Should More Free Forum Hosts Use A Global Forum Account Like Proboards Does?

[Ravenfreak]

I got this idea from a recent reply I made over on the subreddit called "Casual Conversations". Recently, many subreddits have been boycotting Reddit and mods are making their subs private, so no one can access them. Someone on casual conversations asked if the blackout had affected anyone else, like it affected them as they couldn't easily find whatever information they were looking for, since Google came up with Reddit results but the subreddits were set to private so they couldn't get the information they wanted. I basically said "No, I'm happy reddit is being boycotted. I prefer traditional forums to anything else and would hope more people went back to using them." Someone replied to my comment and said "I'd rather not have to join 20 different forums to get the information I could all get here on Reddit." This made me think about Proboards global forum account system they have. I didn't bother replying back to the guy who commented, but I thought about it and wondered if other free forum hosts should go down the route of what Proboards has done and if it would change more users perspectives on forums these days. Their global forum account really does make it easy to join any Proboards forum, all you need to do is log into your global account, come up with a username for whatever new forum you're joining, and then you're ready to post on the community unless the admins have to approve your account.

 

[Tracy]

I'd rather not have to join 20 different forums to get the information I could all get here on Reddit.

Funny thing is... with a lot of forums you can simply use one account to log in with... Google, FaceBook, Microsoft, GitHub, etc.

As for the "20 different forums".... what's the difference between going to a different forum and a different reddit, other than having to take a couple of seconds to log in to each?
The ultimate difference.... laziness.

 

[Arantor]

And that's the thing... those 20 different forums will all want 20 different accounts (and even in the Proboards model you still have to make a sort of account).

Thing about Reddit is that you don't have to make a new account - and it's possible to get cross-forum pollination of showing you things you might be interested in beyond just the things you're already subscribed to, which is how the discovery angle gets covered, it's not solely about "laziness".

 

[Tracy]

those 20 different forums will all want 20 different accounts

But one sign in.... If you use Google...it's consistent amongst every one of them.
And the "downfall" of Reddit.... you have a singular point of failure.
And honestly.... you can suffer from "discovery overload" where if you participate in numerous different areas, they will shuffle your "discovery" way off the list fairly quickly.
And with PUSH features, even on those forums, you can receive notices of topical nature depending on your selections and whether the script being used is even somewhat recent in ability.
And I think we all know the average "quality" of posts over on Reddit..... banal sound familiar? Multitudes dealing with the same topic of interest... just flying a different name (usually only adding a letter or two to another r/name).

And speaking of Reddit.... it's getting as bad as FB with the spam accounts "following/friending" valid accounts now.

 

[Arantor]

But one sign in.... If you use Google...it's consistent amongst every one of them.

You still have to sign in 20 times, as opposed to being logged in just the once. I also don't know about you but I'd rather not give Google yet more ways to track where I go and how often I'm there.

you can receive notices of topical nature depending on your selections

You have to find them first to be able to make selections; this is something Reddit enables far better than the classic decentralised forum world. It's like shopping in a department store - go to one place, visit all the departments, done, rather than finding 20 stores that have what you want. Chances are the 20 stores will have *better* versions of what you want but there is something super convenient about getting something that's good enough all under one roof. And that's what Reddit enables, and what Proboards is halfway to doing, and something the rest of us just couldn't manage.

banal sound familiar

Many forums are banal, there's no shortage of me-too forums out there, though they do have a slightly higher barrier to entry in terms of naming, but the discovery process separates the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Tracy]

You still have to sign in 20 times, as opposed to being logged in just the once. I also don't know about you but I'd rather not give Google yet more ways to track where I go and how often I'm there.

And really.. how big of a deal is that with most who have their browsers set to remember their logins (which honestly most people have done even if it is not "secure")... I can see if one uses 2FA or something like YubiKey (which I do when available)...but that adds maybe a minute of time... and I'm sorry... there ain't NOBODY that is so busy (or "important") that they can't spare a few minutes of time.
As for Google... it was simply ONE example.
These are the services I use on my site

Musk can kiss my ass... Twitter is not getting my cell phone number to line his pockets with...
I could add Linked-In to that.. but honestly, most of my users probably don't use it.

You have to find them first to be able to make selections; this is something Reddit enables far better than the classic decentralised forum world.

Granted.. one login to a ton of shit posts may be nice (if you have a shovel)... but I personally prefer to select what groups I participate in that have a more concentrated concern on the niche, and not worry about what happens if my distinct login credentials are somehow "let loose" and I now have issues with ALL the groups I participate in.
Just one "junk" email I use for registering for sites (I've got about 15 others just in hotmail).

I'm simply not a fan of putting all my "toys" in one box and then "hoping" for the best. With a centralized service... if it has issues.. guess what YOU have. And don't try to tell me it doesn't happen.. how many times has the might Twitter, FB and such been down because of issues?
There are pros and cons to centralized logins... from a security aspect.. it's simply NOT worth it. How well do you think Reddit would be doing if it mandated that ALL users use 2FA or keys to log in (for good security)?

Many forums are banal, there's no shortage of me-too forums out there, though they do have a slightly higher barrier to entry in terms of naming, but the discovery process separates the wheat from the chaff.

Yes, and that's why they tend to die on the vine... not all BS grows a healthy plant.
As for discovery.. it's not really that hard to use simple search engines if one has a small bit of ability.
The problem is those new/low content sites can't really compete with the big ones in search engine discovery... but honestly is Reddit doing any better... I do a search on Telescope and this is what I get

Yeah, like I'm really interested in some sluts who use telescopes....
whereas I get a much better return on the same search from a search engine that contains MUCH more content.

 

[Arantor]

there ain't NOBODY that is so busy (or "important") that they can't spare a few minutes of time.

As usual, you assume that what is no trouble to you is not the same for others. Creating a new account is a relatively high friction point, even with OAuth logins to help it along. Plenty of people *simply won't bother*. Of course, this also translates to the 'banality' of low-effort posting as you think of it.

I'm simply not a fan of putting all my "toys" in one box and then "hoping" for the best. With a centralized service... if it has issues.. guess what YOU have. And don't try to tell me it doesn't happen.. how many times has the might Twitter, FB and such been down because of issues?

I'm very well aware of all of the above, but I'm technical. Lots of people aren't, they don't think it through like you or I might and for them the mild inconvenience of the occasional outage will outweigh the inconvenience of finding and joining multiple decentralised services. I don't know how many more ways I can explain that 'other people do not hold the same value propositions that you do' - you can sit there and tell me that they're all wrong all day long if you like (which is what you're essentially doing) but that's how people are, and people en masse are not going to change just because you say so.

As for discovery.. it's not really that hard to use simple search engines if one has a small bit of ability.

That presumes you know what you're looking for. A whole bunch of things I follow came from a much more organic discovery process than starting out with a transaction that converted into something more. That is the problem Reddit (+Twitter +Facebook etc etc) at least has a go at solving in a way the decentralised forum world simply can't.

 

[Tracy]

As usual, you assume that what is no trouble to you is not the same for others.

Please... show us ANYONE whom 25 minutes a day will negatively impact their life... sorry... quite reaching. If it is THAT hard to simply put in 2FA entries, or plug a key into a USB port... maybe it's "to much work" to actually have to press the keyboard?
Actually... how HARD is it to figure out a username? And then "do I want these emails sent to me".
Your "argument" is simply one that re-enforces the "stupidity/laziness" of the "average user". In fact, you make my point for me.

Creating a new account is a relatively high friction point, even with OAuth logins to help it along.

Yeah.. and joining ANY "group" (soccer club, baseball club, hunting club) creates a "high friction point"... and your point is?
There is ALWAYS a requirement for participation in some areas of interest.

I don't know how many more ways I can explain that 'other people do not hold the same value propositions that you do' - you can sit there and tell me that they're all wrong all day long if you like (which is what you're essentially doing) but that's how people are, and people en masse are not going to change just because you say so.

You might actually be surprised at how many people actually KNOW that... but the simple fact is that they prefer to be lazy. Laziness is a core nature of human nature. We don't (usually) want to do ANY more than we have to. When that laziness bites us in the ass, then we have a tendency to change that outlook.

That presumes you know what you're looking for.

Errr... I would think that most that are interested in furthering their knowledge in something knows what they are looking for.
I would NOT expect someone looking for "how do I rebuild my C6 engine" to be interested in "how do I decorate my 6 layer cake".

 

[Arantor]

You might actually be surprised at how many people actually KNOW that...

Like you? Because you're doing a great job of telling me that you don't actually know it.

I would NOT expect someone looking for "how do I rebuild my C6 engine" to be interested in "how do I decorate my 6 layer cake".

Strawman.

My point which you carefully ignored is that not everyone starts from a position of asking a specific question. If you have a specific question, and you want an answer, this is a transaction which forums can be good for. But if you're already on Reddit (or Twitter or Facebook or whatever) where you're already a participant, you might get shown *other* content that is of interest to you, which doesn't have to be in the same genres at all.

People can and do have multiple interests, it is possible. It's one of the reasons I actually liked Twitter - I got to see various different areas of my interests overlap in an interesting way where they absolutely wouldn't otherwise (and I'd have to seek out and check maybe a dozen forums, or just view one feed) - but I guess I'm just lazy that way.

 

[Tracy]

Strawman.

My point which you carefully ignored is that not everyone starts from a position of asking a specific question. If you have a specific question, and you want an answer, this is a transaction which forums can be good for. But if you're already on Reddit (or Twitter or Facebook or whatever) where you're already a participant, you might get shown *other* content that is of interest to you, which doesn't have to be in the same genres at all.

No "strawman" to it....I would expect someone looking for something to actually KNOW what they are looking for instead of expecting a software to pull something out of it's ass based upon a few "terms" that are similar. I seriously doubt if I'm hunting on how to rebuild an engine for a 'Vette that anything from a sub-reddit about rebuidling aircraft engines is going to be of benefit to me.

And as as current user of Reddit... I have RARELY gotten a "suggestion" based upon any interest - pertaining to a specific topic. For general topics.. yes, they shove them at you... from those that have 35 participants to those that have 3 million. Now as to whether the content is what you are looking for... you don't know until you delve the cess pool.

but I guess I'm just lazy that way.

Actually.. yes, you are. And that's not meant to be hateful. I have found in my years that actually doing research into a topic tends to give you more pertinent information.

 

[Reverie]

I got this idea from a recent reply I made over on the subreddit called "Casual Conversations". Recently, many subreddits have been boycotting Reddit and mods are making their subs private, so no one can access them. Someone on casual conversations asked if the blackout had affected anyone else, like it affected them as they couldn't easily find whatever information they were looking for, since Google came up with Reddit results but the subreddits were set to private so they couldn't get the information they wanted. I basically said "No, I'm happy reddit is being boycotted. I prefer traditional forums to anything else and would hope more people went back to using them." Someone replied to my comment and said "I'd rather not have to join 20 different forums to get the information I could all get here on Reddit." This made me think about Proboards global forum account system they have. I didn't bother replying back to the guy who commented, but I thought about it and wondered if other free forum hosts should go down the route of what Proboards has done and if it would change more users perspectives on forums these days. Their global forum account really does make it easy to join any Proboards forum, all you need to do is log into your global account, come up with a username for whatever new forum you're joining, and then you're ready to post on the community unless the admins have to approve your account.

I think it would be smart if more forums were able to do like proboards with logging in. It helped me a lot so I could just remember one account... I remember when accounts used to get "cracked" though so I would also be worried about the overall security. I would think this would be helpful though. I also think if a more modern directory was created it would help as well. We have directories for some of those free platforms, but they are so outdated and it's difficult to find the "active" forums versus the forums that have not had activity in years.

I do also agree though if forums had the login with google/discord/etc feature I think that would be amazing as well. Yes they'd have to create the account, but at least it's one less thing to have to remember in a way.

I also wish with the global login - had your avatar and signature already set up, but if you wanted to customize it more for each individual forum you could. "Global Signature/Global Avatar" feature in a sense.