A few Discourse suggestions

[millenium200]

Continuing the discussion from 2 Suggestions: Change smiley faces, and post order:

@ColonelHedgehog

Hello again,

1. I don’t really think the smiley faces we have currently should stay. I mean, look at them! They’re a little creepy, in my opinion. We want something a little less subtle, don’t we?

2. I’m not sure about you, but I think that traditionally the new posts are supposed to appear first. It’s a bit of a pain to scroll through all the posts to find out who replied.

These are just my personal ideas.

The forums look awesome so far, but I thought I’d share some ideas of my own for the forums.

1. On the main page of the site http://spongepowered.org/ the box for “Learn more” should link to Frequently Asked Questions — Sponge 8.0.0 documentation as that page looks more professional than a google document and is on the website itself.

2. I think we should add a plugin that lets members add each other as friends and/or follow each other, I think this was suggested by another user someplace in Discourse.

3. Changing Smiley faces as mentioned by @ColonelHedgehog would be nice as well, the =p ( ) smiley is a big much.

4. We should also look into adding support for linking minecraft accounts to Discourse accounts, it’s not necessary, but it was nice to have on Bukkit forums.

5. Signatures. Though the main point of the forums is for strong communication, I think it would still be nice to have an option to have a one / two line signature that appears on the first you make on each topic. That way, you can list a project / plugin you’re working on and show Skype / contact details for people to contact at.

6. Profiles As mentioned by @mickare , we could use the large great space in profiles for a profile header. We could also keep friends / follows and wall posts (with comments) on profiles too to improve community interactions.

That’s all of my ideas for now, I’ll add more if I think of any other ideas. Keep up the great work @sk89q and everyone!

[lukegb]

@millenium200

We should also look into adding support for linking minecraft accounts to Discourse accounts, it’s not necessary, but it was nice to have on Bukkit forums.

I’m considering adding that using the same system as is currently on use on the Bukkit forums.

@millenium200

Signatures. Though the main point of the forums is for strong communication, I think it would still be nice to have an option to have a one / two line signature that appears on the first you make on each topic. That way, you can list a project / plugin you’re working on and show Skype / contact details for people to contact at.

The about me section is ideal for this, and shows up on your user card which is just one click away and doesn’t obstruct the “flow” of the posts.

[mickare]

At the moment if you visit a profile you see a huge gray area.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to personalize the profile with a custom background image?
(Like the profile header from Facebook.)

@lukegb

[millenium200]

Yeah, good idea. I just edited the original post talking about possible profile changes - banner like you mentioned, wall posts, and lists of followers.

[Jackah]

I agree with moving the information from Google Docs to the website itself, much more professional.

[riking]

That’s currently disabled so that there aren’t quite as many huge images to haul around if/when we need to move the forums.