I think this would be great.
I love being able to see if a friend is on, and I also love seeing how many people are active.
Cheers,
Jayson
Who's Online and Online Indicator Discourse Plugin
Considering the current numbers, knowing how many people are active could be a bit off putting to new comers, I think a bit of mystery might help thereā¦
Jayson
#3
I wonāt disagree in length and accept the choice, but I want to note that this is a bad move for a social platform. Every site Iāve seen that has more features that offer the ability to keep track of members is helped by them.
With software like XenForo, for instance, you can not only tell this information, you can tell when they were last online, when they typically are online, write on their profile, choose to follow them (get alerts)ā¦basically you could practically stalk them if you wanted to, but instead it booms sub-groups and creates bubbles of friend following and allows for an attractive growth of new membership while easily preserving small community feeling regardless how massive the membership gets.
Again, I wonāt try to push against things; just something philosophically to think about (the idea of pro-obfuscation) if thereās an interest in membership growth in an era of online socialites.
Cheers,
Jayson
TvMcC
#4
I like the fact that we donāt have a āwhoās onlineā or active users thingy going!
But hey everyones entitled to their own opinion.
nose
#5
Thereās definitely something to be said about the current user base and keeping that a little obfuscated until things get booming again around here. Iām a bit in the middle.
Personally I really enjoy the discord side of things - which gives online/away status, and is a great way to communicate with direct messages in chat. I talk to quite a few IDMf dudes on there everyday, and have used it to work collabs with Metaside on. Itās a great utility.
That being said, once we have a user base to boast about again - showing statuses could be cool. I mean, the old forum had public user stats, yeah?
Jayson
#6
Considering how much chatting goes on in discord, does it make sense to think of a chat add-on down the road as a suggestion?
Not now, but in the time youāre speaking of down the road @nose . Iād hate to see a new member base come around and promptly go off network to communicate with the same community.
Maybe thatās just my way of thinking, though.
As to obfuscation preservationā¦maybe just an indicator on avatars of status with a user option to turn the feature off if they donāt want to broadcast their status?
Cheers,
Jayson
TvMcC
#7
Had stats, but many option to hide status.
As the coding evolved so did the forums. Canāt remember what the original source was but it was a bulletin boards style, and no stats of users. Then it switched to a phpBB I think? Then we started getting loads of features!
nose
#8
It seems like discourse is a really robust platform - honestly seeing a chat integration here would be nothing short of spectacular. Discord right now brought in a lot of people predominately due to the podcast voice-hosting capabilities, which could still be used.
The discord IS an official IDMf platform, but I agree, centralizing the community with a really decked out discourse build would be great.
I have absolutely no idea how to program or add in features thoughā¦ soā¦ Iām not sure how advanced it gets. Allowing users to show their status is of course welcome, for those that want to be invisible etc.
Jayson
#9
It looks like thereās a āchat roomā plugin, but Iām not seeing a plugin built (so far) that allows direct user to user, or a select user group chat instance.
The best of both worlds that Iāve seen is on (again) XenForo software (which, granted, is rather expensive) where itās a sort of pseudo-public message. You can basically interact with posting messages back and forth via the userās profile page.
Hereās an example where you can see me posting on my profile as if I was making a Facebook post, and then folks responding because theyāve chosen to follow me, so they get an alert that Iāve made a post.
This brings up a slightly related concept that, before witnessing people do it, had never occurred to meā¦when you center around user relationships one of the things a LOT of folks do is browse the forum first by looking at a view that shows them their Friendās posts since the last time they visited (as opposed to going to each friendās profile and scrolling through activity), and then they move on to surfing through the forum the more traditional way.
An interesting byproduct of this is that pockets of users interact with each otherās discussions more often because they are aware of each otherās content, and it builds a community within a community style of interaction where you virtually do kind of feel like youāre hanging around with your pals at a convention.
Itās an interesting concept, and Iāve seen it work really well (again, itās not even a feature I would have ever thought of adding before I saw it in use).
Cheers,
Jayson
Jayson
#10
Oh, also, @Auto-meh-geddon
I just confirmed with the plugin creator that the Online Status Plugin allows users to turn the indicator OFF in their user settings.
So users who would wish to remain anonymous in their status could do so, and those who wish to let others know when theyāre online can do so. Seems kind of a win/win, no? 
Cheers,
Jayson
xSANTAxDURSTx
#11
Apparently Iām the only weirdo who uses āinvisibleā mode on everything when itās not the default option
Jayson
#12
No, not weird, nor rare.
But itās equally not weird or rare that there are folks who do want to let others know and like to poke each other when they see each other online at the same time.
I think a plugin that allows users to opt-in/out of this ability seems reasonable. (at leastā¦to my mind)
Cheers,
Jayson