I was looking around and couldn't see any topics on maybe perhaps including social media into a core feature. I personal think this is something that a lot of users are looking for in today's world. This is something that other forum software have and is very much liked.
What do you mean with "social media"? (Sorry, but I'm not at all into social stuff, so I really don't know... :-[)
Having an area something to share topics, like topics or even have them in the index page.
Ohhh. That!
Yes, definitely.
You can find a quick summary here: http://www.elkarte.net/community/index.php?topic=474.0
The idea was to add moar!! to the "send this topic", but then I forgot and when I remembered it was kind of late in the development cycle (AFAIR it would require a change in the db schema and since it was close to the release of the first beta I preferred not to interfere and wait.
I started writing an addon, then I've been busy doing other stuff and it's still hanging around... :-[
What do you think: would improve the "send this topic" making a "share this topic" be enough or should it be more evident? (i.e. without having to click on "share"?)
To be honest I have been using forums for many many years and have never used the send this topic. I was thinking of making a way to use http://www.addthis.com/ as a feature. I would have it on the bottom of the posting page though. I don't want to mention other software names that do this and it's very successful.
Most people share on social media bY just copying and pasting the URL.
To me, a share button is not a convenience. It's a cry for help from the Admin.
Now if you're talking about Facebook login or Google+ sign-in, it's more interesting. But only if it creates a real account with all rights (except Admin maybe), and doesn't require an extra password to access your profile. (I'm not sure why dragooon did that in his plug on for Wedge. Can anyone think of a reason not to trust OAuth logins?)
I know in some cases like google+ you have to have OAuth in order for the login to work properly, I have set that a couple of times in the past and found that out the hard way. As far as the share buttons being a cry for help I can see that point of view. But also look at it as a way for members to share and bring in more traffic. I look at there is nothing negative about getting more members when some forum s struggle to even make it of the box.
login with : Facebook, Twitter or Google+ is good too. It lower the barrier of entry (sign up), you just need to approve the permissions.
May be an Add this mod like in SMF will do it for us.
I think something like this might be better hard coded, since it's a feature alot of people look for when looking at forum software.
I guess most of us have this feature through some mod. I am ok both way as long as it exists ;)
When something is hardcoded, it drives away innovation. Look at Android platform. If a feature is missing from the Play Store, the community builds tons of solutions with tons of options. When Google builds the same feature, they usually do it for the lowest common denominator. That means possibly less features. Developers, not wanting to build something that nobody will use, stop innovating on that idea. I remember there is an awesome article I read about this. Also, since Google is now including those things by default, they have to maintain them. That means more time spent on every new release making sure every app works. That makes releases slower.
The core developers of Elkarte would be better off spending their time developing the "core capabilities" of the forum to make it easier for people to create plugins. Not to say they shouldn't add features, but every feature means more maintenance and a longer release cycle.
Mod would be fine, I just thought that this was something that was needed.
I might as well answer this now, mostly because stuff like changing e-mail etc requires a password, it's a good idea to have a password on file even if the user is not going to use it.
Using an external service for login implies trusting it. Why can't we trust their security tokens for moderation purposes as well? Why should we even store an email address when there's a facebook Addy available..?
Killing usability encourages not completing the login process. I know it took me time to register on some sites like TV.com, and only did because they had one click registration from Facebook.
Probably because if you at some point want to disable a functionality (e.g. login with OpenID) all the members using that particular type of login are then cut out of the forum?
I would have to imagine that if you're disabling a feature, it's because no one uses it...
It may just be that one out of 500 uses that feature?
No one is not always exactly 0.
Then you can care about that single one or not, but that's another point.
Was wondering if anything became of this, a mod would be fine but something that would be great to have.