A Question for Those Who Know Something About Forum Softwares

[sechs]

I have a forum to which I belong that has a major problem with post reporting "abuse."

The problem is that you're only supposed to use the "report post" button for porn, swearing, etc. However, their only barrier to this is a message somewhere that no one reads.

Furthurmore, there's no way for anybody to simply report that a post is off-topic, or a thread is in the wrong forum, which happens a lot.

I suggested to a moderator that they rename the "report post" button, since you aren't supposed to use it to report the vast majority of things that people would want to report. I got a lot of push back, saying that this was complicated and that it would make it impossible to upgrade the forum software (which is Invision). In the mean time, either stuff isn't reported or the moderators get dumped with e-mail for low priority work.

Is this true? If so, what kind of crappy software is this? If not, what would they really need to do to make such a seemingly simple change?

Also, how could they implement a moderator contact system for less urgent reports?

 

[timwhit]

Look for a mod that will change this button.

Check here.

If a mod doesn't exist, then you will need to write one. It really doesn't sound that hard to mod this.

It seems like something that could be done in the template. In which case, I doubt it would be that hard to upgrade if you modified a template slightly.

 

[Handruin]

It's not impossible to upgrade, but some mods can make it a pain. one thing vbulletin does is allow for a plugin style system so that you can do those kinds of things and still allow for upgrades. I don't know if invision allows for it, but even if it doesn't the mod you're suggesting doesn't sound all that complicated. Like timwhit suggested, it sounds like a template change. If we were to do that change here, it would probably be a template/dictionary change.

I don't fully understand what you mean by a moderator contact system. There may be a way to have a contact us page and direct it to moderators, but I don't know if that's what you were thinking of. Were you suggesting something inline with the reporting of posts, but rather it contacts moderators?

 

[sechs]

Were you suggesting something inline with the reporting of posts, but rather it contacts moderators?

Basically, yes. As I said, what ends up happening is that either people report posts using the undesirable method or don't report posts at all, which is not really an acceptable situation.

Using mods really looks like a pain in the rear. Invision is free, right?

 

[Handruin]

Last I remember invision is a paid product. They offered a free version during the time it was first conceived but quickly stopped supporting it and moved to a paid model.

It's possible to have a good mod system, but I've not spent any time with the latest invision to know if it's any good. My guess is they must have something to stay stay competitive with vbulletin...which has a fairly good plugin system.

 

[timwhit]

You could try out phpBB3. From my research it seems to offer a lot of functionality and it's free and open source.

 

[CougTek]

Didn't we use phpBB prior to vBulletin here?

 

[Handruin]

Yes, we used phpbb 2.0 for a while. I switched to vbulletin because I wanted better support and phpbb3.0 took a long time to release. It was probably close to two years since we had vbulletin before phpbb 3 came out.

 

[sechs]

My guess is they must have something to stay stay competitive with vbulletin...

You say that, but I'm not sure that I actually belong to any other boards that still use Invision. Most seem to use vBulletin, a number Fusetalk, and a couple have custom systems.

There must be some reason for that....

 

[Handruin]

Storagereview.com uses invision, but you may not participate there. I honestly don't know what invision is up to these days. I was never that impressed with them to start and much like you I don't participate i any forums that uses their software. They may no longer be competition for anyone.

 

[sechs]

Like many of us here, I don't go to Storagereview.com except when extremely bored.

Turns out that there is one forum that I visit regularly that uses Invision. But, it's part of a site owned by a company that makes money and, so, theoretically, is professionally maintained. They also have a boatload of moderators, so that's rarely a problem.