Currently your average forum node is rather naked, there's really no-where to go once you get there bar the comments, if any.

I'd like to propose some radical ideas, thinking big, to develop the Drupal support forums into a rich learning environment—to give users a more dynamic and engaging place to find help and learn about Drupal.

Please note that I have not exactly been able to keep up with the redesign issue and projects so I might be out of touch, please scrub any duplicate features etc.

Here's some ideas:

  1. Automagic links to the API; e.g. user posts "need help with theme_item_list", automagic link inserted
  2. Automagic links to Projects; user posts "Need help with Zen", link to /project/zen inserted
  3. Similar forum posts sidebar block
  4. Related issues sidebar block
  5. Similar/related posts from Drupal Planet
  6. Digg like "Is this a duplicate" before post confirmation
  7. Use openAmplify or similar to grab interesting and helpful stuff from around the web
  8. Extreme idea - Imagine automagic linking to W3C schools for HTML and CSS questions (possible?)

Right now to my mind the forum is not making the most of its existing nodes, nor delivering an engaging user experience, I think we can do much better and deliver something that really rocks.

As I said before, if some of this is already being worked on, scrub it off the list:)

Comments

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented
Component: Redesign » Other

Not really part of the redesign. I'll see that #1 happens at some point.

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

There's already a module for #2 that could be installed or used to poach code from (http://drupal.org/project/dopl).

Not really part of the redesign.

That's disappointing. Although most of the prominent community members tend to look down on the forum as some sort of ugly step child, as someone who spends a great deal of time there providing support, I can say it's one of the things that sets drupal.org apart from many of the other CMSs.

Should forum improvements make it onto the radar, I'd be happy to put my money where my mouth is and work on it.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Just stumbled on this issue.... If there's any interest in using Advanced Forum, just let me know. :) I don't know if it's a strong enough module to pass the rigorous requirements of drupal.org, but I'd be willing to work on whatever problems there might be to make it happen. :)

Michelle

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

I'd love for advanced_forum to be used in the redesign. Actually there's a coupe of modules/functions we need:

advanced_forum
dopl
fasttoggle
abuse
user_badges (or just themed usernames for the various roles).

And I too would be very happy to help michelle and/or the redesign team on making the drupal forums a showcase rather than an also-ran.

drumm’s picture

drumm
he/him
Location NY, US
commented

The redesign is not a catch-all for changing Drupal.org, we are concentrating on what was laid out in the style guide and prototype at https://infrastructure.drupal.org/drupal.org-style-guide/. This can certainly move forward as an independent effort, we are setting up infrastructure to make these sorts of changes technically easier. The hard part is deciding what exactly to build.

dddave’s picture

dddave commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

Closing old, stale issues as part of the webmaster's clean-up sprint of DrupalCon Prague.

(feel free to revive it!)