vbulletin neighborhoods

[Tekton]

What I want to know, is what the problem with Jelsoft is? Why would they care?

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by amykhar

The one flaw I see with the idea is the allowing the users to decorate their "houses" or rooms which would essentially be forums. A similar hack was found by jelsoft to be a violation of the license agreement.

How did they manage to work that out ...... :surprised:

[amykhar]

The hack violates the license because it is considered leasing out the forums, from what I remember. You can't run something like ezboard allowing people to run their own forums off your vbulletin license, using their own look and feel.

You CAN allow your users to set up private subforums and use member groups as long as they can't change the style, logo, etc. It has to appear to be one site.

At least this is my understanding of the rules.

[Tekton]

What if you make the style for them?

[mholtum]

Originally Posted by Tekton

What I want to know, is what the problem with Jelsoft is? Why would they care?

Maybe you should ask them and get a real answer instead of a bunch of educated guess's?

[Princeton]

the problem with that hack was that it enabled anyone to lease a 'house' ...
it enabled renters to change everything -- roof, basement, add rooms, remove rooms, who can stay, who cannot stay, etc ... essentially, giving a member their 'own' house for free

there is nothing wrong with changing the paint of a house ... the problem lies when you give authority to someone to add/remove new rooms when you don't even 'OWN' the house

• allowing the display of picture frames and/or paint per user/post is a good idea -- doable
• allowing users to change their 'house' colors is a good idea -- dooable, although this should be a personal choice (ala style changer) ... another alternative is to give a LEADER (renter) rights to a specific 'paint' for his house -- I'm not suggesting to give him rights to add/remove the roof, basement, rooms, etc--just their choice of paint and maybe some picture frames, their own choice of custom furniture, etc
• etc, etc..

my 2 cents ... I can't afford more ... time is money.

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by Tekton

What if you make the style for them?

apparently you can't even brand your subforums with another sites feel and force that without breaking the license agreement, i think it's bollocks but it's what Zachery told me once.

what is intersting though is that you can actually apply hacks to give each individual user license over their experience, you're just not allowed to let them share their experience.

i.e. i could surf your forums in a red theme i made in the usercp with css and as long as it's not an option in the stylechooser or forced in a forum, it's legitmate.

[!!!]

Originally Posted by princeton

the problem with that hack was that it enabled anyone to lease a 'house' ...
it enabled renters to change everything -- roof, basement, add rooms, remove rooms, who can stay, who cannot stay, etc ... essentially, giving a member their 'own' house for free

there is nothing wrong with changing the paint of a house ... the problem lies when you give authority to someone to add/remove new rooms when you don't even 'OWN' the house

• allowing the display of picture frames and/or paint per user/post is a good idea -- doable
• allowing users to change their 'house' colors is a good idea -- dooable, although this should be a personal choice (ala style changer) ... another alternative is to give a LEADER (renter) rights to a specific 'paint' for his house -- I'm not suggesting to give him rights to add/remove the roof, basement, rooms, etc--just their choice of paint and maybe some picture frames, their own choice of custom furniture, etc
• etc, etc..

my 2 cents ... I can't afford more ... time is money.

Good ideas, and for the record, we don't have to allow members to change the styles of the forums and whatnot (leasing out the forums). That's ridiculous, and not what I had in mind. However, there is indeed some degree of customizability and personalization that is required (such as, a persons own tag board, which would be their house or something), changing styles of their table (which is a table, such as the many tables listed in a forums' thread listing which vertically falls down the page with the links to the threads), displaying some information about that person, their "address", their name, who is inside their house at that time (guests/visitors), and perhaps even a "garage" (which is a storage room that could be used for something like the attachment database and whatnot and it lists the users' attached files, uploads, and other items...and this would be good for that RPG hack which gives members items and such).

It can show members of that household, if a household (for whatever personal choice/reason by the individuals involved) is occupied by more than one person. Perhaps a particular street is occupied by extremely skilled graphic artists who have designed their yards (or, let's call it "landscaping") so beautifully that one particular yard has been designed and maintained by more than one person (two graphic artists). Okay, then, there is a chance that they both want that house then. So, two people should be able to live in a house (or, a family).

People can then give out "house keys" and whatnot to people if they want to lock their houses but still allow people in.

Personal messages would be the person's "mailbox". A house can have more than one trash-can for suspended items (such as read mail, removed threads that the user hasn't destroyed or "burned" yet, so it it's in the "trash bin"), etc. Basically, we take home living and implement in online so that things are much more user-friendly and allow for much nicer navigation and options.

Wanderers/homeless people/bums would be people without a house yet (and perhaps in order to have your own house you must first start posting and being active, or "working"). Then, as someone earns money, they begin to purchase things. Also, people can earn donation money...and this is money that the users cannot spend for their selves, they must give it away. So, when very active, involved members have charity-money and a bum comes on the forums who has great potential but has not had enough time and whatnot to build up their own "life" on the forums, people can donate money.

This is sort of like a rating...if a very good and pleasant graphics person (a constructive person as well) comes to the forums, people can donate money to them. However, charity-money should not come quick and greatly...because it should be a collective effort that someone receives donations--that way we don't have a bunch of elitists who start building their friends up even if they are good or bad (we don't want a spammer to all of a sudden start rising to the top because one of their friends decided they would donate $1,000,000 to them)...and perhaps there could be taxes or limits and whatnot so that things don't get wildly corrupt and out-of-control.

We need things fair and righteous...

[!!!]

As always, I say this in the event that God is willing. That being made clear, let me type more:

It could be useful as well to permit the promotion of threads. Suppose somebody sends someone a personal message...that user could then have the option of promoting (hanging it) so that instead of being a thread addressed to that particular user (personal, private mail), they can post/transfer it to their wall (or, inside their house). Now, users can also stick threads in their yards, however, there are limits to the use of the yard (zoning laws). So, since it's a much more public area (a neighborhood), they should be able to stick one sign (post one thread) in their yard at a time. So, people ought to be picky about what goes on their lawn.

Now, people should be able then to promote threads likewise other areas. So, if someone browses through the neighborhoods and sees a thread out on someone's lawn, they know that this is a "selected thread" (sort of like a dean's list or something, so the threads on the lawn are like favorites/hotpicks). As such, the threads on the lawn are highly esteemed. People can then start to promote such threads. So, a thread from a person's house can only be promoted by other people if the owner allows it to (sticks it in their front yard or something).

Likewise, threads can spring up somewhere like a little sprout and then all of a sudden catch a lot of popularity and begin blowing everywhere. When people begin to "reap" other threads (promote them), then threads can, statistically, climb the charts. As such, threads can go from being in someone's front yard to being in somebody else's front yard--or their back yard. If a thread is in someone's back yard, that means it is supported, but it less of an esteem/promotion to that thread than if it were a select few that can go in the front yard.

The back yard should probably be a "secondary referral" or so, whereas the front yard is the more primary referrals. As such, secondary referrals can have perhaps a larger maximum limit, or even no limit at all, but of course then back yards would not be so publically displayed, but would be more of a "favorites" or "suggestions" area.

So, then, if a thread begins to become very highly esteemed (suggested and referred a lot, promoted a lot, etc.), then depending on how popularly it has been promoted, it can begin to show up in areas such as a "town's pick", and then furthermore towns are more apt to read "town's picks" rather than go searching through a particular person's front yard--since people are more apt to go looking for something based off of a larger preference rather than to go looking through hundreds of front yards.

So, as towns begin to spread the word, a thread can quickly jump up the charts to being the "top pick in the county", and then the "top pick in the state", the "top pick in the country", and then the "top pick in the planet".

This would be very useful, and would help forum communities and stuff grow, evolve, and improve. Instead of having to worry about moderation and whatnot, the forums will moderate their selves (well, kind of--the people will moderate them on a singular level and the statistics and popularity and whatnot will help everything grow).

This then can help communities grow and build. If particular trends come about, then such trends can be utilized (whereby the higher people in authority, such as an overseer of an entire country, can know what to offer the community to improve it).

So, as areas become grouped by their similarities and interests, etc., the entire forums can grow. Imagine two people share common interests (how frequently they view a thread compared to how frequently someone else views that thread, how frequently they reply to it, how frequently people reply to a particular person's posts and vice versa, commonly repeated words and other attributes, etc.), the forums would be more apt to link (see, people should have newspaper boxes as well which can display current events, announcements, and suggested threads and areas of interest for that person to check out based on statistics which would evaluate the best items to deliver to each particular user) and bring two people together who are similar than two people who are completely different--and there can be an "opposition" option as well, by which a user can rate another user.

So, if someone is statistically being linked and involved in someone else's "life", but they, out of their own human interest, are familiar with that person and they simply don't like them, they can then use an alternate form of rating.

So, if someone's primary rating is high, that means that they're statistically good for that person. However, users can then set manual "secondary ratings", which can interfere and override primary ratings. If someone gives someone a secondary rating of "0", that would be similar to putting that person on ignore--this means that they want the vbulletin system to keep that person away from them (SORT OF like a restraining order).

So, then, there can even be zoning laws. If a particular neighborhood has been settled for some time with a peaceful, active, and friendly community, if they share interests and whatnot, they can set zoning laws that forbid new people from moving in and disturbing it (and these zoning laws can be decided by polls and statistics and ratings). So, if a particular neighborhood has good neighbors who paint the outside of their houses and do nice artwork and nice landscaping, they certainly wouldn't want someone to come in and start posting threads on their front lawn saying, "LOLADASA!!! YOU PEOPLEZ R DUMB!!@$!!", painting their house black with red, anarchial and/or satanic lettering and messages, and burning gnomes on their front lawn.

No, zoning laws can be set to allow the forums to evolve like a real-time community and world. As such, particular areas can have higher influence. If a town known for their skills and professionalism in graphics are promoting a graphics thread, then such a town should obviously have more influence than an entire town promoting such a thread if that town has hardly any activity and interest in graphics statistically and whatnot.

So, as such, when people view the higher more established areas (like the planetary threads or the countrywide threads), threads should be more apt to be promoted to those areas based on REALITY, that way spam and stuff are more likely to remain more undersituated and local.

So, when people want to view spam, they'll be more likely to enter someone's house (if that that person has access, be it because the house has been made public or because the person has a key or because the owner has not banned that viewer as an intruder/burgler) than viewing a town's pick or a country's pick (and certainly more likely than viewing the planetary's pick, because the global threads are far higher up and more likely to weed out all the lower, less important and spam threads).

So, you see, it's a real evolving community, of the people, for the people, by the people.

[tehste]

you type too much...
It sounds like you are describing something quite complicated that would actually be a different community system than a bulletin board. From what I read I like your ideas. Maybe not as a vb hack but as a totally new system... Interesting...