1 Simple Trick to Increase Forum Activity
 

An easy way to regain some of the forum traffic lost to Facebook (facebook groups, fb messages, etc.) is to allow users to mention other users in threads and posts. Mentioned forum user gets a notification and will visit the site to see the context his name was mentioned in.

Warn/ban anyone abusing the feature.

Implement, Measure, Profit. :pimp

Is there a VB plugin for that Mickey?

Cause that's what Eric and Theo want to know.

Damn that's got to be annoying when people start name dropping.

Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald Roald .
There,you should be notified about this post 11 times.

I have not been following recent developments of VBulletin and where they are taking it as a forum backend, so unsure, but if their latest version doesn't support it by default without any additional plugins, the devs of VBulletin should get on it stat. :winkwink:

IMO the whole forum user experience is way overdue for an overhaul.
I don't think the old adage of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" will hold up for long if the user experience gap between popular social networks and forums becomes too wide. Just have to find the sweet spot between being more up to date and remaining 'less annoying' than social networks.

Simple solution - one unique user tag per post.

It's a solid idea Mickey, and I'd go further with it. Allow each user in their control panel to enter keywords they want to be notified for in any thread. I'd like to know any time one my brands is mentioned or the specific sectors I work within, I'm sure others would want to hear about any post discussing their micro-niche etc...

A more up to date, built-in option similar to b.tracker. Absolutely, would be very useful. There's a long list of other features that could be improved. Friends list, messaging, etc.
A product manager's wet dream. :pimp

dunno about vb but lithium will send an email for a reply with an @username mention in it.

Anything the expedites the arduous process of figuring out "Has anyone said anything directed at me since I last checked?" on a forum is huge.

Reddit has orange envelopes. Imagine how painful it'd be without them.

@Username mentioning is definitely a killer feature that comes to mind for a forum.

vBulletin's state of the art is for users to subscribe to topics they care about so they can scan each one to see if anyone quoted or replied to them. Newer forums like Discourse (meta.discourse.org) specifically improve in this area.

Yup, I been using it on all my phpbb forums for years already. Anybody else awesome enough to be rockin with phpbb, check it out my niggas: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2139898

ahh forgetaboutit

So how would it know if it is user who was mentioned and not just random word (which is the same as some user name).
If you would have to specify/mark it for tagging that is extra work for people. Might be useful when they want to call out someone.

i like this

Nice GIF :thumbsup:thumbsup a thread saver in fact :pimp

Yes, in fact, there are a few of them.

However, the version of vB that GFY runs on is a few generations out of date. A number of the cool new forum mods will not work here. :2 cents:

That being said, DBTech offers a vB 3.8 version of "Advanced User Tagging" that will run on GFY's 3.8.7 software.

The OP is right. There are a number of great features that could bring people back and keep them more active. However, the more mods, the slower things can run plus there's the increased potential for exploits which GFY has been a target through in years past.

@ then start typing the username and it autocompletes it, just like it does now when you search for a username. Look at how Facebook does it. Simple, no friction, no extra effort.

interesting thoughts

The time is right. :Graucho

:thumbsup ...

1 simple trick.....that made me laugh :1orglaugh great ideas here, hope the powers that be are reading them

Is Mickey up to his old trick ? :Graucho

People like social media because they're free to control their own destiny. If some fuck head slams your company on Facebook, you just delete him and his piss ant post. Forums need an overhaul.

Hah nice :thumbsup

getting ready to launch a new forum.......:thumbsup

why not start using xenforo and stop messing with this dated vbulletin crap?

Fuck your idea, they're giving away free shirts instead.

A Smart Bomb that rid the forum of Dumbasses would be a simpler and more effective in making this place busier.

What fun would this place be without dumb asses to entertain you? What would we do if not fucking around? Maybe we could talk about the past and how we use to sit on gfy bullshitting and refreshing our stats all day long.

Hold onto that thought while my cloud hacked Justin Bieber scat selfies upload.