Hey guys.
I'm coming to you to ask for help.
We need you to build a new module that can combine media and posts under the same app. And then add custom fields for that module to store interactive data.
Right now in PHPFox, you only have top level interactive engagement when writing content pieces, (even in groups and pages) for every app.
This means that when you make a new post, all you're asked to do is write a post title, post body (using a single wyciwyg editor instance) and some tags. The rest is filler for who can view that particular post (privacy options, url) etc.
This may seem simple in theory, but it limits the ways members can talk. There's no ice breaker question. No follow up engagement based on community interests. No prompts to optionally find something of interest when you first join. So people end up treating it as a forum, where only specific subjects are discussed when there's a need to address them. Then everything else remains dormant, abandoned. Until after awhile, the original topic poster, due to lack of engagement with the community, doesn't come back at all. Leaving more members to fill the gap they left behind even as an active member.
This results in quite literally every core module our community uses, acts at most, like a forum. Something to pass practically (true) and (false) as well as other (interesting) specifically (one word off site conclusion) statements back and fourth. Sometimes containing many pages of replies to come to an agreement. Forums are absolutely critical for diplomacy, product engagement and learning or quickly understanding how something works. but beyond that, they fall short of much else as they become less social over time. Essentially, we can make and do better when converting human interactions to relative engagement as we would in person online.
Yes, they're popular. And, this particular module is something I've excelled at posting over the last several years. Yet blogs is another fancy name for the functionality of a forum. which is, essentially, to get your voice heard. The only good thing about blogs, is that instead of predefined categories, you get to choose your own and embed whatever media you want. However, blogs are wild discussions within one network blog. They're not very well structured, and even with tags, they only end up being text posts at the end of the day. What you can get accomplished in a blog, a forum category can multiply several times over. Yet what you can't post in a forum topic, a blog will let you not only display it, but make it look great. However they are both two sides of the same coin, one with a top level interaction and secondary level response scheme we've seen populate the internet for decades. And, other platforms, apart from news publications, have taken notice and are building away from this design as times goes on.
So what about the next forum instances of PHPFox apps? All media modules, (photos, music, videos and file attachments) do exactly the same thing. Besides Providing an auto loading player, making you scroll and look at content posted in a different format, but in the comments area, remains a text only forum. There's no ability to reply to a video with another video and tag both as related. No ability to do the same thing with photos, or music. Facebook doesn't even have this feature, yet YouTube did during its very first few years online which is the reason why it became popular.
In the custom posts module I am suggesting, there also needs to be a way to include how one post example titled (16 Ways To Decrease Heart Rate) can relate (Best Tips When Running)to another without using linked tags or words. Something that represents more than just a link, by extending the relationship between the posts themselves in a sense.
Another example is with groups. Yes they can and should be able to interlink and send notifications to multiple authors because of it. If Jason (the leader of Fitness And Wellness) posted a discussion (14 Ways To Loosen Tight Muscles) in the group he manages, then James (a member of Plant Care) should get a notification about replies to the text (plants that improve muscle growth) in Jason's discussion because Jack (leader of James's group Plant Care) set up the ability for plants (Object Interactive Level X) to relate to plants contained within a sentence (Object Interactive Level Y) dynamically using a post custom field sequence available as a possible customized posts module instance. therefore, Jason and James would get to know each other because they posted discussions in different groups. Jack would be able to see post engagements between Jason and James as a successful relationship brought together because Jack started a group Jason joined, and would be able to use that data to reach out in kind. Which is an automated way of having something in common, with matching interests, rather than manually browsing the site to seek out social community potentials.
Post relativity ensures you aren't providing multiple forum instances, but engaging with people in multiple ways they can respond in kind. It means that you aren't spamming members with unrelated email notifications. It gets you set up to be able to customize and perform more bulk sending because your community got active over transactional and recurring interests. See above for my interpretation of text relation modules (custom fields based on hierarchical interactive levels) that make this all come together.
Right now, PHPFox is built to include reactions that lets people slightly deviate from the concept of a text only module to interact with, using preset (admin /phpfox native set) options to choose from. Such as like, dislike, love, haha, disappointed, and other precursor emoticons that try to portray quick moods. The problem with reactions, is that they are additional ways to interact with a piece of content that's already published.
For years I've watched the interface of PHPFox become more inviting for viewing content. But writing content needs a lot of work.
Right now, we can't even add multiple media types to a single album. A media type could be considered a set of conditional fields to contain different file types. and the album could link them all together in a nice folder structure. Similar to how a portfolio would look.
The concept of separating photos, music and videos is a bit dated. PHPFox's main apps that work real well on their own, are polls and quizzes. But these as well could be combined into one module. Though, I'm not here to talk about that.
What PHPFox needs, is the ability to specifically designate custom fields and the placement of how people can interact with them. Whether you have top level interaction (post creation) or secondary level interaction (commenting, likes, reactions) or third level reactions (post embedding, replying to comments) and so on.
What would tie all these fields together, is not only how they are viewed (activity feed page, post browse page, item view page) but also tags themselves. right now, tags are limited to objects (post creators) and not posts themselves. Additionally, posts only can have one creator (Elshara posted a comment) per instance. As opposed to something more collaborative and community orientated (Elshara, James and Sam were mentioned as Sports Group leaders in a cheer leading championship tournament) referring to groups. If regular posts had an invitation facility, groups and pages themselves would become dated because you'd be able to have relational text posts that didn't rely on the concept of a private container to make up for the need to separate everything inside a single module. The idea is that you don't just post once and are done, but can revisit what you've written as people reply in more ways than one.
I know the idea is new, and will need some time to perfect. However, social communities are much different from social networks. And this space is all but truly growing as we become more vested online into interests that unite groups of people together, rather than people within a network as not everyone comes together at once. In fact it takes years for a social network to develop, as opposed to months if not weeks for an event to gain interest. Because everyone has a key role to play. For groups themselves, aren't nearly as popular as compared with people coming together for both products and events. If events can bring groups of people together in a single notification. Imagine what groups of notifications comprised of their own community members could achieve simultaneously?
Thank you for considering my request. The idea is to start out by doing the following:
Build the posts module.
Just like in profile fields, add custom fields to each post or allow post grouping for a custom field series.
Allow posts to relate to each other with posts themselves on the same object level status as people to be able to tag (interlink) with them.
Allow field sets to relate to each other to make one single field set or multiples of them conditional in relation with one another. Have them otherwise be completely independent, or a mix of both to encourage codependency.
Allow the ability to control the placement and position of what posts in and of themselves can obtain any available interaction levels.
Set up interaction levels as permissions each post or field set is able to host. Similar to permission levels members have within user groups.
Hey guys. I'm coming to you to ask for help. We need you to build a new module that can combine media and posts under the same app. And then add custom fields for that module to store interactive data. Right now in PHPFox, you only have top level interactive engagement when writing content pieces, (even in groups and pages) for every app. This means that when you make a new post, all you're asked to do is write a post title, post body (using a single wyciwyg editor instance) and some tags. The rest is filler for who can view that particular post (privacy options, url) etc. This may seem simple in theory, but it limits the ways members can talk. There's no ice breaker question. No follow up engagement based on community interests. No prompts to optionally find something of interest when you first join. So people end up treating it as a forum, where only specific subjects are discussed when there's a need to address them. Then everything else remains dormant, abandoned. Until after awhile, the original topic poster, due to lack of engagement with the community, doesn't come back at all. Leaving more members to fill the gap they left behind even as an active member. This results in quite literally every core module our community uses, acts at most, like a forum. Something to pass practically (true) and (false) as well as other (interesting) specifically (one word off site conclusion) statements back and fourth. Sometimes containing many pages of replies to come to an agreement. Forums are absolutely critical for diplomacy, product engagement and learning or quickly understanding how something works. but beyond that, they fall short of much else as they become less social over time. Essentially, we can make and do better when converting human interactions to relative engagement as we would in person online. Yes, they're popular. And, this particular module is something I've excelled at posting over the last several years. Yet blogs is another fancy name for the functionality of a forum. which is, essentially, to get your voice heard. The only good thing about blogs, is that instead of predefined categories, you get to choose your own and embed whatever media you want. However, blogs are wild discussions within one network blog. They're not very well structured, and even with tags, they only end up being text posts at the end of the day. What you can get accomplished in a blog, a forum category can multiply several times over. Yet what you can't post in a forum topic, a blog will let you not only display it, but make it look great. However they are both two sides of the same coin, one with a top level interaction and secondary level response scheme we've seen populate the internet for decades. And, other platforms, apart from news publications, have taken notice and are building away from this design as times goes on. So what about the next forum instances of PHPFox apps? All media modules, (photos, music, videos and file attachments) do exactly the same thing. Besides Providing an auto loading player, making you scroll and look at content posted in a different format, but in the comments area, remains a text only forum. There's no ability to reply to a video with another video and tag both as related. No ability to do the same thing with photos, or music. Facebook doesn't even have this feature, yet YouTube did during its very first few years online which is the reason why it became popular. In the custom posts module I am suggesting, there also needs to be a way to include how one post example titled (16 Ways To Decrease Heart Rate) can relate (Best Tips When Running)to another without using linked tags or words. Something that represents more than just a link, by extending the relationship between the posts themselves in a sense. Another example is with groups. Yes they can and should be able to interlink and send notifications to multiple authors because of it. If Jason (the leader of Fitness And Wellness) posted a discussion (14 Ways To Loosen Tight Muscles) in the group he manages, then James (a member of Plant Care) should get a notification about replies to the text (plants that improve muscle growth) in Jason's discussion because Jack (leader of James's group Plant Care) set up the ability for plants (Object Interactive Level X) to relate to plants contained within a sentence (Object Interactive Level Y) dynamically using a post custom field sequence available as a possible customized posts module instance. therefore, Jason and James would get to know each other because they posted discussions in different groups. Jack would be able to see post engagements between Jason and James as a successful relationship brought together because Jack started a group Jason joined, and would be able to use that data to reach out in kind. Which is an automated way of having something in common, with matching interests, rather than manually browsing the site to seek out social community potentials. Post relativity ensures you aren't providing multiple forum instances, but engaging with people in multiple ways they can respond in kind. It means that you aren't spamming members with unrelated email notifications. It gets you set up to be able to customize and perform more bulk sending because your community got active over transactional and recurring interests. See above for my interpretation of text relation modules (custom fields based on hierarchical interactive levels) that make this all come together. Right now, PHPFox is built to include reactions that lets people slightly deviate from the concept of a text only module to interact with, using preset (admin /phpfox native set) options to choose from. Such as like, dislike, love, haha, disappointed, and other precursor emoticons that try to portray quick moods. The problem with reactions, is that they are additional ways to interact with a piece of content that's already published. For years I've watched the interface of PHPFox become more inviting for viewing content. But writing content needs a lot of work. Right now, we can't even add multiple media types to a single album. A media type could be considered a set of conditional fields to contain different file types. and the album could link them all together in a nice folder structure. Similar to how a portfolio would look. The concept of separating photos, music and videos is a bit dated. PHPFox's main apps that work real well on their own, are polls and quizzes. But these as well could be combined into one module. Though, I'm not here to talk about that. What PHPFox needs, is the ability to specifically designate custom fields and the placement of how people can interact with them. Whether you have top level interaction (post creation) or secondary level interaction (commenting, likes, reactions) or third level reactions (post embedding, replying to comments) and so on. What would tie all these fields together, is not only how they are viewed (activity feed page, post browse page, item view page) but also tags themselves. right now, tags are limited to objects (post creators) and not posts themselves. Additionally, posts only can have one creator (Elshara posted a comment) per instance. As opposed to something more collaborative and community orientated (Elshara, James and Sam were mentioned as Sports Group leaders in a cheer leading championship tournament) referring to groups. If regular posts had an invitation facility, groups and pages themselves would become dated because you'd be able to have relational text posts that didn't rely on the concept of a private container to make up for the need to separate everything inside a single module. The idea is that you don't just post once and are done, but can revisit what you've written as people reply in more ways than one. I know the idea is new, and will need some time to perfect. However, social communities are much different from social networks. And this space is all but truly growing as we become more vested online into interests that unite groups of people together, rather than people within a network as not everyone comes together at once. In fact it takes years for a social network to develop, as opposed to months if not weeks for an event to gain interest. Because everyone has a key role to play. For groups themselves, aren't nearly as popular as compared with people coming together for both products and events. If events can bring groups of people together in a single notification. Imagine what groups of notifications comprised of their own community members could achieve simultaneously? Thank you for considering my request. The idea is to start out by doing the following: