Molson beer is meh
Joined: Jan. 2017
Posts: 3,815
Likes: 1,734
Hey all, I got a few suggestions on how to possibly improve the quality of the forums here
Followers:
I like the idea of being able to "follow" some of the users. Some posters I have good discussions with, or find they have interesting ideas, and this option could make it easier to build better communities among users and fanbases.
One thing about ACGM or other threads, because so many get created nowadays, threads from certain users I would be interested in viewing disappear rather quickly. So if you're not around to see in the first few hours or so, it's pretty much too late.
A way to introduce it would be if you "follow" someone, you get a notification if they create a new thread (ACGM, Trade proposal, etc). Following someone would not notify you for every single comment they make. That would be weird (stalker alert!!), and really blow someones notifications off if they follow too many folks.
This is technically something we can already do. Just find the user page and click on their created threads, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do it, and going through a bunch of user pages of people you like to see if someone posted something interesting isn't appealing at all and really tedious. Letting us follow users and get notified to their created threads would simplify things a lot!
Also, adding the number of users that follow you under your user tag could be a pretty cool feature, which goes to my next suggestion.
Removing total Likes from user tags:
I think this is something Capfriendly should implement as soon as possible. I see a lot of posters just trying to get a bunch of likes to increase their total number, and it takes away from the actual discussion, as these users are more interested in getting likes than actually having a discussion. It's a buzz kill.
I not saying to remove likes, but only to remove the total users have from their user tags. I think a major contributor to some of the toxic posters on here is "hunting" for likes. People that are "only in it for the likes", and will post whatever gets them likes... even if it "feeds the trolls".
Removing total likes from user tags won't fully eliminate the issue (toxic posting is a universal problem across all social media platforms), but it would help.
I'm assuming that showing the total Likes people have is to keep users engaged, which is a good strategy, but as mentioned above, it takes away from the actual discussions. My idea would be to replace the Total likes with the amount of people following you. The only way to get to people to follow you is to actually have meaningful discussions, so if folks want to "hunt for follows", they actually have to work for it. Not just comment "Leafs suk" to get 3 trolls to like it....
Titles/Flair add on:
I like this feature, it adds a personal touch to all user tags, along with the profile picture. I'd like to expand on this idea on continuing to personalize your profile. Keep the Flair under usernames that users can write what they want but add Titles below the profile picture.
A feature that is found on other forum sites are titles that can only be added to your profile if you meet a certain requirement. Kind of like achievements. A standard idea is giving titles to user based on how long they've had an account for, or how many times they've posted.
An example that could apply here would be giving the title of "Rookie" to new users. After 1 year of creating an account, they unlock the option of "Sophomore", and you can keep adding these every year like, "Veteran", "All-star", "Hall of Famer", "Legend", etc.
Making these title a different colors or fonts too to distinguish it from the rest of your profile could be neat. like making "Rookies" pink lol
The option to add more titles could be really fun too. Something like "Grinder" for someone who posts over 100 ACGMs, or "Fanatic" for someone whose made over a 1000 trades or whatever.
An example, with my profile, of the layout could be
User name (BlazingBat11)
Flair (Molson beer is meh)
Profile pic
Veteran (in Orange)
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 3000
Followers: 1
Let me know what you all think!