Eureka! Socialized Usergroups + Forums for Groups

[DJ RRebel]

Part 1: Simply because it's a VERY useful feature on its own.

I propose we socialize usergroups themselves. Not as a replacement to Social Groups, but in addition to them.

Why would we want this you ask? A million possible reasons for a million different sites, but namely the fact it would be nice to have the option to add photos and public messages to existing usergroups (particularly ones that are publicly accessable).

In a sense those Publicly Joinable user groups which have existed forever were really the first step towards social groups, except that they never had their own centralised page. It's just common sense that they be added now. For that reason alone it's a no brainer that they should be socialized and I feel it should be done regardless of part two of this suggestion.

All you would need to do is add a few options to usergroups settings:

a) Usergroup Rank: *See notes below for details
b) Usergroup Display Order:
c) Usergroup visible to non-members of usergroup: Y/N
d) Display usergroup members: Y/N
e) Usergroup has common picture area: Y/N
f) Usergroup has public message board: Y/N



Part 2: Because it will help solve the forums for groups delema

Doing this will also make the task of plugging in a forum into groups significantly easier. All you would need to do is:

1- Have a simple convertion feature that converts all members of Social Group A into members of Usergroup Z.

2- Admins then set up a forum(s) with Usergroup Z in mind.

3- Add two more options to usergroups:
g) Display Forum(s) in usergroup (seperate with commas):
h) Display last X threads from Displayed Forum(s):

4- Plug in parts of the forumdisplay.php code and then use the showforum template into the display page for socialized usergroups. It would show:

a) The basics of the forum(s) you associated to the usergroup:
- What you see about individual forums on your forum's index page
- Such as: forum title, last poster, forum description, etc.

b) A list of the last X threads:
- What you'd find in any forumdisplay.php page
- Such as: thread title, number of replies, rating, thread starter, etc.


Edited Addition:
1b) Alternatively .. instead of a conversion feature .. there could simply be a way to link a Social Group to a Usergroup.

[DJ RRebel]

Notes:

1- If this was done (or if there's hope in the future), Social Groups would now REALLY need to be renamed ASAP so as not to conflict with Socialized Usergroups! Again, I advise "Circles" as suggested here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=251133).


2- I'd eventually like to see this improved upon to include an automated system that gives the option of creating a new forum and setting up permissions for that forum to only be accessible to that group. Of course, not to replace the option to use an existing forum.


3- It would be cool in the future to also see a "subusergroup" option (where usergroups would have a "Parent usergroup" setting). Would be fantastic for regional groups that get big enough to split into smaller regions while still being a part of the parent group.


4- The Usergroup Rank option would be used to group together groups in the usergroup directory (many groups could have the same rank). Think of it as acting like the "parent catagory" equivalent for forums.


5- The Display Order option would simply be the order in which usergroups would be listed within their "rank".

* Note that 4 & 5 would be useful in listing a usergroup directory, but they would be extremely useful for a million other features, template conditionals and hacks that could use a way to apply quick permissions.
IE: <if condition="usergroup_rank < 3"> then blablabla


6- Yes, I think it's good to have the option of having both a public message thread and a forum (as on Facebook), although in our case it could be build so we have the option to add what we want! :)


7- For various reasons, it would be useful for the Social Group to Usergroup converter to work both ways. Not automatically deleting the original group (but definitely giving you the option).


8- I'd like to see forums be able to be plugged into social groups as well (specifically as I already suggested here (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1461234&postcount=9)), but this is a very quick solution to the forums for groups, and is something that is already an extremely good and highly useful suggestion on its own as it would be great to have the option to let some Usergroups have some of these new Social Group features.

[DJ RRebel]

Well .. now that vB3.7 is released without any forums for groups, I'm hoping people take a serious look at this suggestion as a quick fix solution until a more integrated and extensive system is put into place in vB4.

I really don't want to wait a year before being able to add forums to groups .. PLUS .. I think adding the option to socialize usergroups is an extremely useful suggestion on its own .. particularly for adding functionality to publicly joinable usergroups.

Anyhow .. please show your support if you like the idea .. or if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! :)

[Razasharp]

'Social' Groups just need some added functionality - threads, and basic admin moderation as detailed in the link in my sig.

Keep public usergroups as they are, seperate - as they can be used in other ways.

Just wait and see what Kier has to say once 3.7 goes gold - hopefully this is the sort of thing they will tell us about. Especially as it is requested/talked about so much.

[DJ RRebel]

I totally agree that usergroups need more functionality .. but that's a very seperate issue in my opinion.

Usergroups should be seperate as you say .. and they absolutely can be used in other ways.

However .. lol .. The public accessibility of usergroups make them ideal for "socialization". In fact .. one would argue that they should have been socialized from the start as their purpose was to let people associate themselves by common interest. Which is exactly the same thing as Social Groups. In fact .. the only real difference is that Social Groups can be started by regular members.

It's not a question of which one would be better socialized .. it's just the simple fact that it would be a huge asset to have the option availlable for usergroups.

The work involved would be minimal since all the essentials have already been written for Social Groups, and it would simply be a matter of copying code and writing a bit of new stuff to make it optionable.

The fact it would be an ideal solution to bringing some form of forum functionality for groups is simply a bonus, as even if they add forums to Social Groups, I still think it would be amazing to socialize usergroups and bring an added dimension to them and their usage!

[kafi]

Again and again testing 3.7. I am missing forum for groups.

I have post unpaid request for forum functionality for social groups, please suport
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1412075

[DJ RRebel]

Still wondering if any of the devs have looked at the above at all and if there's a reason they're don't think it could be a good medium term solution before something more ground-up is developed for 4.0?


Wayne .. do you know if there has been time to give my suggestion consideration at all?

I'm actually more in favour of a well developed solution as found in Razasharp's and other threads. But I really think my solution will go a very long way towards bridging the gap between now and vB4. Not only that .. but:

* It's based on a great suggestion that has merits of its own seperately.
* It's relatively easy to impliment and could easily be added before 3.7 goes Gold.
* It has no significant drain on resources and is a completely different approach than those suggested that would see databases spiral out of control in size.
* It brings the power of vB to Social Groups in a way that not only matches social networking sites, but actually is better because it takes advantage of vB's power and flexibility!
* It doesn't involve any significant new features as most of it is based on copying and rearanging of existing features. There would be only a very minor amount of bridge coding involved.
* It doesn't take away from any new or existing feature!
* Most importantly .. it doesn't block possible future solutions or prevent a more theral solution from being developed.
* It actually could serve as the foundation of a very powerful and flexible long term solution with only a bit more work.


I'd really love to see it implimented .. or at least a good reason why it wouldn't be possible:

Socialized Usergroups and Forums for Groups
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=252093

[Fusion]

Still wondering if any of the devs have looked at the above at all and if there's a reason they're don't think it could be a good medium term solution before something more ground-up is developed for 4.0?
'til the new "progress update" thingy is let loose on us there's really no reason to expect any feedback from the Devs on suggestions made here, as have been stated many, many times already.

[DJ RRebel]

Well .. on the contrary .. with such huge demand for forums in social groups I'd think it would be good to have their feedback even if technically they don't have to tell us anything. Anyhow ... let's please not turn this into another discussion/debate about Jelsoft's communication protocals.

[feldon23]

vBulletin will never add functionality that allows users or groups to administrate their own forums. Not unless they come out with a site license version.

[Mr_Bob]

vBulletin will never add functionality that allows users or groups to administrate their own forums. Not unless they come out with a site license version.
He's not referring to giving an entire forum to a specific member group allowing them to create additional subforums, etc. DJ is arguing for a specific subforum being assigned to a social group where the group leader can manage moderators, moderation, etc. Basically, it would be no different than specifying certain users to be moderators for a specific subforum.

[DJ RRebel]

Actually .. not only what Bob said ... but because the forum(s) in question would mearly be "plugged-in" to the group, it would still have all the current mod features where you'd assign mods like you would any other forum (because they are actual forums).

My suggestion would not let users decide anything .. it would be up to you (or maybe have an option to also let mods help) to decide what forums get plugged into which groups if any!




For example .. let's say there's 400 groups in your board. 90% of which are not active enough to justify a forum as their public messages serves as more than enough for their needs of communication.

Of the remaining 40 groups you notice 15 are fan groups for various hockey teams. So you could create a new hockey forum for your site and link all those 15 groups to the hockey forum. If your board has nothing to do with hockey then then you would keep it "hidden" from your main forum listing. But if your board was sports related then you would find a suitable spot for it on your forum index. That's the beauty of this suggestion is that it gives you ultimate flexibility!

If 15 more of those active groups were regional in nature then you could create a few new regional forums depending on what makes sense. If the groups are very active you might want to give them each a forum. Or if they are only moderately active then you could create just a few forums (maybe one for each continent or country or state or whatever makes sense for your community) and assign each group the appropriate forum.

Lets say your your community is a car community and you already have an existing forum for tires. Once you add social groups there's a good chance you'll get a group for Firestone and a group for Goodyear .. in this case having this suggestion in place would be ideal because you wouldn't even need to create a new forum, you'd simply plug in the tires forum into both groups.

Again with a regional example (because it is clearest), let's say you have a sports forum with forums for each professional sports team. Someone eventually creates a New York City social group. As it gets more and more popular and its public wall isn't enough to cater to their communication requirements, you could then actually plug in the multiple forums for NYC's various sports. If you find even that isn't enough and that too many off topic threads are being created in those existing forums then you could add (in the same way you create new forums now) a specific New York City discussions forum on top of the others. You'd have complete control and flexibility to do whatever you'd like!


These groups would still have their regular public messages for general banter .. more importantly .. if any group got significantly popular, you could easily split it off from an existing forum and give it a new one just as many admins split some forums into sub-forums when they get too big or too generalised.


In forum indexes you could also have an option that displays any social groups that are associated with that forum if doing that makes sense for your community needs and goals.


The great thing about this is that it takes the positive forum aspects from SN sites groups (like on Facebook), but gives them the signifacantly increased power, control, usability and flexibility of vB forums. So not only does it give you what some SN sites already has ... it blows them away by giving groups the best forums availlable (vB :))!


vB is such an amazing tool .. this all simply blows my mind as it does not make any sense not to use it and take advantage of it!?

[Dream]

Well being able to integrate forums with social groups would be nice, but personally I don't think my community would use it much, as it's a small community. Still a good idea though.

As for the social groups options, I don't think disabling photos etc is needed. What could be nice would be a better social groups main page instead, with most active groups etc etc.

Social group ranks? I don't get it.

Didn't get groups display order either. The groups main page doesn't accommodate display order.

Private groups, yes please. Make them hidden from the listing.

Display usergroup members: can't think of a reason to make this

Usergroup has common picture area: Y/N: didn't get it

Usergroup has public message board: Y/N: integrating a forum with a social group, sure. I'd rather have this option in the AdminCP in the forum options.

Alternatively .. instead of a conversion feature .. there could simply be a way to link a Social Group to a Usergroup.: not sure I would use, but wouldn't hurt

to be continued...

[DJ RRebel]

lol .. now I understand why you don't understand! ;)

Re-read everything (sorry .. lol) .. but realise that USER groups and SOCIAL groups are two different things (I said it from the beginning they needed clearer distiguishing names .. lol)

Most vB admins don't use "Publicly Joinable Usergroups", but it's been a feature for as long as I can remember! That being said .. this suggestion could be useful for any kind of Usergroup, whether publicly joinable or not! :)

[Dream]

1- Have a simple convertion feature that converts all members of Social Group A into members of Usergroup Z.

...

I think a forum should be created and linked with a social group, not a user group linked to a social group, to then create a forum linked with the user group.

Scrap that, to create private forums only available to the social group members you would need to link a user group I think.

[Dream]

lol .. now I understand why you don't understand! ;)

Re-read everything (sorry .. lol) .. but realise that USER groups and SOCIAL groups are two different things (I said it from the beginning they needed clearer distiguishing names .. lol)

Most vB admins don't use "Publicly Joinable Usergroups", but it's been a feature for as long as I can remember! That being said .. this suggestion could be useful for any kind of Usergroup, whether publicly joinable or not! :)

ohh geez... ok but I think that having as many user groups as social groups wouldn't work.

[DJ RRebel]

I think a forum should be created and linked with a social group, not a user group linked to a social group, to then create a forum linked with the user group.

Scrap that, to create private forums only available to the social group members you would need to link a user group I think.

yeah .. that's why it's also important to have usergroups socialized and a possible conversion and/or link from one to the other (they will pretty much all be the same thing anyhow though if usergroups are socialized). In the cases where you want to have private forums it would be much simpler to use the existing usergroups permissions system than come up with a whole new system for social groups.

[DJ RRebel]

ohh geez... ok but I think that having as many user groups as social groups wouldn't work.

Again .. that's the point .. they wouldn't have to be joined at all .. but in some cases you might want to transfer or link a specific social group into a usergroup (in cases where you'd want to use forum permissions) ... you won't use this for all your user groups ... from a logistics point of view and database integrity you actually *don't* want all your social groups to have forums.


For example ...

Let's say you have a sports forum. You have forums for each sport, but not for each team. Eventually various members start team specific fan groups. You then would simply plug in all your hockey team social groups into the hockey forum. In this situation you really wouldn't care about permissions because you're using an existing forum that was already open to all your members. This is how I see this suggestion being used for the most part!




Most social groups will die regardless of features ... however .. this is all about saving SOME of them to the point where the whole social groups concept does not completely implode!

[Dream]

I don't think I would link two social groups to the same forum, but that's me.

I agree social groups could be linked to user groups, 1 on 1, or more if you want to get fancy, though I can't think of a use for this. On this I think we agree.

What I didn't get, is what is the usergroup rank? And display order? Display order setting should be on the forum settings, and display order I don't know where. What's display usergroup members? You may want to elaborate on this. There's a page already that shows the members of the usergroups you want.

[jilly]

I think this thread brings up good ideas..

A frequent complaint by my older members are 'there are too many new people!' and they feel they can't keep up with everything..

They have their friends they made in their first 6 months or so, and sort of want to hang with them. People say 'Oh, that'll create cliques!' - but so what? That's fine with me.

If they want to have a personal group/forum, and hang with their preferred buddies privately, that's fine.

It ridiculous to expect a member of a few years or more to try and keep the same level of closeness with 100 new members that show up each month. I think, on older, bigger boards, this is why we end up getting member 'drop off', or disinterest, or they go off to start their own private spaces somewhere else.

A busy, large member base and growing board quickly becomes overwhelming after a few months. (I'm speaking mostly of boards that are 'community' based, I don't think a tech support style board has the same issues.)

[Dream]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to my forum to became like that. I have the opposite problem though, little new members (posting members, because new members I get a lot), but my members all know each other, and I personally know some of them outside the web.

[nxvc]

I'd also like threads for groups, it's fun like hell !"

[DJ RRebel]

I don't think I would link two social groups to the same forum, but that's me.

That the great thing about this suggestion. If it's done right, you'd have total control over how many forums to plug into any given group! This is about how I see groups using this:

- 60% of groups will never need a forum.
- 30% more would be too small for a forum, but might be saved if given a shared forum (shared with similar groups)
- 5% more might be related to multiple forums and could share multiple existing forums.
- 4% of groups would be active enough to justify a new forum of their own.
- 1% of groups would be active enough to justify multiple forums.

As you can see .. even with this suggestion I still see 60% of groups dying out .. but that's totally normal in my mind. The difference is that you'll save about a third of your groups .. which will be enough to help make sure the whole social groups concept doesn't die out on your board after the novelty period wears off. Basically 40% is better than 0%!



I agree social groups could be linked to user groups, 1 on 1, or more if you want to get fancy, though I can't think of a use for this. On this I think we agree.

Check some of my later posts in this thread for a few examples. But it doesn't really matter. The key is that it's an extremly flexible suggestion that leaves options open for a wide variety of admins to do a very wide variety of things! :)



What I didn't get, is what is the usergroup rank? And display order? Display order setting should be on the forum settings, and display order I don't know where. What's display usergroup members? You may want to elaborate on this. There's a page already that shows the members of the usergroups you want.

Yeah ... but I always felt usergroups should be ranked so you could control the order they are displayed on that page.

Plus having a numberic rank for each user group would give people who use conditionals in templates a greatly increased power over what they can do. Would also make writting some hacks significantly easier.

In the end tough, I simply added it there so that if USER groups are socialized and listed somewhere, that you could control the order of that list if you wanted to. (In the case where various usergroups have more seniority than others for example.

Don't worry about understand this too much .. it's mainly to make the suggestion even more flexible, powerful and useful. But the suggestion would still be great either way!

[Leginos]

Totally agree. it makes perfect sense - if we were able to get forum integration then we would need to have usergroup functionality, for controlling what the members can and can't do on that forum. Social_Group_A is copied or converted to Social_UserGroup_A, then create a forum or private forum and plugin Social_UserGroup_A. Then just use the standard vb ACP to decide forum permissions, etc, as with any other forum. All this could easily be automated, and the forum could automatically use the same access/viewing settings as the Social Group.

Sorry for stating what is probably blindingly obvious to everyone else, but I hadn't really considered HOW to integrate the forum functionality, only that I NEED it.

I fully support your suggestion.

btw here's why I need it: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1509158&posted=6#post1509158

[Dream]

This would give great depth to vbulletin and could make huge communities. I'm wondering if servers would be able to handle forums with several SG forums.

I read that the vbulletin team had a meeting to discuss forums for SGs. It seems they decided to not make them, I'd like to know their thoughts on this. Maybe they have good reasons for not doing them.

Creating forums for SGs makes vbulletin a Google Groups system. That's certainly more than I wished and paid for. I almost feel like contracting phone support to give them more money.

One thing that I am going to do after I install 3.7 is putting each SG in its own line on the user's SG list that appears in his profile. All those SGs side by side are hard to read.

[DJ RRebel]

I read that the vbulletin team had a meeting to discuss forums for SGs. It seems they decided to not make them, I'd like to know their thoughts on this. Maybe they have good reasons for not doing them.

I'd love to hear their thoughts on this too. This is one of the most viewed single suggestion discussion threads and not a single peep from any dev! :(

I can only assume they're keeping quiet because they don't have any good reason not to add this suggestion other than the fear it might delay Gold longer than they'd like.

It's too bad as I think it could be implimented with only a couple of days work ... anyhow .. it's still simple enough that I think it stands a chance of being added at any point if they really wanted to. But like you, I'd really appreciate a responce from one of the Devs because if the reason they aren't adding it is because they don't quite understand my suggestion, then I'd really love to be able to clarify/explain it to them to increase the chances of it being added!

[Wayne Luke]

I read that the vbulletin team had a meeting to discuss forums for SGs. It seems they decided to not make them, I'd like to know their thoughts on this. Maybe they have good reasons for not doing them.

It wasn't a meeting per se but a discussion on the subject. The reasoning is that at this time, creating forums for social groups is too resource intensive and would be a good way to cripple all but the smallest vBulletin forums.

It may be looked at again in the future.

[DJ RRebel]

It wasn't a meeting per se but a discussion on the subject. The reasoning is that at this time, creating forums for social groups is too resource intensive and would be a good way to cripple all but the smallest vBulletin forums.

Wayne .. I'm thinking you guys never really got a chance to take a look or consider this suggestion in particular then?

It does not automatically put a forum in each group (which I agree would be a resource disaster! lol)

It completely bypasses any resource issue as it gives flexibility and total control to admins! Plus it doesn't require too much new coding (mostly copying and tweeking existing code) considering the enormous benefits!

[Leginos]

I read on another thread that vb software could cope with a few thousand forums (provided there is sufficient hardware to support it).

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195980&highlight=scalability

Is this not the case ?!?!? If anyone knows different could they please tell me, since if SN groups dont integrate forum functionality, I will need to create them manually myself (tedious - but no other choice). This is a crucial aspect to my site, and if this is not possible using standard forums, I really need to know before spending any more time/money on development and start looking at other software solutions. (I'm referring to standard vb forum functionality, leaving out the SN group issue):confused:

Since noone is looking for a forum for every Social Group, only the Admin option to create it on an 'as-needed' basis, I don't see where the problem is. Site admins would be just as conservative with the number of SN-linked forums they create as they are with standard forums. The default message wall for all SN groups would remain. Just the few SN Groups that actually expand to the point where they need a forum, would actually get one. If it stretches their hardware too much, admins simply won't implement them. But many would like the chance to decide for themselves and have the option.

[DJ RRebel]

This so could have been added to Beta 6! :(

Wayne .. any chance of getting a responce to my last post?

[Varsh]

Well this system works pretty well at Game Trailers as their system is practically exactly the same but with some differences, essentially the same though. If Game Trailers can do it with hundreds of social groups and tens of thousands of members then I'm sure a general server can cope.

Ok I must admit that GT does probably own a high end dedi but still GT is an exception as that's one of the most popular sites on the net. Still though I guess if Jelsoft aren't going to add it then are there any others out there that are will to make a plugin for vB with these options?