iloveipb Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 probably this has already been requested, but, here it goes, one more time... :) We have 'Topic Title', 'Topic Description'... i think it's time to do a 'Topic prefix' I'm preparing to switch from VB to IPB and this is one of those feature that i'm really going to miss... so much that i'm still a little bit hesitant to switch. My customers use it A LOT and they probably will hate it that it's not there anymore.... if there's a mod, that would be great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Rixon Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Can already do that in ACP I think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booth Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Yeah prefixes were handy in VB, especially as you could make the compulsory, and different on a per-forum basis. For example in selling forums this worked very well. You could make the poster have to pick a prefix... "For Sale" "Swap" "Wanted" "Freebie" It was only then that topics were labelled clearly on our forums. :whistle: I'm sure this would be useful on other types of forums too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iloveipb Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 Can already do that in ACP I think i've checked... i don't see it... maybe i'm missed it... Yeah prefixes were handy in VB, especially as you could make the compulsory, and different on a per-forum basis. For example in selling forums this worked very well. You could make the poster have to pick a prefix... "For Sale" "Swap" "Wanted" "Freebie" It was only then that topics were labelled clearly on our forums. :whistle: I'm sure this would be useful on other types of forums too. great example. i've found a mod but it only works for version 2.3... :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr. Jekyll Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 i've checked... i don't see it... maybe i'm missed it... Because is not on IPB. I do agree with you, a prefix/tag system would be quite useful to IPB as well. It give order to discussions and, probably, we could avoid to have some sub forums. The prefix on vBulletin is quite basic. I am sure that IPB could do better if the prefix/TAG could be also clickable and used as search criteria. In your example, I could click on "on sale" and have the complete list of all the itam "on sale". A clickable the prefix/TAG could be good also for SEO, especially if the prefix/tag will also appear as a tag cloud. I don't know if a prefix/Tag system is in the IPB future plans. Sure has been discussed here before, and normally Matt take notes of everything we suggest here so I will not surprise in one day, opening IPS blog we could read something about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efecto Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/303566-topic-prefix-and-tagging-keywords/ I and other memebers have been requesting this here but haven't heard any good word from IP staff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noles Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 I agree, I suggested this as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr. Jekyll Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 but haven't heard any good word from IP staff. I guess it is because they are discussing about it and they haven't decide anything jet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Charles Posted March 31, 2010 Management Share Posted March 31, 2010 We may add it in the future but we want to do it in a good way. Just adding a topic prefix is easy but we would want it to be ... useful. As in do more than just add a bit of text in front of a topic title :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Yes, and going beyond that, I personally feel there is a lot of overlap in tagging and topic prefixes. Wouldn't a topic prefix really just be a special "tag" on the topic? Couldn't we integrate the two so there aren't two separate systems running concurrently? Maybe you apply tags to the topic, then select one to show in the forum listing as a "prefix" (or some other term that would make more sense to more people, most likely)? There's a lot to consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Moiraine Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 I personally would really like topic prefixes. Can there be overlap between prefixes and tags? Yes, but there is also overlap between blog categories and tags and each have their uses. A prefix can be a general heads up of the thread's purpose: for sale, for trade, etc; while the tags can be more specific: 18mm glass eyes, super slinky bra, neon ceiling fan, whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iloveipb Posted April 1, 2010 Author Share Posted April 1, 2010 Definitely and in my opinion, tags and prefixes serve two different purpose and should be treated differently. Although, Brandon as a very good point. I, personally don't care about tags but i could understand that for others tags are more important then a prefix. From what I've read in the forums, a lot of people are requesting this feature... to be continued :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanax Posted April 1, 2010 Share Posted April 1, 2010 Yes, and going beyond that, I personally feel there is a lot of overlap in tagging and topic prefixes. Wouldn't a topic prefix really just be a special "tag" on the topic? Couldn't we integrate the two so there aren't two separate systems running concurrently? Maybe you apply tags to the topic, then select one to show in the forum listing as a "prefix" (or some other term that would make more sense to more people, most likely)? There's a lot to consider. I like the way you think, however there is one problem to that. Prefixes, as described, would allow the admin to define(per forum) prefixes available whereas tags can be added however the user wants. What stops the user from entering a tag that doesn't make any sense and then apply that as a prefix? How about(spinning off of your idea) letting users choose from a fixes set of tags to have as prefix? Admins can define a certain amount of tags that are allowed as topic prefix, as an example say "Sale", "Buy" and "Trade". If the user, when choosing topic prefix doesn't have the tag "Sale"(or "sale" lowercase) when he/she is trying to add it as a prefix, it will get added as a tag and then that tag will be used as a prefix. If the tag already is present, then that will be used as a prefix since it's the same as the allowed prefix. Further more, admins should be able to, per forum, set if prefix is required or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted April 1, 2010 Share Posted April 1, 2010 I've talked to many who feel that tags are only useful when the admin explicitly defines them, and users select from a pre-defined list of tags. Obviously this isn't what everyone wants (I'm not saying that's how a tag system would work if we implement it), however it could be an option, and in doing so, could possibly serve what you are talking about Tanax. Have a list of pre-defined tags (and possibly allow users to enter other tags), and choose from one of the pre-defined tags which is the prefix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noles Posted April 2, 2010 Share Posted April 2, 2010 I've talked to many who feel that tags are only useful when the admin explicitly defines them, and users select from a pre-defined list of tags. Obviously this isn't what everyone wants (I'm not saying that's how a tag system would work if we implement it), however it could be an option, and in doing so, could possibly serve what you are talking about Tanax. Have a list of pre-defined tags (and possibly allow users to enter other tags), and choose from one of the pre-defined tags which is the prefix. That would be absolutely perfect to have both like that. For me I'd just need predefined tags, but I can see it being used where users can just add their own prefix in just to make it more specific if they wanted to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invisiοnist Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 I've talked to many who feel that tags are only useful when the admin explicitly defines them, and users select from a pre-defined list of tags. Obviously this isn't what everyone wants (I'm not saying that's how a tag system would work if we implement it), however it could be an option, and in doing so, could possibly serve what you are talking about Tanax. Have a list of pre-defined tags (and possibly allow users to enter other tags), and choose from one of the pre-defined tags which is the prefix. This is so true sadly. I mean, on my forum I know a few immature users that really like to abuse the tag system. Especially on vB since the option was turn it on or not have it at all. (Unless you got a mod to change it) so I left it on for a while and some users starting abusing it with dirty and/or suggestive words. Along with offensive things. Sometimes even making a whole sentence a tag -.- So yeah.. some immature people can't seem to understand the concept of tags.. <_< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abomination Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 We may add it in the future but we want to do it in a good way. Just adding a topic prefix is easy but we would want it to be ... useful. As in do more than just add a bit of text in front of a topic title :) Yes, and going beyond that, I personally feel there is a lot of overlap in tagging and topic prefixes. Wouldn't a topic prefix really just be a special "tag" on the topic? Couldn't we integrate the two so there aren't two separate systems running concurrently? Maybe you apply tags to the topic, then select one to show in the forum listing as a "prefix" (or some other term that would make more sense to more people, most likely)? There's a lot to consider. This company seems to take feedback seriously, so... Speaking as a vb user, *personally* I find the prefixes ugly at best, that could possibly fixed with better aesthetics. The functionality is fantastic though, usually for a very few options such as 'for sale', 'wanting to buy', 'wanting to trade' (FS, WTB, WTT). Of course if there is any geographical considerations where people need to list their locations that presents an entirely new problem. We have Tags enabled for a few select people to manually tag topics from a predefined list. Because there are so many topics/day there is no way the users that are allowed to tag topics to even read them, let alone taking the time to manually tag them, so most topics are not tagged. Which I suppose could be good, if we had the time to manually go through the topics and tag the 'very best' topics, so when people do a tag search they would find good information and add to the better topics. I think we can all agree some topics are better than others. The problem is what a topic is 'about' can change over time. "Here is a picture of my pet anteater" could in fact evolve into some fairly in depth discussion regarding zoological husbandry. One option is for the moderators to do their best to keep topics, well... on topic. But if everyone is being polite, informative, and are helping each other I really *hate* doing those types of things. Another solution is to take a look at the tags on a topic and periodically update them, but that just does not happen. So here is an idea, please don't laugh (too hard). [*]Topic starts (Here is a picture of my pet anteater). [*]The software scans the words in the first post/reply and compares to a predefined list and adds tags (or whatever they will be called) such as picture or anteater. [*]Periodically there is a task/cron job that rescans the topics that have been replied to for new words on that predefined list (such as 'care', 'husbandry', 'leash'). There would probably need to be either 2 lists or an importance value assigned to the key words so if 'anteater' was top priority then any mention of it in the topics would have the 'anteater' tag, while it might take 5 'cares' to get that added. It may be possible the number of words in a topic might need to be taken into consideration as well, or just the top 5 tags that seem to make sense for that topic based on instances in the topic. I'm sure that sounds like a daft idea, but the key thing to keep in mind is that the algorithm does *not* need to be perfect at all, almost anything would be better than nothing. Of course it would be nice if the staff could disable that on certain less useful topics so they are less likely to be replied to in the future. That seems like one way to handle it. Does anyone have opinions on this idea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixieTang Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 I've talked to many who feel that tags are only useful when the admin explicitly defines them, and users select from a pre-defined list of tags. Obviously this isn't what everyone wants (I'm not saying that's how a tag system would work if we implement it), however it could be an option, and in doing so, could possibly serve what you are talking about Tanax. Have a list of pre-defined tags (and possibly allow users to enter other tags), and choose from one of the pre-defined tags which is the prefix. I like the fact that you're actually putting a lot of thought into this rather than just going and tacking it on like that other forum software did. Personally I need it so tags can be created by all registered users, and added/removed from threads by all registered users, and I don't think that I'll really have a need for prefixes. I really think that the tagging system needs to be able to handle pretty much every forum admin's needs for their site, if you want predefined tags then you can do that, if you want everyone to be able to create and use tags you can do that too. One thing I think would be really useful for people who allow everyone to add/change tags though would be logging tag changes and having Recent Changes type page for tags like the Recent Changes pages in a wiki so you can easily find and ban tag vandals before they cause too much damage. Also an easy way to revert tag edits. As for prefixes (even though I don't really have any plans to use them), I've always thought that prefixes work best if they're admin defined per forum and can be filtered, if you only want to see threads with a "Selling" prefix then you can filter it so only those threads show. I'm not too sure how much I like the idea of combining prefixes with a tagging system though, I think they both have slightly different purposes and I'm not sure whether it would be a good thing to combine them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breaking Legs Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 Id also like a prefix. Would be very useful. A prefix something along the lines of this mod here would be great. Think this modder captured exactly how I would like a prefix in IPB software. Hope to see it implemented in 3.1.2 or so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCWT Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Yes, topic prefixes will be useful for one of my forums. I've seen other non-vb forums with that feature too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Hope to see it implemented in 3.1.2 or so This sort of functionality wouldn't be shoehorned into a point release. It would have to wait for 3.2 or another large release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhana Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 I also vote for prefixes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breaking Legs Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 This sort of functionality wouldn't be shoehorned into a point release. It would have to wait for 3.2 or another large release. Thanks for the reply :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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