I am an IP.noob (I am getting immense mileage out of that one) fresh from vBS. My site is a mid sized (1m post) site. I have just spent the last few hours with my mod team and we have come up with this list. Some are duplicates (yes, I read all 18 freaking pages), but all important to how my mods are used to working.
- Soft delete. This is mega important to our site as it allows us to comment and undelete if needed. Also allows users to delete without us going "wha?". This isn't just for threads, but posts as well.
- Reputation comments. This is missed right now. People LOVE to get thanked and know who did it. Maybe even an option to make it public so the + rep and comment could show in an activity stream and/or profile. That would be win.
- Ajax quick reply. With how jaxed up IPB is, would have thought this would be a given. Saves a lot of bandwidth and time + IMO it creates a more user fluid environment. On that note, I do like how vB4's quick reply would pop up under the post you were replying to. That was a nice improvement in usability.
- Delete as spam - this is a much missed option that allowed us to delete a thread inline, ban the spammer and delete all their other threads all in 1 go.
- A 'whats new' portal page that will give you a snapshot in configurable blocks of whats new before focusing on specific areas of the site. I am kind of assuming this can be done with IP.Content, but haven't gotten a chance to try yet. This could also serve as a member home page. Maybe not configurable per user, but configurable via admin - that would be very hot.
- A contact page? I sort of assumed there would be a contact us page. Didn't realise until reading this thread there wasn't
- Easier way to view watched content
- Easy way to manage a 'global' sidebar.
- Swap between editors via ajax
- Inline edit via ajax
- When using the RTE editor, be able to select a block of text and use the list button to turn it into a list.
- Another user mentioned a vB mod called 'Live topic'. That was very swish and popular. The idea made the forums (and other areas governed by comments) very interactive.
I saw a few other suggestions that I have had experience with so I thought I would share. Clearly this is only my opinion and what didn't work for me could work for 99.9% of other people. I just thought I would share my experience through running a fair sized board as well as working on a lot of other vB sites. Take it with a pinch salt.
- Social Groups. We tried social groups and it just didn't work. At least don't use vB as an example as I honestly do not know of 1 vB site where social groups are a success. With some more thought I am sure they could have been made more prevalent in the community.
- I have 6 moderators on my site. I don't think any of them have ever used the ModCP.
- I don't know of many vB sites where tags have really worked well. Its one of those things that everyone wants, but no one really seems to use. In order for tags to be effective, they need to be used consistently. Forum users are not consistent with tag entry. There are mods on vB that helped with this, but then you end up with a lot of superfluous tags too.
Anyhooo - Hope this helps. I may be back with more as we play more :D
