrive at an outcome - whether that's a support style conversation specifically or not, but wherever you'd want 'topic solved' is also one you probably want some kind of useful summary for.

Some thoughts:
- I agree on common routes. To me, there are really only 3 cohorts that need to be defined (at least out of the box): the lurker, the one post poster, the superuser.

The one that's most puzzling is the lurker. Are they not engaging because they don't know how, or if they don't want to? This is capacity vs willingness.

- Get out of my face. I agree. Any feature that prompts users in a call to action should be dismissible / minimizable / or a subdued part of the user interface.

I would tend to agree on those cohorts as out-of-the-box suggestions. A few slightly different variations come to mind for specific demographics but these make more sense as a base case.

The lurker is an interesting one because my experience very much trends towards slightly different nuances: there are the people who don't know/don't understand how to engage, there are the people who are overwhelmed by it (a sort of analysis paralysis), and there are the people who want to get the lay of the land before committing. Sometimes this last group doesn't even get as far as registering, but if they do, they definitely have a quiet period of just reading.

I've seen Discourse try to manage this - certainly pre-registration, I don't remember if it does anything post-registration to nudge lurkers.

I wonder if there is a correlation between strong lurker presence and initial hurdles such as 'you must post in an introduction forum' where how to do these initial tasks is less obvious than the admin thinks it is.

I also suspect the overlap between the superuser cohort and the 'get this out of my face' group is fairly high.

 

[Arantor]

Mine are all strictly related to RPG forums, but I'd personally wish for:
- A better way to manage OOC accounts, character accounts, and a way to introduce NPC character options.
- I do really like the idea of multiple avatars per account. On my site, we have a section to write threads that don't occur during the same time frame as the rest of the forum, so it'd be nice to have a way to visually differentiate characters in those different time frames.
- I don't personally care for the isotope filtering scripts for memberlists that are used on many Jcink sites, but I do like the overall concept of it and I'd love to have that for creating face claim lists and character censuses.
- Definitely like the idea of a "Mark Solved" option for topics. I had a modification installed on my site that did that, but I'm not a big fan of having lots of modifications and would love to cut back.
- A good mobile theme. A lot of my members post via mobile.
- A better way to manage affiliates.
- A semi-easy way to modify themes.
- A better way to have multiple member group icons without having too many member groups.
- Built-in drafts system.
- Built-in bookmarks/thread listing system that can display current threads for child accounts as well as current threads for all children accounts on parent account.

I have other wishes in mind too, but I'm trying to keep this short LOL.

Those are all stellar ideas for a roleplay forum. StoryBB did a bunch of this but there's no importer from SMF unfortunately and honestly, after my experiences of trying to encourage folks wedded to Jcink and with the demise of Nickpic, I'm uninterested in continuing it further.

I do note that SMF 2.1 has a built in drafts system, but it's not enabled by default.

 

[joelr]

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

Interesting suggestion. Is this because your focus is with RPG which have lengthy topics, or you find this to be generally applicable for long topics?

At a broader level, different content items will need different kinds of interactions. For example:
- download files will need versioning
- gallery albums will need image notes
- all content items should have ratings / reviews / reactions

 

[Arantor]

I find the concept interesting. Certainly there are long topics I've encountered where I would have liked the feature to track back specific points in the thread. When I raised the concept elsewhere, there were thoughts on it being almost communal, in that people could make their own, but also potentially share them with everyone else. Combine that with the 'multiple solved answers' and fuse it into the Discourse-style timeline view to represent the posts that were interesting in a topic (potentially through this, being a means of curation that isn't solely reaction based) and you could do something very interesting indeed.

I'd note that actually the roleplay world doesn't find it that interesting, at least not the collaborative field because most topics don't actually end up all that long. A thread is often one or two scenes, it might be 20 posts, but that's almost not really long enough to bother finding bookmarks. Interestingly for some of the more fluid forms (especially the 'communications' threads that more aptly replicate the instant messenger feeling between two parties, played out in a forum thread) that might be more useful since you'll tend to volley posts back and forth where they're shorter and more numerous.

Versioning of downloads is an interesting concept, because it veers towards some of the challenges faced by document management systems, especially around occasions people need to replace a version that's broken for whatever reason. But on the whole I agree.

Gallery items, with whatever scale of taxonomy, absolutely needs notes as a feature, separate to comments. In fact the entire way of handling gallery items is almost a subject of discussion in its own right; because on the one hand you want to support the most frictionless social-esque 'I don't care how they're presented, here have a bunch of images' because this is absolutely a use case people have to show off their things, while on the other something like the stuff Tracy does where you're taking hours to prepare a single image, and you'll want to present not only the image but all sorts of metadata and so on. And then the taxonomy around this, so that items that are related are classifiable in ways that aren't just 'my items'. Potential for AI to help with this (similar to how IPS uses it for NSFW detection).

I think last but not least that while ratings/reviews/reactions should be offered, I'm not sure I'd mandate all of the above should be on offer in all cases. But making it easier to get going doing these things would be a huge win.

 

[joelr]

Some food for thought:

Users first come to the community for a transactional inquiry.

How do we help sharpen, simplify, and better articulate those transactions? How do we help organize, publish, and improve the taxonomy of those transactions? How do we relate similar transactions, consolidate equivalent transactions, and perhaps even intelligently suggest transactions that have yet to be asked?

More importantly beyond the first visit, how do we funnel those initial visitors into a cohort of repeat visitors, from viewing one transaction to viewing many transactions? How do we funnel those views of transactions into a pattern of interactions, that ultimately results in a shared and strong sense of community?