Chat-like structured forum
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Hi, I am looking for a forum structured like Discord forum-channels.
It would need the following features.-
full width
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list of categories in left panel (channels in Discord)
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folders to organize categories (like folders used to organize channels in Discord)
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open topic on the category page - to the right from topic-list
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topic opened already scrolled to the bottom
The last two features are the most important ones.
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Calling @omega
sounds like something you'd be interested in.This is doable, but would be a new theme as there are template changes required.
If you'd like something like this developed, please reach out to us at [email protected]
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- Also it would be great to have chat-channels like they are on Discord (in terms of NodeBB it would mean categories where users write posts instead of creating topics).
In summary, in my opinion, the ideal community building software would be a platform with Discord-like design, but with traditional forum-like authorization and hosting model - to be able to serve it from separate domain, have it accessible directly with no “Join Server” Discord nonsense, have it open and indexable by Google.
I think the first who creates this chat/forum hybrid platform is going to win big share in community building market!
I have created the same post on meta.discourse ;)) Guys who is going to be first?
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@drabiv said in Chat-like structured forum:
Also it would be great to have chat-channels like they are on Discord (in terms of NodeBB it would mean categories where users write posts instead of creating topics).
Respectfully, I disagree with this direction, since that is more chat like and is served well by our existing chat functionality.
The traditional category-topic-post structure lends itself better to long form focused discussion, which is a marked departure from the "hot take" format of traditional social media.
A great deal of discussion takes place on Twitter and Discord-like platforms, and the persistence of all of that content is dubious at best.
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@julian said in Chat-like structured forum:
Respectfully, I disagree with this direction, since that is more chat like and is served well by our existing chat functionality.
The traditional category-topic-post structure lends itself better to long form focused discussion, which is a marked departure from the "hot take" format of traditional social media.
A great deal of discussion takes place on Twitter and Discord-like platforms, and the persistence of all of that content is dubious at best.
Well, I do not want to get into long-form vs short-form focused discussions debate. From my practical point of view, for our community the ideal tool for community building would be Discord server with its mix of chat-channels and forum-like channels, but it cannot be hosted on an independent domain, it is not indexable by Google and and it can be available only through their platform besides other servers - all together is a big drawback for us.
I see that you do have public chat channels, only I do not understand how to browse to them from the left panel. I would love to be able to position them into left panel mixed with categories. If that is not difficult to develop - try it and let the users decide if they like it or not. -
For context I have also posted a question to Discord support forum - https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/20371351137431-Discord-on-separate-domain-indexable-by-Google
Also, I think it is widely known now, that a lot of communities transition to Discord servers from a traditional forums. The debate about long vs short form communication is mostly irrelevant from a community building point of view - because both are needed (in most cases with more reliance on a short-form). That's why Discord pulling away communities onto it's platform. From another side, persistent indexable content is also need (and Discord does not satisfy this need). To the extent, that now, people started to develop workarounds to have Discord Servers indexable - https://medium.com/@rhys_80649/the-move-to-discord-from-forums-has-resulted-in-millions-of-questions-and-answers-being-lost-it-6ca6d7c63b36
https://medium.com/@rhys_80649/the-move-to-discord-from-forums-has-resulted-in-millions-of-questions-and-answers-being-lost-it-6ca6d7c63b36 -
There is no limit, you can do the same for categories. See here https://community.nodebb.org/topic/17095/how-to-create-a-category-selector-in-navigation or https://sudonix.org for an implementation.
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I'm hot and cold on chats. They are not always applicable and are dependant on the average user behaviour and want.
I had a look at the chats and in there I see @drabiv point about how do users discover chats, I find it easier to reply here and think it will have more value, but even if users can find the chats, they do not necessarily need them or use them, so you have NodeBB that has to cater for all worlds and mixed worlds, so that's actually 3 worlds.
Now here is an idea. A Chat only version of NodeBB Chat Vs NodeBB Deluxe (the full version, the one we are on now).
I like chats to hit a person directly, the cognitive break also reinforces the more private and direct nature of the communication, even if a group chat, it's a contained exchange.
For some radical moves in ditching the nav bar why not jam in a Chat UI element there see what happens!
