The future of communications

[Random Username]

Hello readers, I would like to briefly introduce myself just to put context to my viewpoint. I've been around these type things since the commodore 64 days. But I am an athlete and that consumed my life and to some extent I lost my fascination with the technology around high school. But my interest in language, communication and related issues has never waned. I did become further disenchanted with the state of affairs with the advent of mass warrantless surveillance. I say this because I believe privacy is essential to communication and without the option there can be no truly honest dialogue.

I believe the future of communications is about synthesis, not specialization. To be effective, any system of the future will have to do it all and do it well. It must be a CMS, a forum, a chat. But not specifically. These are examples which may be obsolete in five years for all we know. The point I am trying to make is that new developments are clearly on the horizon. From my view, the forum has a huge advantage in the race to be the next most essential communication tool exactly because of it's long history of innovation and adaptation. As an economist, as an athlete, as a coach, I can tell you the law is grow or die.

My viewpoints are in no way an attack on SMF. I am here because I believe in the project. I think it's the best vehicle in existence. These are just ideas I have been meaning to say, somewhere. I think the idea of simplicity, and elegance is brilliant. But it's a matter of degree. You could make the software simpler by removing the calendar and then x and y and z. I believe in features, tools to allow people to communicate freely. I generally am unimpressed with things like locking topics, merging topics, moving topics, and so on. The illusions of organization where none ought to exist, of course to a degree. But speech is messy. Try to contain it and it just spills out in unexpected and new ways, often worse than what was meant to be avoided in the first place. Or people speak less or go elsewhere with more freedom.

I've been working to integrate SMF with a range of mods that I hesitate to mention right away as I don't know the rules on such matters. I paid to build new features in them that I am sharing through the mod author with the community. I hope you all enjoy them and even more, I hope they might stir some new thinking. This topic was being discussed in another thread which from my view was unfortunately locked before I had a chance to discuss these ideas and ask for any philosophical statements or other relevant documents on the future of SMF. I will eagerly read them.

Personally, I believe the entire future of communications ultimately is about translation. The future is without language barriers. And with live translation between the world's languages, we must also have privacy built in, including anonymity.Encryption or something new and superior perhaps. Anyway, I know many or most will disagree with much, most, or all of what I say. Awesome!

[Arantor]

So what new feature are you *actually* asking for?

[Random Username]

Hey @Arantor , I am not asking for anything. Just throwing out some thoughts for discussion. But I paid to improve and integrate the SMF Packs gallery mod, ad management mod, shoutbox mod, the CMS, and custom stuff. So you can tell I believe in these additions. We're about to overhaul the notification system as well as part of adding private chat,

[Arantor]

Ask your buddy how well NitroBB turned out for him sometime.

Edit: but anyway, that doesn't answer my question. This board is "feature requests", what feature are you asking for?

[mickjav]

Hey @Arantor , I am not asking for anything. Just throwing out some thoughts for discussion. But I paid to improve and integrate the SMF Packs gallery mod, ad management mod, shoutbox mod, the CMS, and custom stuff. So you can tell I believe in these additions. We're about to overhaul the notification system as well as part of adding private chat,

Haven't seen any of your mod additions/Edits, Most modders will not include something they feel would not benefit the mod as a whole for the widest ordinance, I tend to post any edits I feel may be of interest to members with that mods support topic.

[live627]

Could you tell me your motivation for wanting to overhaul the notification system? Because it's a paid project, you may or may not want to share much publicly so you may send me a PM. I'm interested in the reasoning behind such a move.

[Arantor]

I was assuming it was about borrowing some of the live updating aspect from Nibogo's alerts mod that he has.

[Diego Andrés]

I gave him the idea and some code for adding a sound effect to the alerts mod, which is fun as long as it can be disabled.
@CristianOspina came up with it for the eNotify mod, good old times.

[Random Username]

This is where I was instructed to post since I didn't have permission to post in Next SMF Discussion. I am not requesting features because I simply built them. Most of the additions and improvements I paid to make are indeed included in shoutbox, gallery and ad management. Even the new permissions system in shoutbox I agreed to let be released. So look for that soon. As for notifications, the current system is way too slow for my purposes. I want them instant and they will be for new private chats, new shoutbox likes, new shoutbox mentions, new friend requests, and new friend acceptances. They will be the Ajax ones, a flashing favicon, a desktop notice, and a sound but all able to be disabled by the user. Additionally, the attachment maintenance system of SMF is not currently integrated with shoutbox so that's going to be done too so I can keep private chat storage from going insane.

[Random Username]

My suggestion would be to add a CMS, even if a simple and elegant one. An ad management system. Some other things. But I think the focus needs to be on translation. Start getting a jump in that realm. That's the key. Nothing else will increase global communication as much as ending the language barrier. Baby steps. First steps might be super hard. Don't know. Maybe I'll work on it after this project but it's obviously a far more difficult issue. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Do the hard and you win.

[Arantor]

My suggestion would be to add a CMS, even if a simple and elegant one.

The standing argument is that 'it should remain just a forum'. Even a simple pages add-on, comparable to that found in the portal mods, is not apparently encouraged.

An ad management system.

I'm honestly on the fence about the validity of this in core.

But I think the focus needs to be on translation. Start getting a jump in that realm.

How? SMF's core is already available in dozens of languages, and while it's possible to plug in Google Translate for content, the pricing plans required for this are not entirely pleasant to bear.

Also my experience of multi-language environments is that the language and customs are sufficiently different that they don't... entirely want to mix and doing so is habitually necessity rather than desire. E.g. here, the people that venture into the English boards that don't speak good/any English often ask the same question in their own language board, but are either not answered there, or the answer is 'try the English board', despite the English boards all encouraging people to visit their native language's board.

[Random Username]

Well, be assured that wordpress or someone else that's clever will build a CMS with a forum or vice verse. I am leveraging the power of the forum to make my chat more than a chat and using the chat to make the forum more than a forum. The gallery is something particularly useful for me and probably less so for many others. The ad management system offers capabilities I feel should be integrated but I haven't even started testing the one I have. The improvements made to it were simply made because I paid to have it installed without errors.  I have not been letting little issues accumulate. I have some ideas on translation already since I posted. I will discuss it with him soon and see what we can do. Then I will be more prepared to discuss what steps may be taken.

[Arantor]

wpForo and BuddyPress already exist and are not bundled with WordPress by default. See also the various bridges that exist for other forum platforms to WordPress. You're preaching to the choir in my case, or to those who aren't interested otherwise.

As for a gallery, I offered a fully built gallery to the SMF team years ago (to be a first party plugin if not core), and there wasn't much interest.

[DeadMan...]

Well, be assured that wordpress or someone else that's clever will build a CMS with a forum or vice verse.

Then by all means switch to it.
If SMF is not to your liking, there's no one forcing you to use it.
Yes, ideas are nice to bring up. But, keeping with this "Well others are doing this..." is not really going to get you anywhere.

The people here are volunteers, and do this without anything but the enjoyment of doing so. They are doing as they are, because this is how the majority wants it. If people wanted a CMS, they'd use one, or do like many others do, use a forum with a portal mod, which in my opinion, is a lot better and easier to deal with, than most CMS's.

[Steve]

The people here are volunteers

The OP has already acknowledged in another topic that he realizes we're all volunteers and everything that entails.

And this is just a discussion, not an argument about what should or shouldn't be done. 

[Arantor]

But, keeping with this "Well others are doing this..." is not really going to get you anywhere.

It is, however, highly enlightening to look outside of the ivory tower and go 'huh, what are they all doing', especially in a time where forum use is declining and/or evolving, and understanding what people want from their tools is highly important. At least, it is if you want the tool to survive and thrive.

[Random Username]

Competition is not limited to wordpress, etc. It's an example. Eventually, someone will do the forum and a CMS better than can be done separately. It's inevitable. Integrating the two has already done so for me and I've barely started with the CMS. I don't need to go elsewhere. I simply paid to get what I want, using the strengths of this platform as a strong starting point. This is merely for discussion purposes. I do what I need to do regardless.

[Random Username]

After some research, I'm moving forward with translation. It's just a cost of doing business. It certainly limits the application but I see plenty of room for progression.

[Kindred]

As for a gallery, I offered a fully built gallery to the SMF team years ago (to be a first party plugin if not core), and there wasn't much interest.

I love your gallery. I use your gallery.
I didn't know that you offered it as a core mod....   because I would have supported that, 1000%
 

[Arantor]

Yeah, I offered to give it to the team, even to do the work in rebranding it and fixing the license (since it's not BSD compatible), the verdict I was told - this was years ago - that it was too difficult to support. That was the verdict from the PM at the time, if I recall correctly.

I also made it clear I was also cool with letting SimpleDesk be rebranded to an official SM product but I guess that also didn't happen.