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#99: User Contacts & Follow Users

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I checked around and don't see it in this forum.

Half of this feature will need delayed because of notifications, so it is likely the whole feature would need delayed.


The idea is you can add a user as a friend or neutral with the option to see when they post or possibly get a different color notification when they PM you (not sure about this one, but seeing when a friend messages you might be useful | Additionally it could be useful to mark the PM in a blue kind of color if staff send you anything).
You'd also be able to list any friend (marked as friend) on your profile. Sure you can always edit your bio but this would be a simple and inbuilt way to do this and auto link their names (and colors).

And on the usercontacts page, you can also see a list with usernames, last active, last posted, (friend/neutral), and link to their last post.

One might also say there could be a block list, but I really don't think we need that. Not against it too, but I think it goes against the spirit of the site personally.

As a side note, it'd be cool to receive emails as well or the option to be notified. But I think that would need its own thread. Not sure if SMWC has the ability to set up an email service.


I have some more ideas, but I'll probably make a new thread for them.
I have no real opinions about this feature. I guess it could be nice, but something about seeing friends' statistics makes me slightly uncomfortable. I definitely support some type of system which denotes relationships between users, but I want to wait to see what others think about this entire idea.
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It doesn't even have to be specific like last active/posted, but I do like some details from a glace.

If you want, you could also make it where mutual friends can share details like this (possibly make it where more profile details are shared) and thus it has to be accepted on the other end.

But this isn't any new information you can't just get from going to each profile. And it isn't as overpowered as ?p=online where you essentially can track their current URL. : P

The system is well thought out, but honestly, it feels too much like shoehorning in social networking features. I think the forums can do without it.


 
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Unfortunately forums have been harder to keep active without some compromise. Now for forums like these (SMWC), it is not as much of a problem because of its core focus.

But having features "like favoriting/liking posts, following users, etc" is what people like these days. I must admit while I hate Facebook, really really dislike it with a passion, and don't care much for Twitter, coming back into posting at SMWC I've noticed how often now I am looking for a way to follow some users here or favorite/like posts.

Xenforo sort of done that for me as I've been moderating the forums for a large community for awhile now. While we can do without, I don't believe that's reason to not have a feature, personally.

i've been on other sites with a twitter-style like button (where there's no accompanying dislike button and you can revoke it at any time) and it's certainly a lot more convenient than trying to come up with a reply that both agrees with and builds on what they're saying - especially if what they're saying is all that needs to be said. and, being able to like replies which take other posts apart balance out the lack of a dislike button.

however, this would be a huge change to implement suddenly after 12+ years of the site's history. i fully understand and even agree with the skepticism, because honestly, it doesn't fit the site's design. the way posts are formatted, there's no simple and intuitive place to indicate how many times a post has been liked.

most of the sites with like buttons i've seen had follow buttons too, and i've never used them once outside twitter. idk if i represent a majority but i prefer following forums manually than following users who may post in forums i couldn't care less about
In the staff forums, I've actually expressed interest in implementing a feature to "like" posts and mark them as "solutions" like in Discourse. At this point, it's not really secret that there may be upcoming design changes, which would allow us to accommodate such features without too much trouble. Following threads has been suggested in this forum as issue #79 and I've already started planning out the notification system required for most of the postponed issues.

With that out of the way, the point of this particular issue is the addition of a friends system, not the general features that could be added to the forum. I want to add to my previously expressed opinion that I mostly agree with WhiteYoshiEgg's point about shoehorning social network features. I think the best way to proceed would be to wait until the survey results, which could contain information that can point us to people's opinion.
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I do agree that the survey results could help out a lot.
I certainly have no problem with the feature being delayed or denied as it isn't essential.

I also would like in the future the possibility to have more groups with some joinable functionality as it stands, they serve mostly for permission purposes than anything but it might be neat to. But that's yet another topic for another thread.

Thank you again for your time and effort you put into working on the site. It is a big burden but I am glad someone is there to do this site's features and bug fixing. #smw{:TUP:}

Discourse has some very neat user features but its biggest downfall is the complete lack of subforums or paginated threads. Everything in an infinite scroll, only the most popular content rises to the top. Fire Emblem Universe uses Discourse as its forum software and I've expressed my dislike of those features over there before. But the ability to Like posts and bookmark them is definitely appreciated, so if it's possible to add some features like those to future major site changes I'd be pleased.
Originally posted by Scrydan
I also would like in the future the possibility to have more groups with some joinable functionality as it stands, they serve mostly for permission purposes than anything but it might be neat to.

Yeah, user groups are a really unfinished hack job. There are two issues on our internal issue tracker, #41 and #54, about the missing features in the group system, so finishing it is definitely on the todo list.

Originally posted by FPzero
Discourse has some very neat user features but its biggest downfall is the complete lack of subforums or paginated threads. Everything in an infinite scroll, only the most popular content rises to the top.

I agree that Discourse can be quite confusing to navigate. Fortunately, that's not the feature (if you can call it that) I'm looking to replicate.
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Originally posted by Telinc1
Yeah, user groups are a really unfinished hack job. There are two issues on our internal issue tracker, #41 and #54, about the missing features in the group system, so finishing it is definitely on the todo list.


Yeah, it may be a hack job, although there's some benefits to the group system using user accounts essentially. In theory, one could also make it where all Staff can get sent a PM. And then all members could then read that PM (it would be like how Admins can read PMs). Might even be an idea to allow group owners/certain members to send as a group as well. Future ideas of course, but useful nonetheless.

Has anyone been talking about ability to follow one's every thread if they wish to? It'd be a nice feature particularly if you like their works and want to follow their projects. It might have some other uses as well.

I find that would be a nice feature, but seeing the user's last post, no matter whether in their own thread or not, and having an opportunity to like a post or reply to it with criticism would step
too much into social media and it wouldn't be the same SMW Central we all know regardless of their convenience.
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

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