General forum discussion

Dear all, I just want to share some few links about tools which help improving online collective conversations with the aim of fostering collective intelligence.
Develped inside FP7 european framework's Catalyst project, there are some cool tools.

ASSEMBL, LITEMAP, DEBATEHUB, EDGESENSE

So... What should be stored in a forum post? Whether it is a node or entity, what should we store? And how?

For this new project, would it be better to use the existing node in core or create a custom entity for forum posts?

• existing node uses extra tables to add forum functionality and tracking, this adds table look ups and updates

• a custom entity couild be made to hold all data in one table row per post, but do we lose some traditional Drupal functionality with other modules if we don't use the built in node?

And what should be recorded per post?

A new project.

I think we all know that the built in Drupal forum is lacking, and currently it is a roadblock for many site developers, myself included. So in the community spirit I am inviting anyone and everyone to contribute ideas, theories, time, code, anything. it is way more than anyone can handle alone, but with colaboration it can be done.
Currently I named it "Colloquium", but feel free to suggest names :)

I am going to start a few other topics for the purpose of brainstorming, and will post them here.

John

I am with little success, or to express myself more correct - in very time consuming way building couple communities with Drupal 7. The centerpiece of them has to be some kind of a forum.

For whatever reason, a self contained D6 forum module was never allowed to be included in the official modules but I've worked with this module quite a bit and I believe it is SERIOUSLY worth looking at, even if for just a basis or starting point or maybe even, if nothing else, a proof of concept. It can be found here: http://www.richardpeacock.com/blog/2010/10/rp-forum-drupal-6-module

It has most (if not all) the features all the "big" forums have such as:

Features (included without additional modules!)

Ability to ban users based on IP and IP ranges

Is this group still active? Does it need some new blood? I might be interested.

Now that Drupal 7 is out, I continue to be embarrassed by the core Drupal Forum. In fact, I'm not even going to talk about the "Forums". What I want to see is a module that fosters building a Community. Instead of focusing on exactly which features Drupal Forum is missing compared to PHPBB or VBulletin (which is still a valid discussion to have), I would rather focus on something more fundamental: community building.

They have announced it here: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2099641
and it is a result of their experiences here: http://blog.phpbb.com/2010/07/28/oscon-2010/

I think whilst normally we want to improve the core forum module, this feels like it could be different. If the phpbb team are working on an official bridge they have the ability to change the code of phpbb itself to make it integrate generally. (Which they appear to be doing anyway).

I think the following links should interest people that are looking for efficient solutions to improve their forum based on Drupal, only by using the forum core module (no Advanced Forum), and by respecting and following the strict modular logic of Drupal (modules, hooks, themes and so on).

Here are the articles:

• Drupal Tip #1: Add Smileys to your forum
• Drupal Tip #2: Message Quoting
• Drupal Tip #3: Post Advanced Formatting
• Drupal Tip #4: Add "Views Count" column
• Drupal Tip #5: Add a "Who is online?" block
• Drupal Tip #6: Add a breadcrumb to your forum
• Drupal Tip #7: Use Custom Thread Icons
• Drupal Tip #8: Hide Specific Forum Containers
• Drupal Tip #9: Theme Forum Topics
• Drupal Tip #10: Beautiful User Profile in Topics
• Drupal Tip #11: Friendly URLs in your forum with Pathauto

Note that we should publish new articles soon, and if you are interesting, I will update this discussion as well. The primary target of these articles was to explain how we improved the Discussion Forum of our Drupal website.

See also the Full List of Drupal Tips

I hope you will find our articles interesting and useful for your personal needs.

[Updated] June 16th, 2010: 3 new articles added.
[Updated] January 18th, 2011: 4 new articles added. List is now complete. Happy hacking!