Major Additions - Synergy by Zoints - A system like Digg integrated into forums.

Index

Installation and Upgrading
FAQ, Changelog and Troubleshooting
Pre-written threads

This plugin is not currently available for vBulletin 3.7.x. Several users have reported serious incompatibilities, and we would not suggest attempting to install it on a forum running 3.7.x at this time.

Foreward

Awhile back, two visionaries by the names of Sal Collaziano and George B realized that a Digg-like system for forums could be highly beneficial. Kudos to those two for their understanding that by working together, we can all benefit.

What is Synergy?

How often does this happen to you? You or a member write a great thread, Google indexes it a week later, but it is buried in the search results so the masses never end up reading it. Frustrating, isn't it? Zoints solves this by taking a system like Digg, then integrating and mirroring in across all forums in a manner that allows great threads to be read by the masses. Synergy is designed to bring you more traffic and inspire your members to create higher quality content in order to obtain "Top Author" status.

Demos (with forums like these using Synergy, you're sure to get some traffic)

You'll notice all the demos look virtually the same except for the skins. This is due to the system mirroring itself across the forums. When a link is clicked, it takes the reader to the originating forum.

Ubuntu Forums
NASIOC
ThumperTalk
LWS


How Synergy Works

You have a lot of high quality threads on your forum. When you (or a trusted usergroup member you permission via the admincp options) decides a thread is worthy of Synergy, you select the "Add to Synergy" link as seen below.




During the next step, you write a short description for the thread and select which category it should go into.




Your thread is then added to a queue on your forum. Once every X hours, the top thread in your queue is added to Synergy.




When your thread is added to Synergy, the system distributes the link and description you wrote to all participating forums. If someone on any forum around the net clicks on your thread link, they are redirected back to your forum to the actual thread so they can read it. If people like your thread, they can vote on it which ranks it higher. Higher ranked threads, especially those that make it to the front page will in turn bring you more traffic.




The admincp settings are as follows:




Proof of Traffic

If you submit good content to Synergy that gets to the front page, you WILL get a lot of traffic. The following screenshot is from a small forum early in our testing. Guess which day it got a thread on the front page?



As more forums join Synergy, more and more people will be reading your threads. Let's work together to remove our reliance on search engines to send us traffic. Our communities are full of great content, it's time for it to be read!

[Zoints]

Originally Posted by chadi

I agree. This should be something internal of the forum only, customizable categories as well.

While I thank you for the suggestion, that's not something we're interested in doing.

[Coop1979]

Well, I hope someone else is in the near future. For now I'm going to use vbDrupal and the vote up/down module from Drupal.

[project-Buckfas]

Thanks for the reply DChapman,

Unfortunatly it doesn't turn threads into articles. It is stand alone. The url structure is like this

http://www.yoursite.com/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=5

You can see an online demo of the articles mod here

If this is not possible, does anyone know of a mod for 3.6 that turns threads into articles?

Originally Posted by DChapman

Does that mod turn threads into articles? Does it change the url structure at all or just the templates? If it's just the templates, in theory, this should still work with it. Do you have it installed and it's not working?

[tormodg]

Originally Posted by project-Buckfas

If this is not possible, does anyone know of a mod for 3.6 that turns threads into articles?

Check out GARS from http://www.thevbgeek.com

[s0b]

Great mod but i wont install it until were a local version.

First of all my forum inst english, then incoming and outgoing threads wont be interesting for anyone.

I havent any ads to respect my visitors and i pay the forum server and a counter-strike server by donations, then i dont want to have threads of other forums that can be viewed as ads.

Is a very interesting addon... but if it were in local.

[Zoints]

Originally Posted by project-Buckfas

Thanks for the reply DChapman,

Unfortunatly it doesn't turn threads into articles. It is stand alone. The url structure is like this

Sorry, that's not something we would build into the system.

[project-Buckfas]

Ok thanks

[Baku]

I'm having the same problem on my forum in that I'm submitting threads directly into the approved queue, and nothing is happening. The threads have stayed there for about 16 hours now... and the front page of Synergy (which is here for me) is completely blank.

I took a look in the "Scheduled Tasks" section in the Admin CP, and there's a Synergy task on there.

I tried updating this, and currently get:

Synergy

Data returned from Zoints:


Thread submission failed:

Done

Can anyone help??

[3dsoft]

Is it only for english speaking bulletin boards?

[Baku]

Originally Posted by 3dsoft

Is it only for english speaking bulletin boards?

Not necessarily, but the majority of content is in English.