roboticanary Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 There are a number of features available to us as a forum which I could impliment but have not yet. I don't want to flood the forum with things nobody wants or uses but I also dont want to keep people in the dark about things the forum could do. I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread of the main things we could add to see if there was interest. So here are the things we could add along with comments from me. 1. Calender - we could add a page with a calender of aromantic events which members can add to. 2. map - we could have a page with a google mymap integrated in it which would allow us to pin locations of aromantic meetups with links to how to get in touch 3. badges/achievements - as the name suggests, users can earn badges for doing things, e.g. number of posts, answering questions, starting topics. 4. clubs - members can create small offshoot clubs which only those in the club can post to. e.g. an allo-aro or an aro-ace club. 5. blogs - you get a blog. each user is able to have a place for longform writing 6. gallery - a gallery, you could put art there in a way which is much easier to find than many separate art threads. 7. downloads - members can put files here for others to be able to download. 8. new forum categories - I will add this here, obviously the forum categories are not set in stone, if there is anything you think would be interesting to add, please do my notes: 4, 5, 6 and 7 are only available because we have additional addons to invision (our forum software) in this case because we are using them as our host. This means that if we have to move to cheaper shared hosting they might no longer be available. There is also a limit to the amount of image storage we have available on the forum, a total of 75gb currently for images etc. this would affect 6 and 7 and for some people 5. 4 and 5 would need a lot of moderation, I won't consider them at all unless we have a lot more people step up to help with that. So there you go, if there is demand I will happily add things to the forum. If there is anything you want that isn't here, there is nothing wrong with asking and I will see if your ideas are possible with the software we have. If you have any comments on this, anything you feel particularly strongly about please let me know. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 5, 2022 Author Share Posted May 5, 2022 also I have just edited the poll to allow choosing more than one option because I am an idiot and didn't set that up. sorry about that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilse Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 Man these are all great features! I especially love the badge and club idea 👍 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A User Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 the map idea is interesting... i've already seen what clbs are on another invision forum, so i'm aware of that. i think clubs arent too necessary here im loving blog too!!!!!!!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxIsCosmic Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 I love the map and club idea! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 5, 2022 Author Share Posted May 5, 2022 If anyone wants a more detailed explanation, these are the possible features as described by invision: https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/gallery/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/blogs/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/calendar/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/downloads/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A User Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 1 hour ago, roboticanary said: If anyone wants a more detailed explanation, these are the possible features as described by invision: https://invisioncommunity.com/features/clubs/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/gallery/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/blogs/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/calendar/ https://invisioncommunity.com/features/downloads/ i didn't even know these existed... welp, time to pitch ideas to the trevorspace crew! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 6, 2022 Author Share Posted May 6, 2022 21 minutes ago, A User said: i didn't even know these existed... welp, time to pitch ideas to the trevorspace crew! Yeah, a lot of the features are extra costs if you arent with invision anyway as we are currently it might be nice to have them, but clubs, blogs, gallery and downloads are all things that wouldn't stick around if we had to move to cheaper hosting. I'd guess thats why quite a few forums dont have them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arsenic Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 I love al those ideas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sili Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 For my 2c, Calander and maps I can see potentially being quite useful, more so the calander. It would give a central location people can go to to see what events may be around and whats on. My concern is whether the forum is busy enough to justify it. The badges/achievements are a nice idea for those that want it, and I could see plenty of people enjoying it. Could it be integrated into the ideas behind the Aro scouts? I'm far too old for the scouts myself, but can see a lot of people enjoying it again. The clubs really come down to how much they would be used in practice. Again, the forum isnt very busy, and I feel like setting it smaller areas for what is already a small forum would result in the clubs not getting a lot of use. I could well be wrong on that though. The blogs I would enjoy, I may not write much myself, but I enjoy reading blogs, and would likely enjoy reading others thoughts and opinions here. I get the moderation concerns however. A gallery would be great, again I have no artistic skill to speak of, but some of the art in the art threads is truely stunning. Im not entirely sure what the use case for the downloads would be, and I would have potential moderation worries again. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 6, 2022 Author Share Posted May 6, 2022 9 hours ago, Sili said: Im not entirely sure what the use case for the downloads would be, and I would have potential moderation worries again. agreed on this. I put it in because I thought it would be wrong to leave out options just because I'm not sure of their use but I doubt there is much use in having them. 9 hours ago, Sili said: The badges/achievements are a nice idea for those that want it, and I could see plenty of people enjoying it. Could it be integrated into the ideas behind the Aro scouts? I'm far too old for the scouts myself, but can see a lot of people enjoying it again. The idea should be that I could name what the badges are and what they are for. So in principle there could be some overlap. e.g. I could create a quiver of aros badge for having a certain amount of followers or similar. Then perhaps ask to use one of the badge designs we have here as the image. 9 hours ago, Sili said: Calander and maps I can see potentially being quite useful, more so the calander. It would give a central location people can go to to see what events may be around and whats on. My concern is whether the forum is busy enough to justify it. yeah this is a fair point, will enough people use this to justify it. At the very least I reckon I will do one or the other rather than both of these. I doubt there is enough interest for both. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyTuneRein Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 A 18+ forum (that's hidden from bots/guests) is the only one that I'm particularly keen on. I don't think we should continue the AVEN-template though, because one reason why I left AVEN was because it's AVEN. Each site should have a unique selling point. Other than that, I'm not really bothered. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 6, 2022 Author Share Posted May 6, 2022 48 minutes ago, SkyTuneRein said: A 18+ forum (that's hidden from bots/guests) is the only one that I'm particularly keen on. I don't think we should continue the AVEN-template though, because one reason why I left AVEN was because it's AVEN. Each site should have a unique selling point. Other than that, I'm not really bothered. This is a really good idea. could you please explain what you mean by continue the AVEN template though. Apologies but i'm not involved in that community and I dont know how things work there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyTuneRein Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 I mean some of the existing forums seem to be copied from there (I'm not sure when or why since this was before my time), and it's probably a good idea to add features that the AVEN admins/BoD won't have. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 7, 2022 Author Share Posted May 7, 2022 19 hours ago, SkyTuneRein said: I mean some of the existing forums seem to be copied from there (I'm not sure when or why since this was before my time), and it's probably a good idea to add features that the AVEN admins/BoD won't have. thank you that makes sense now. I guess the original owner of the forum was probably a member of AVEN and took inspiration from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laxkid Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 I'd love a club for aroaces or oriented aroaces. Is there any place or forum like this already? Sometimes, I feel like I don't fully identify with the aro experience or the ace experience or even the aroace experience. I identify most closely with other oriented aroaces and would love a space to connect with those people. Thanks!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apex Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 I think an essay/writing forum could be a good substitute for blogs. Blogs on forums have always seemed a bit hidden for me, and not everyone would use theirs. I also second having an 18+ forum. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 10, 2022 Author Share Posted May 10, 2022 3 hours ago, Apex said: I think an essay/writing forum could be a good substitute for blogs. This is an idea I like, could you tell me how you think this would work. My thought would be a new forum with the title 'essays and writing' or similar where people can put down longer form ideas. But another option could be to set it up as a subforum of visibility articles and meetups. 18+ forum seems a popular idea as well. I am wondering how many of the people supporting adding clubs would also be happy with more forums that are hidden from non members of arocalypse (for example like how the Personal Ads forum works) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apex Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 1 hour ago, roboticanary said: This is an idea I like, could you tell me how you think this would work. My thought would be a new forum with the title 'essays and writing' or similar where people can put down longer form ideas. But another option could be to set it up as a subforum of visibility articles and meetups. This is pretty much what I had in mind- I think putting it under Visibility, Articles & Meetups is a good idea 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 12, 2022 Author Share Posted May 12, 2022 Right, quick update. I will look at setting up a calender over the weekend. This is the most popular and has none of the downsides I mentioned in my initial comment. I have put up the call for mods again, I am not going to touch clubs/adding an 18+ forum yet. I'm hoping for at least one extra mod before I do something which I suspect would add a lot to the workload (18+ content as a rule will need more careful moderation). I will also have a look at how the gallery would work. That might not be set up over the weekend but I will take a look at how it works. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted May 14, 2022 Author Share Posted May 14, 2022 Update We have a calender: Hope people find it useful 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted June 4, 2022 Author Share Posted June 4, 2022 Second small update: map is off the table as an option. TAAAP does a meetup map which is far more professional than I would be able to bodge into invision. Have a look at this thread if that is something that interests you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted September 10, 2022 Author Share Posted September 10, 2022 OK, slightly annoying news. invision seems to be making its cheapest licence which we use a lot more restrictive in terms of use of addional extras. nothing which the forum has so far needs to go, however it looks like clubs, downloads, gallery and blogs are all off the table as they would have to go after next march. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nix Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 3 hours ago, roboticanary said: OK, slightly annoying news. invision seems to be making its cheapest licence which we use a lot more restrictive in terms of use of addional extras. nothing which the forum has so far needs to go, however it looks like clubs, downloads, gallery and blogs are all off the table as they would have to go after next march. Well that is to bad, but if you don’t add it now we won’t know what we would be missing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyTuneRein Posted September 11, 2022 Share Posted September 11, 2022 RIP Invision. It was actually good in the older days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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