I've often wondered if it wouldn't be possible, somehow, to tag other members in a post a la Facebook style. Say a discussion is raging over alternate tunings and I mention Squonk because I reckon he'd be interested in the discussion or have something to offer. Would it not be possible to tag him so that he is notified that he was mentioned in a post or something like that?
Tagging other members in a post
Might be possible, but would have to wait for Norio to weigh in.
However I'm not too sure that I would want to ape features from social media sites. Guitarface... A discussion forum is about the topics discussed, not the people discussing them, and a specialised one like guitarforum is a valuable resource for that reason.
However I'm not too sure that I would want to ape features from social media sites. Guitarface... A discussion forum is about the topics discussed, not the people discussing them, and a specialised one like guitarforum is a valuable resource for that reason.
With facebook you can only "tag" your actual friends. Without a concept of "friending" tagging is a very different animal. There's also a chance of it becoming a nuisance. We have a user on GFSA named "Satriani" (hasn't been active for some time, but it serves to prove the point). Imagine how often he might get tagged in discussions and contexts that he might not care for. "Tokai" is another word that might cause a tag deluge for one of our users. And with spelling mistakes, people may not get tagged when they should be and may be tagged when they'd rather not be.
Understood. I wouldn't propose to have it work exactly like Facebook where, as you type the name, the person is automatically tagged. I was thinking that it would be a useful feature perhaps to have a button at the top of the page where you can click in order to tag a person, similar to the "insert hyperlink" or "insert picture" button. Perhaps even just define a set of tags.X-rated Bob wrote: With facebook you can only "tag" your actual friends. Without a concept of "friending" tagging is a very different animal. There's also a chance of it becoming a nuisance. We have a user on GFSA named "Satriani" (hasn't been active for some time, but it serves to prove the point). Imagine how often he might get tagged in discussions and contexts that he might not care for. "Tokai" is another word that might cause a tag deluge for one of our users. And with spelling mistakes, people may not get tagged when they should be and may be tagged when they'd rather not be.
In other words, if I write a post and I add [member]X-rated Bob[/member] into the post, X-rated Bob will be notified that he was tagged in a post. Even the notification could be something as simple as subscribing him to the thread.
I hear what Allan is saying about the fora being a place that's all about guitar discussion and not so much the people but I do think that, if I'm part of a thread where the pros and cons of 9-stringed guitars are being discussed, and I know that Chad Adam Brown probably has something to offer on the topic, but might not be aware that it is taking place, it would have been useful if I could tag him so that he becomes aware of the discussion and then he can choose to weigh in or not.
I'm sure this will horrify many, but the "like" button works very nicely on mylespaul. Encourages constructive input in many ways. ?