New "Metaforum," with "whispers"

Freedman

This new AJAX-filled forum just came out (http://www.blursoft.com/metaForum/index.php). One interesting thing I noticed:

"Private Messages Suck. How About Private Threads?
Whoever decided that private messaging systems on forums should resemble a hacked-together 10 year old barely functional email system just didn't get it. Forums are about having conversations, why in the world wouldn't private messages work the same way the threads do? metaforum comes equipped with Private Threads instead. They work just like normal threads except only you and the recipient can view and post in them. And the best part? Multiple recipients, as many as you want. It's like 3-way for PM's."

Remind anyone of some other forum software?

c-unit

That guy definately likes AJAX way too much.

Mark

Well, they say that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

lech

While the style of the forum there doesn't exactly bother nor invite me, the ajax features applied to it do. I found that the "live thread" feature displayed in the demo was probably among the most useful looking enhancements on the whole and wouldn't mind something like that for vanilla. Overall though, I can't say all the features there could be seen as useful, but not entirely useless.

ADM

Personally I wouldn't like any of that stuff to make it's way in. I don't if anyone else does this but when I visit forums I usually open a tab of a category open and I read through the threads one by one. I wouldn't want that window automatically updating with new content as it would throw me off one what I've read and what I haven't (regardless of the read counters as sometimes I want to re-read threads I've already read because I might of only quickly glanced at them).

So yeah this ajax auto update stuff doesn't work well with me.

takai

You can see the actual forum in action here: http://www.planetblur.org/beta/ I think they have some good ideas going for them. I love being able to filter out categories on the channels page. The user-moderation abilities and post threshold also seem to be on the right track (although they're executed poorly). I agree with ADM, I wouldn't want the forum to be auto updating while I'm reading it. A simple "refresh topics" button does the trick nicely. Some of the other features are cool, but still don't do it for me. The mouseover thread preview would get extremely annoying. I know Metaforum has been around for a while, but I still can't help get the feeling they've been inspired by Vanilla. Overall it seems gimmiky, geeky, and the default theme feels like a blast from the past. Besides, you can only get a remotely hosted forum...

Minisweeper

I'd rather use that than something like phpBB and it's come a long way since it last looked but it still has a small way to come. If all that stuff could be enabled or disabled as a user preference (can it? i dont know) it'd be cool.

rgbman

I found this forum software yesterday. It does seem to use alot of ajax in areas where I dont think it is really nessasary. Such as a thread with the newest post animates to the top. But then again it is the eye candy that some forum would benefit because many of their users will see this as enjoyable. I also was thinking of the comman user moderation and could see this again benefiting some forums, those which have great respectful users. It would allow true spam and users who sign up just to beat up on someone on the board to be filtered out quick. But again on some of the forums I visit and have worked with, this would cause the forum to be worthless due to the many "hotheads" which would mark posts really low just to get back at someone who did it to them. It seems it is still in beta and it is always interesting to see how a software matures. I say you can learn alot from a good software but sometimes more from the opposite.

giginger

Can you imagine that live thread feature on a busy forum?

:: shudders ::

lech

It wouldn't be total mayhem, but yes, it could lock up a few browsers I'd imagine with say, half of the page shifting around into order on a regular basis. But I guess that's what the threshold is there for to balance what you do and don't see, I just think on the whole though it could use a little bit more refinement with a nicer overall look to it.

Krak

That popup shit drives me crazy. And its ugly. It looks like punBB and Vanilla smashed together. Ack.

jaredb

wayy too much ajax IMO... its overkill. plus it does not render right in camino.