SECTUAL

(12-24-2018, 11:19 PM)Trix Wrote: [ -> ]This is my attempt at expressing my 'perfect and ideal' community style website after a long day of cooking, cleaning, and talking at volume 11 with lots of family LMFAO.

Well, you're accomplishing more than you realize just by reminding me of things I'd forgotten all about.

Like when everybody had a shoutbox on their website!

It's interesting how many people have been thinking about creating something like this for so long...

I remember having basically this exact same convo with someone in like 2006.

It just goes to show that the basic things we're looking for out of an experience on this platform don't really change.

It's all very foundational.

It'll be even cooler on today's wide monitors than it was when monitors were squarish. Not to mention the collapsible navigation and other tricks for saving screen real estate that nobody had thought of back then.

(12-24-2018, 11:39 PM)Trix Wrote: [ -> ]It just goes to show that the basic things we're looking for out of an experience on this platform don't really change.

It's all very foundational.

Right? The first platforms on the Web - chat and bulletin boards - were practically the same thing they were using on old school BBSes from the 70s to the 90s. All of the newer formats like blogs and walls are just variations on those original themes.

It'll never go out of style...

It's a communications system.

How the fuck could that ever go out of style or be replaced with something "better"?

LOL...

It can't.

Listen...

I'll believe in forums til the end of my days.

You can have a forum in real life.

It's a discussion forum.

Or a think-tank.

This is just an online version of that concept.

It's so basic, it can never be replaced.

The only thing that could replace it would be straight up telepathy or something.

Not everything needs to be "innovated"...

TBH, my 'ideal and perfect' version of the internet would be a place where everybody had their own website...

EVERYBODY.

And everyone would have their own forum... it wouldn't have to be front and center necessarily. But they'd have one.

EVERYBODY.

It would mitigate a lot of the butthurt people encounter when they get banned off other peoples' forums.

Or sites in general.

You guys don't wanna play with me?

Fricken fine, I'll go play with myself in my OWN home.

There's always gonna be a certain percentage of lazy fucks who would rather piss and moan about how someone else runs their forum than build their own.

"Concern trolls," we call them. They pretend to be concerned about the way things are going just to stir shit.

Let's talk about member profiles.

http://www.sectual.com/thread-10570-post...l#pid78879

(12-20-2018, 11:08 AM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]Notice no e-mail address or other PI is stored here. When users register, they must provide a question and answer to be used to regain access to their account if they forget their password.

Although this project has expanded from the original webring concept into a full blown community platform, I'm still not feeling a real need to require an e-mail address for registration. Trolls and other abusers can simply get a disposable GMail account if they don't want to use their real one, so having their e-mail address doesn't make them accountable.

Likewise, IP bans can be circumvented by switching proxies. An IP banned troll can be back online within a couple of minutes. I know a number of simple, effective tricks to slow spam and topic flooding to a crawl. They're super easy to use from the user's perspective, and none of them require the usual image based captchas.

To my way of thinking, privacy is paramount. I've always used a screen name, blind e-mail address, and other false info on websites whenever my real identity wasn't relevant to my use of the site. However, I understand that some sysops may be more comfortable having a way to finger an ill-behaved users, so I'm opening that up to debate.

Re: Links to other online channels

In the old days, forum profiles had a place to add your AIM, ICQ, YIM, IRC, etc. chat handles. Nowadays, it's more common to add your Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Most of those old chat programs are defunct now, so I'm not gonna waste time considering them.

I really hate the major social networks and don't want to drive any traffic to their sites. If I were a sysop, I'd probably block all traffic referred to my site from those websites too. But the latter would be an .htaccess option rather than a software feature.

I'm not particularly keen on having users plug their "alternative" channels like Minds and Gab either. Just because those sites aren't evil today doesn't mean they can't be sold and exploited for evil at some point. I'm really conceiving this as more of a standalone grass roots platform that more or less exists in a head space separate from huge corporate sites. Again, I'm throwing it out there for debate.

Right now, I'm thinking the following voluntary fields will suffice: title, avatar, signature, birthdate, sex, hometown, website, biography. But once more, sysops may have different requirements.

I absolutely do not prefer to have ANY of those fields.

The ICQ, AIM, Skype, whatever... it's all outdated nonsense.

We want to move away from the whole 'social media ghetto' paradigm entirely.

The way I see it, the sites that will use this community software are probably going to be niche communities...

Probably will be founded around specific topics.

That's why I'm supportive of the idea of even making the software...

Coming from the "everyone should have their own website" camp, I see it as a way to take the power away from social media and disperse it among the users again.

Instead of having a Facebook page about goldfish, you'll have an entire community website about goldfish.

And there will be no need to provide linking out to other 'social' sites because frankly, we want to get the hell away from the 'all tied together' paradigm. If I want to use the goldfish community as Goldie Goldfisherton, I'm not gonna be linking to my Facebook, and I'm not gonna be keen on having everyone from the goldfish community follow me over to the BDSM community because I linked my stupid Pinterest on there or something.

We have to carefully select the fields that are available to users because we're trying to reshape the way people THINK ABOUT the use of the internet and their own identities.

One of the most unbelievable things about Facebook to me was that they convinced everyone to use their REAL NAMES. Fucking unbelievable. Inconceivable. Before that, NO ONE DID IT. Unless they were famous or something. Everyone's profile names were made up shit...

And they still should be. I don't support a platform that does it any other way. People should stop being encouraged to use real details, and link all their BS together.

(12-25-2018, 11:00 PM)Trix Wrote: [ -> ]I absolutely do not prefer to have ANY of those fields.

So... no avatars, titles, or signatures in the forums?

No I mean the stupid profile options like ICQ name.

I enjoy avatars. I think signatures and titles are pointless though.

See, there have to be things that set this community software apart...

In a way, it's minimalist.

Titles and signatures are important on forums...

But the community software, though it has a forum as a central feature, it's more than that.

There's a lot of focus on user profiles.

Looks like we're mostly in agreement on the chat and social media links.

How about the more traditional fields (other than titles and signatures)?

(12-25-2018, 10:45 PM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]Right now, I'm thinking the following voluntary fields will suffice: title, avatar, signature, birthdate, sex, hometown, website, biography.

No: Birthday, sex, hometown.

Yes: Biography (About Me).

As far as the "Website" field, I'd say no to it, except in a paradigm where everyone is encouraged to have their own site, it wouldn't be fair if that field wasn't an option.

(12-25-2018, 11:15 PM)Trix Wrote: [ -> ]... in a paradigm where everyone is encouraged to have their own site, it wouldn't be fair if that field wasn't an option.

Agree. We would definitely want to help personal web pages gain exposure.

I'll have some more features to dsicuss later.