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Feedback on new content options for Active Forums

by Will M on 19 Mar 2009 08:57 PM

As I've alluded to in other posts, we are working on some new content organization options for Active Forums. Personally, I think the concept of collaboration and the purpose of a forum has evolved significantly over the past 4 years. You have your typical Thread/Topic/Reply structure. Then you have a blog or article with comments. Growing in popularity is the Question/Answer format. Some people would say that each format should be handled with specific applications. Of course, I disagree

The purpose of this post is to go into some detail about the Blog and Question/Answer formats within Active Forums and gather feedback.

Easy question first. What would you like to see in Active Forums to make it more "Blog Like"?

Now for the Question/Answer format questions. We are working on a structure similar to Yahoo Answers. There is also a site called stackoverflow.com which is a cross between Yahoo Answers and a Wiki.

I'm hoping that those of you that are familiar with the Question/Answer format can provide some feedback as to what options you would like to have available. For example, number of times an answer can be voted on, how many answers allowed, who selects the answer, how many questions per day, who can answer, etc.

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Will Morgenweck
Active Modules

25 Comments for Feedback on new content options for Active Forums

David O'Leary User is Offline

19 Mar 2009 11:26 PM

I would really caution you against trying to make a module that is all things to all people. There are certainly good ways to leverage your existing code/architecture (templating, comments, ratings, security, ...) for implementing new capabilities but I would recommend keeping the fundamental pieces of each module separate.

The main need I've had for the blogging piece is a brief description... Where users can just post the first paragraph or so (just limiting to X chars does cut it). Also, you need a different forum view for blogs so it doesn't feel like forums. Otherwise, I think AF works well for blogging.

For the Question/Answer format (hmmm, that sounds familiar, if I was the first to push you in that direction I'll be expecting my billion dollar royalty check in the mail) - The main need is to be able to vote answers up/down and have them sort accordingly. Also, users should be able to comment on and discuss individual answers. I like how stackoverflow limits what you can do based on your "reputation".

John Henley User is Offline

20 Mar 2009 03:09 PM

I would definitely like an option/template that allowed for the stackoverflow.com type of community.

goBlanks
20 Mar 2009 03:40 PM

The problem with making it more "Blog Like" is that AF is lacking SEO features that other Article and Blog modules already have. If SEO could become better with Active Forums, I would consider it as a strong candidate for a blog module.

Active Forums is by far the best Forum module on the market for DNN, and that's why I use it for it's built in capabilities and functionality, but I can't consider it for blogging without SEO.

Just my 2 cents!

Will M

20 Mar 2009 03:44 PM
www.activemodules.com

How is Active Forums lacking SEO features?

Frozen DNN User is Offline

20 Mar 2009 03:47 PM

Personally, I think the thread subject should be in the url like some blogs have. Other than that ( or even without it) I could use q&a template. I am sure it will add one more feather in the AF feature list.

Will M

20 Mar 2009 03:50 PM
www.activemodules.com

Personally, I think the thread subject should be in the url like some blogs have.

That's not a problem and will be an available option very soon. I can't think of anything else really that would constitute saying "AF is lacking SEO features" or "If SEO could become better with Active Forums...".

goBlanks

20 Mar 2009 04:00 PM

Personally, I think the thread subject should be in the url like some blogs have.

This is the primary point I was driving at

That's not a problem and will be an available option very soon.

And this will invariably put Active Forums into my arsenal as a Blog Module.

Now to this:

For example, number of times an answer can be voted on, how many answers allowed, who selects the answer, how many questions per day, who can answer, etc.

What would be really nice is if somehow features that were added could be tied into the point system. For instance points added to a user for giving a correct answer, or points to a user who has a blog that moves up in ranking, etc.

Will M

20 Mar 2009 04:35 PM
www.activemodules.com

And this will invariably put Active Forums into my arsenal as a Blog Module.

When you said, "AF is lacking SEO features" you were really only talking about the format of the URL? What were the other features that you thought it was lacking for SEO?

Brad Molzen User is Offline

20 Mar 2009 04:45 PM
http://www.vinocellar.com

For blogging... a facility for a user to create/delete their own blog.
Ability to use/create Categories for their own blog. (Tags?)
Searchable using clickable History calendar
Searchable via clickable categories

So per User ID, it would bring up a user's own blog page.. (using forum viewer?) perhaps a separate page from a user's profile, but linked to / from it.

For Question / Answer type stuff... searchability from within the website is also key. and integrated into a user's profile is cool. (Questions I've asked, Questions I've Answered, My Question/Answer "score")

Frozen DNN User is Offline

20 Mar 2009 05:06 PM

Well. for a blog, the button should say "Start a new blog" (For Q and A: it should say "Ask a question"). Also, for replies, instead of quick reply, we should be able to say "Comment" and "Answer". We can't do that right now.

Also, as Brad is saying, it would be nice if there is no list of all blogs (unless we (admins) decide to expose it). There should be my blogs and the other user's blogs. (Like ForumViewer filtered by userid)

Will M

20 Mar 2009 05:09 PM
www.activemodules.com

Sure you can. Just have to modify the templates.

Frozen DNN User is Offline

20 Mar 2009 05:54 PM

If I am using the same forum instance (with formviewer to show blog and other forum templates) I can make this token [ADDTOPIC] display different messages? (Add New Topic and Start New Blog?)

swebster

20 Mar 2009 06:54 PM
www.overlooktechnologies.com

I would love to see both blogs and question answer formats from AF. On blogs, I agree that it's important to have friendly URLs that make sense to users: www.mysite.com/username or even better - username.mysite.com. (I would not mind seeing this in AS either ofr users and groups) Additionally, url re-writing based on the title would help as well www.mysite.com/username/how_to_post_in_my_forum.aspx. Ventrian and the core blog do this and I'm amazed at how well these pages are indexed.

On the question and answer format. I know I could use this and would like to see some sort of raking/experts management. This could easily become a premium feature on a site so some way to control it would be valuable.

Brad Molzen User is Offline

21 Mar 2009 12:51 PM
http://www.vinocellar.com

Additionally, url re-writing based on the title would help as well www.mysite.com/username/how_to_post_in_my_forum.aspx. Ventrian and the core blog do this and I'm amazed at how well these pages are indexed.

Agreed! I've read a few different SEO blogs about this... they even get into the difference between using -'s and _'s between words and how the engines treat them differently.

Brad Molzen User is Offline

21 Mar 2009 12:58 PM
http://www.vinocellar.com

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashe...derscores/

Here is one such article. They say underscores combine the words... and dashes get the words treated separately... (for google at least, where most of my traffic comes from)

So using dashes instead of underscores seems a lot better. I've read more than one article saying this.

Thoughts?

Brad Molzen User is Offline

21 Mar 2009 12:59 PM
http://www.vinocellar.com

Here is one last article from Google regarding good URLs.

http://www.google.com/support/webma...swer=76329

It definitely values human readable URLs.

Brad Molzen User is Offline

21 Mar 2009 01:02 PM
http://www.vinocellar.com

Sorry, last post. Even google themselves say to use dashes instead of underscores....

Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.

That was from the same link above.

I've read that _'s would be OK only for URL Parameters... something that isn't human readable.

Cliff Hammock User is Offline

22 Mar 2009 09:48 PM

Will, this is exactly what I need for a client on a current project. I was trying to be discrete. But in this post on which nobody replied, I was leading to this Yahoo Answers requirement.

http://www.activemodules.com/Commun...fault.aspx

My approach was to be a front end form where someone could post to AF and then be auto subscribed to the post. That way when an answer was given they would get an email with a link.

What I am trying to avoid is the original Question Asker having to get down into a forum just to ask a question. On this new site, the people answering the question will actually be licensed in the industry.

That is about all I want to share at this point in public. If we can talk offline that would be great. This is a fairly urgent requirement for me, so I would be willing to fund some development, even if it is just an interim solution.

Cliff

fatgeorge

23 Mar 2009 06:43 AM

Hey Cliff,

If you are in a hurry for this take a look at Ask The Xperts, it's an XMod app that does what you describe.
It could be integrated into AS profiles as a 3rd party app and be filtered on the userid of the person submitting the question.

Let me know if you are interested.

http://www.fatgeorge.co.uk/AskTheXperts.aspx

Ivan

24 Mar 2009 02:43 PM

Not sure blogging is worth the effort. Ventrian's NA already does a great job as a blog centric module and is more flexible in architecture with Categories/Subcategories, SEO capabilities (title in url, templates for title, description and keywords) and numerous display/filter options to display groups of blogs on different pages.

Q&A enhancements will be great though. We interviewed some of our users and the single most important reason for not using the forum is its navigation for posting. You need to drill down to a forum to post a topic. It should be easy to post a topic (ask a question) from anywhere on the site (you can still have a drop down for assigning to the proper forum).

Alan Froggatt User is Offline

25 Mar 2009 01:00 AM
www.Genratec.com

Certainly an Q & A format, Blog and comments, Article and comments (plus rating, AS links etc, etc) have a "Main event" (Q, Blog entry, etc) then the respondents (A, comments, ratings,etc). This would extent the use of the AF module into the site. I would say this is a must with the ideas of a social network based website. I would say much of this is closer that people think with templates.
Many sites are headed this way and I think it makes sense as far as the information that makes a site interesting and useful.

From a functionality point of view separate placing of sections (Q&A, Blogs, discussions, articles) around the site would be critical. Without the ability (like AS modules) to place them on different page would limit the application. I see alot of sites including Active modules using the forums (CMS) engine for other content such as testimonials. We use this for random tip of the day, quotes and other rotating type content currently. I would love to see active forums move towards a "social CMS" module. (Now there's a good term Will)
Now if you could wrap paging tabs for content, insert a (any) module (like AS is heading), I could be done.

David O'Leary User is Offline

26 Mar 2009 04:13 PM

And because you don't have enough on your plate...
Another idea is to enable User Submitted Links to news articles along the lines of Buzz.yahoo.com, digg.com, or slashdot where users can comment on articles and vote them up/down to move them in the sort order.

David O'Leary User is Offline

26 Mar 2009 04:29 PM

I should also say that the functionality behind "Share A Link" in the journal seems like it could be a good start for this kind of feature.

Rod

03 Apr 2009 05:19 AM

Here's another Q&A type forum that I just stumbled over
http://xheo.uservoice.com/pages/gen...type=popin

Rod

02 May 2009 09:59 AM

Hi Will, just found this video about StackOverflow. Very interesting analysis of how it was designed and why.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ

Hope it helps
Rod

Active Forums 4.2