# Using Discourse as a social media platform
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [August 30, 2021, 4:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133 "2021-08-30T16:16:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Decorbuz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Decorbuz)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/61 "2021-09-27T23:50:16Z")
Probably one of the most important things on my list is this.
As you can see by the image above, Google+ allowed you to select what kind of post you wanted to make (similar to Reddit nowadays). Personally, I would love to see a theme component to replicate that in Discourse.
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2021, 11:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/62 "2021-09-27T23:58:26Z")
When Google+ was redesigned in late 2015, they made it look a lot cleaner. I prefer the cleaner look. I’m not sure how you feel about it though.
I think it’s the approach that a Google+ #Customization > Theme for Discourse should take. 🙂
* * *
If any of you folks need a refresher on what Google+ looked like and how it functioned, you should definitely watch this video. It is the most in-depth one I could find so far.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7-7yxo5ag)
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2021, 1:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/63 "2021-09-28T01:41:03Z")
_Putting Google+ to the side for now…_
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> I’m interested in the topic too! But I think a concrete definition of what is meant by “social media” is a critical first step to really turning this discussion into something practical to potentially advocate for and hopefully implement.
Wikipedia says it best.
> **[Social media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media)**
>
> Social media are new media technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongst virtual communities and networks. Common features include:
> The term social in regard to media suggests platforms enable communal activity. Social media helps people connect and build networks. Users access social media through web-based or mobile applications. These interactive platforms allow individuals, communities, busi...
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> As you and others point out, Discourse already has _many_ aspects of “social media” in its native set of functionality (or in plugins):
>
> - User profiles
> - User activity
> - Following users
> - User discussion
> - Sophisticated content formatting, handling (better, actually, than _most_ social media)
> - Lists of content by date/activity/etc.
Yeah, Discourse isn’t too far off from being considered a social media platform. That is why I would personally use it as a framework for a social media service rather than build one from scratch.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> I could go on, but you get the point. So what’s the difference between Discourse and social media? Identifying what Discourse does _not_ have seems likely to be more fruitful in figuring this out. The one major thing that immediately comes to my mind, which I think you touched on in your original post, is the lack of a “feed” view.
Nor is it curated by an algorithm. I think that’s a bigger factor that comes into play here.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> The major difference between what Discourse has now (e.g. “Latest”) and a “feed” view, is the ability to directly view the entirety of a topic’s contents and then _interact with it from the main feed_ . This has many implications, some good, some perhaps bad, but from a user experience perspective something it does well is to create a lower friction environment for consuming _and_ interacting with content. One of the main benefits as I see it is it helps a user maintain consistent “context”, e.g. maintain their position in the feed. Twitter does a particularly good job of doing this across browser navigation (forward/back), while Facebook doesn’t, but lets you better interact with things within the feed (e.g. expand comments, make comments, etc. without leaving feed).
Especially when the “feed” essentially goes on forever!
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Discourse also does well with forward/back, returning to the last scroll position and highlighting the last-clicked topic briefly. But the sheer density of Discourse topic lists can still make it challenging to maintain one’s place, and more importantly the topic-only view often doesn’t give you enough to know whether you want to engage further with something.
This is why I prefer how social media does it. With a vanilla installation of Discourse, you have to click on the topic itself before previewing the contents… which you cannot even preview in the first place.
XenForo has a feature like that.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Now, I think a “pure” feed view that reproduces how existing social media sites work is not necessarily desirable. It is arguably opposed to some of Discourse’s ideals, e.g. avoiding shallow, knee-jerk interaction, etc. But I don’t think the feed view concept is necessarily _inherently_ opposed to those ideals, or rather, I think it’s worth contemplating how one might gain some benefits of that model, while maintaining the benefits of Discourse’s current approach.
A “pure” feed view doesn’t always have to consist of shallow, knee-jerk interaction though. I think it is just a matter of mastering the format.
When it was still around, Google+ seemed to do it well.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> There are a couple of ideas that spring to mind. First, let’s assume we have a familiar “feed” view like Facebook or Twitter, ranked by some algorithm/model, perhaps as simple as recency or popularity.
Does the user’s interests come into play (judged by likes, reshares, replies, etc)? Twitter lets your sort by latest and recommended based upon who you’re following (along with the now defunct Google+). As mentioned earlier, Twitter (and yet again, along with the now defunct Google+) uses an asymmetrical following model. Facebook does not.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> It shows “posts”, which in Discourse would be Topics. Whether full topics are shown or just summaries, and whether comments/replies are shown by default or not are a couple of important details of the implementation that deserve consideration.
For mostly obvious reasons, summaries would probably be best.
Again, when it was still around, I think Google+ seemed to do it well. As pictured below, it showed the latest/top replies to a post.
Oh, and who cannot forget that seamless sharing functionality that could either function like the way it does on Twitter or function as a “Retweet” button (you might also be able to notice the “Circle Streams” drop-down tab on the side)?
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Showing full topics by default is problematic because it can make for an _extremely_ long scroll, and somewhat defeats the purpose of the feed view since you have to fully scroll past at least the topic starter for each topic to see the next one. So summaries seem advisable. There’s no easy way to generate good _post_ summaries that I’m aware of (this is different than Discourse’s ability to summarize a discussion), so a naïve “collapse body contents beyond X characters/words” approach seems likely, and is most widely adopted probably for that reason. Maybe not ideal, but I don’t know a better alternative yet. As with most other implementations, it could be simple click-to-expand (e.g. “show more”), though ability to either jump to the bottom from any point (i.e. “next topic in feed”), or re-collapse and bring you back to where you were in the “feed”/stream, would be ideal. Facebook doesn’t necessarily have this (and it’s irrelevant for Twitter since it has extremely limited “post” length 😄).
From what I can remember, Google+ just showed a snippet of a post if it was really long. If you wanted to view the whole post, you had to click on it.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Comments/responses could similarly be click-to-expand, though I think popping up a full composer from the bottom in an overlay (like it does now when viewing a topic) would be the ideal behavior there, rather than in-line reply authoring like Facebook. This, I think, would help encourage longer, more in-depth replies. You could also quote from the in-line topic view as usual. The only difference really is that if you scroll up or down past the topic contents, you’d see other topics immediately (at least in a collapsed view).
Google+ only showed a few post replies on the feed. If you wanted to view them all, you had to click on the post.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> An alternative to expand/collapse, which might also better serve the desire to show comments and ability to interact with topics with a more sophisticated and spacious writing area (thus avoiding some of the negative incentives of small comment boxes, e.g. shallow interaction), might be _pop-up_ topic views, i.e. a modal window, dimming the background, but dismissible with a click outside the window. This is like the Reddit model. I don’t love everything about this approach, but I think most of my concerns with it are UX-related and could be improved with e.g. better interpretation of user intent with clicks (I find myself clicking out of Reddit threads too easily). The benefit is you have a lot of space to present your content, it encourages reading through the topic and interacting more deeply.
I’m not convinced of such a approach until I see it with my own two eyes.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> I think the overall feed approach, and the “Reddit” model in particular, is especially interesting to compare to Discourse’s existing approach. There is an argument to be made that the existing topic lists are _more_ shallow/skimmable than e.g. Facebook’s feed view, where you can at least see _some_ of the content beyond just a Title. Of course the [Topic List Excerpts Theme Component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-list-excerpts-theme-component/151520) takes care of this to some degree, but still it’s not the same as a real “feed” view.
If only such a plug-in were to be expanded on…
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> That said, perhaps it’s a good starting point, and then the only thing you might want to implement is this “modal” topic view idea (or click-to-expand in-line, but this _seems_ like a more significant challenge to implement to my naïve, non-programmer brain). @Joshagos do you think such a setup would meet more of your desire for a “social media” version of Discourse? I.e. Discourse with Topic Excerpts, Latest topic View, and a modal pop-up topic view? If not, what else is missing?
It’s definitely a good starting point. What could we do to expand onto that plug-in? Are there any other good plug-ins that are worth recommending? How about mixing some themes and theme components into the mix as well?
I want a _curated_ view for latest/recommended (like Twitter, the “recommended” feed should be the default feed. Could such an algorithm be implemented VIA a plug-in?
Regardless, that’s a good start you have there. There is a lot that’s missing, but hopefully we can put all the missing puzzle pieces together and find the perfect balance!
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### Author:  [@Decorbuz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Decorbuz)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/64 "2021-09-28T17:18:25Z")
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Hah! Good old G+. I liked many things about it too. But again I think it’s important to talk about what specific benefits and differentiators there were.
Communities were a massive benefit that other social media services had to play catch-up to.
In the case of Discourse, they would probably be sub-communities in a community.
> **[Your Ultimate Guide To Google+ Communities](https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/your-ultimate-guide-to-google-communities)**
>
> There’s a fevered interest in Google+ among the social media marketing crowd the last few years. Webmasters and marketers alike are thumping from every available pulpit that Google+ is an effective way for your business to be the facilitator of...
That is one good thing I can identify off the bat. What about you?
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2021, 12:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/65 "2021-09-29T00:44:31Z")
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> But according to this video, everyone just used G+ like Twitter, i.e. less than a couple hundred characters. 🙄
And also because they didn’t use the features that made Google+ “special” in a way?
Here’s another video that’s worth taking a look at.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qAFhQwvPY8)
As for what you were discussing earlier, this video might be of interest.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsFlncSJHlM)
You should consider taking a look at these two playlists.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLl4Sj52oPmjUvU9swZgl7itgV_ryLl5gc&wmode=transparent&rel=0&autohide=1&showinfo=1&enablejsapi=1
https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLl4Sj52oPmjVxWiZSLgLLVp61g-_LmD-w&wmode=transparent&rel=0&autohide=1&showinfo=1&enablejsapi=1
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> The lead image here shows a “read more” in one post, but the length of it is much shorter than other images showing posts in the stream, so I’m not sure if it’s just a link to the external article/link, or what.
>
> [Google+ completely redesigned, now automatically enhances photos and highlights your best shots | The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/15/4333546/google-plus-new-features-photos-and-redesign)
I think you’re right.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> You’re right that most of what you can find is only fragments, mostly indirect references. Here’s a Chrome extension that seems to imply something about how the stream was, at least at a certain point in time…
Is this any clearer?
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> Ultimately I think it may depend on what iteration of the G+ design it was, but at least some iterations seemed to have a “read more”…
I want to capture the essence of the last design. In my opinion, that was the best one (and the one that still holds up today).
> [@Justin\_Vega](#):
>
> What about the things that Google+ _ **didn’t** _ do well? 🤔
>
> 
>
> [Google’s $585 MILLION mistake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WONwUP_gyFo)
This is a more accurate video.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNbVHcnnWIc)
> [@Justin\_Vega](#):
>
> One former Google employee seems to suggest that it was because Google+ used an asymmetric following model.
>
> [https://onezero.medium.com/why-google-failed-4b9db05b973b](https://onezero.medium.com/why-google-failed-4b9db05b973b)
Twitter uses an asymmetric following model, yet it’s doing just fine nowadays.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> It seems, to me, to be more valuable to understand what the actual functional and design aspects of a “social network” are which differentiate it from what Discourse already is (for which G+ and others can serve as models for inspiration, comparison, and understanding).
As we’ve already discussed, the “feed” view is a somewhat massive differentiator. It could most certainly be done VIA a #Customization > Plugin, a #Customization > Theme, a #Customization > Theme component, etc…
Being able to sort that “feed” view by relevancy and recency is important too. Social media users want to see what’s relevant to them according to an algorithm (something that Discourse doesn’t necessarily employ in the same way), not a list of the top posts during that month or anything like that.
There’s a lot that’s different, so it’s hard to pinpoint anything specific. If we were to comb through everything and look for every single difference that matters, I think we’d be on the right track.
A lot of things that Discourse borrowed just arent as “in-depth” (per se) as the _original_ things that were borrowed in the first place. User profiles are a great example.
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> It’s good to know you prefer G+ to Twitter, but to implement what G+ did well we have identify those things.
The large amount of information shown on screen was a plus (no pun intended).
> [@oshyan](#):
>
> So far a discussion along those lines seems oddly unwilling to materialize. 😄
Well, I think it’s just a matter of figuring out how many plugins (and a purpose for each one) would we need in order to replicate the behaviors of social media. The same goes for themes and theme components.
Who would even be willing to make them for us in the first place? 🤣
> [@Ed\_S](#):
>
> As a G+ user, I saw a stream of posts. It’s important to note that I had some control of that stream: it wasn’t all the posts in the G+ universe. In fact, control of what I saw was a major strength.
Yeah, that was another massive benefit over Facebook and Twitter. Users want control over what they want to see these days. Google+ did that very well. It would fit well in a Discourse social media platform.
> [@Ed\_S](#):
>
> The initial offering of G+ was circles: control of who sees my posts. This idea was not a winner. The initial offering of what I see was taken from who I followed. But that was refined, twice, because in fact we don’t usually want to see everything someone has to say: we have interests.
>
> The first refinement, as I recall, was called Collections. In this model, a person posts into either their general output stream or into one of a set of curated streams. In my case, about four topics. One can then follow people’s collections, rather than people. This was a great improvement, but a person has to curate those collections helpfully, and post accordingly.
>
> The second refinement was called Communities. In this model, people join a community, to see the community posts in their stream and to interact with them. Communities could be public or private. Communities had moderators, and therefore have norms. I belonged to some dozens of communities, and moderated a few. As usual, some communities were more successful than others, for their quality and quantity of posts and of members.
Google pivoted their social network to be based around specific interests/communities in late 2015 when they realized that they weren’t going to kill Facebook. It was a last-ditch effort that didn’t save Google+ in its last days. Circles (which Google had been trying to heavily push for since the launch of their social network) were thrown to the wayside.
There was actually a third (and final) refinement though. It was introduced when Google+ was on its last legs and had an imminent death right around the corner. Then again, at least it brought back a very standard feature that Google had previously removed in the late 2015 redesign. Just as a hint, it’s similar to trending topics and trending hashtags on Twitter. 😉
As a side note, it probably didn’t help that Google+ was originally launched as an invite-only platform. Just take a look at [Google+ on the Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://plus.google.com) to see what I mean.
Here’s what the mobile application looked like.
At this point, I’m like a broken record that keeps repeating itself over and over again. Everything you guys have said is great (especially the thoughtful queries, suggestions, and ideas). It’s just hard to digest it all. Maybe we should break this up into small parts instead of putting it all into walls of text in our replies. 🤣
Regardless, I think we’re onto something that we’re passionate about here. Alas, I’m not very good at programming or designing (especially when it comes to using [Figma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figma_(software))). Let’s all work on this as a collaborative team, shall we?
Also, one final thing…
You cannot tell me this doesn’t look like a Google+ rip-off, right? Maybe we’re okay ripping off Google+ ourselves after all…
[https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8VXB9bPvq9PUiqtqerohJaz25EA=/1600x0/filters:no\_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus\_asset/file/22833067/LEq8g8SJJehgbNSEi7FAl3Qnb8C3ciak5BAhHgVFhWi3pcjUJVQKUbZ5XKn1dL4vTufxy4ZP4\_MeJOtDb1bLOYVpfc\_7h0HIoVcdjQgJ6rwNoeLN\_0wQ\_UHura288IsIw3q319G9\_s0.gif(image larger than 10 MB)](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8VXB9bPvq9PUiqtqerohJaz25EA=/1600x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22833067/LEq8g8SJJehgbNSEi7FAl3Qnb8C3ciak5BAhHgVFhWi3pcjUJVQKUbZ5XKn1dL4vTufxy4ZP4_MeJOtDb1bLOYVpfc_7h0HIoVcdjQgJ6rwNoeLN_0wQ_UHura288IsIw3q319G9_s0.gif)
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### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2021, 5:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/66 "2021-09-29T05:47:30Z")
Nice screenshots of layouts. There is just one but; they are all from desktops.
G+ was much like LinkedIn. Only users like it. And most of people wasn’t users, because they hated it. That’s why G+ is dead now (and LinkedIn is just for consults 😉 )
One important reason why G+ did suck was mobiles. It was really hard to use with smaller screens. It doesn’t help a bit how many nice features there is if users can’t use them (and/or don’t know how to use them…)
At the time of death of G+ mobiles were more common than desktops among Average Joes. Today every common site get’s about 80 - 90 % of visits from mobiles (sure, some more tech or business oriented gets more desktops).
I’m sure this is because I’m finn (really, from our point of view americans, north, central and south, are annoying positive and mostly without any hard reason 🤣 ) but the key factor to think is not what was cool in G+ (when using desktop with nice mouse and keybord). The most important thing is to understand why G+ doesn’t exist anymore. And avoid those elements.
Sorry all you coders. You are doing amazing job and without you any of our world digi-wonders would’t be possible. But every now and then you don’t listen user — mostly because an end user is dumb (that’s true in many cases 😉 ). But that end user pays your salary. I’m meaning that sometimes you are acting like Steve Jobs with cursor keys — he hated those, but users wanted them.
Well, perhaps a little bit bad example because Steve could keep Apple alive and growing, but, those cursor keys came back.
I’m trying to say that we can’t listen ourselves or being in a tight bubble. We can’t do things as we love or want, instead we have to do things as end users PROPABLY will, if they have opportunity to do without hard learning curve.
Life has teached to me one thing (well, many things and mostly very hard way) and one essential rule is:
- Winner is not one that has done more right than others. Winner is the one that has done less errors
But… I enjoy when you are walking the memory line of G+. But still… it is dead because it couldn’t get any users, because majority hated it.
In the topic the most important question is: what should do differenty than Facebook? Or Twitter, but it has nothing to do with conversation and social media even we must follow persons. What are users hating in Facebook so much that they are willing to dump it — and then just do things in opposite way.
And after that, we can wonder what factors created Facebooh that mighty.
Well… there is another path too. Do you really think that Spotify wants to do things as Facebook does now and G+ then (obviously not the latter 😉 ). Or Reddit. Or all living forums that remain left after the great massacre. Maybe the topic is wrong because it tries to imitate, copying, something that has be already done.
Please, don’t expect this wrong, but Discourse can’t be a social media platform like Facebook or the best parts of G+ (RIP), ever. There is not enough resources, but the main reason is why users should move from familiar one to old one that is totally samesame? MeWe tried that and it is more or less zombie now.
Well, what should Duscourse be? I reckon be a forum with some wider options, not social media platform at all (in today’s meaning). And after that we have the real issue: why it is so hard to get average users moving to forums and how to break 99-1 rule…
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### Author:  [@Ed\_S](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ed_S)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2021, 7:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/67 "2021-09-29T07:59:09Z")
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> The most important thing is to understand why G+ doesn’t exist anymore. And avoid those elements.
I’m not sure about this: for sure, understand the negatives. But it doesn’t exist because it was cancelled, and it was cancelled because the original aim of becoming a massive social network wasn’t realised. (And because it was so complex it had privacy bugs.)
So, I’d say better to understand the positives. (Of those people who used G+ extensively, and stayed with it to the end, how did they use it and which features worked for them? Where did they go when G+ closed, and why?)
Because network effects are such that taking on twitter, facebook, whatsapp, the fediverse, is a massive challenge.
One major thing social networks have, because they have a feed which shows only some fraction of a percent of the universe of posts, is a mechanism to boost, share, retweet or repost. In the case of G+, such a reshare carried a post text too, and its own comment stream, which allowed a person to reshare something they disagreed with and to comment on it. Or to comment on only one particular aspect of a post.
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> Well, what should Discourse be? I reckon be a forum with some wider options, not social media platform at all (in today’s meaning). And after that we have the real issue: why it is so hard to get average users moving to forums and how to break 99-1 rule…
Indeed, important questions - but not necessarily for this thread.
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2021, 11:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/68 "2021-09-29T11:12:54Z")
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> Nice screenshots of layouts. There is just one but; they are all from desktops.
With the exception of one image! 😉
Also, take a look at this. This is a slightly older version of the mobile application for Android. “Discovery” didn’t exist at the time, so that tab isn’t there.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90bO8qRJSqs)
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> But… I enjoy when you are walking the memory line of G+. But still… it is dead because it couldn’t get any users, because majority hated it.
They hated it because Google made the decision to deeply integrate it into YouTube (and other Google services for that matter) in late 2013. That was the crushing blow for its reputation.
> **[The many annoying ways Google forced users onto Google+](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17952604/google-plus-user-profiles-forced-youtube-gmail-search)**
>
> Whether people wanted it or not.
> [@Jagster](#):
>
> Please, don’t expect this wrong, but Discourse can’t be a social media platform like Facebook or the best parts of G+ (RIP), ever. There is not enough resources, but the main reason is why users should move from familiar one to old one that is totally samesame? MeWe tried that and it is more or less zombie now.
>
> Well, what should Duscourse be? I reckon be a forum with some wider options, not social media platform at all (in today’s meaning). And after that we have the real issue: why it is so hard to get average users moving to forums and how to break 99-1 rule…
Who cares? I want to try it anyway! 😉
> [@Ed\_S](#):
>
> Indeed, important questions - but not necessarily for this thread.
Yes, precisely.
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### Author:  [@Decorbuz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Decorbuz)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2021, 1:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/69 "2021-10-05T13:10:17Z")
It looks like Discourse has a plug-in that behaves a lot like the Google+ “Circles” feature.
> [@Discourse Assign](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-assign/58044):
>
> discourse2Summary Discourse Assign provides the ability to assign topics and individual posts (both private and public) to a user or group.open_bookInstall Guide This plugin is bundled with Discourse core. There is no need to install the plugin separately.person_raising_hand Required user level: Administrator (for configuration), members of allowed groups (for using assignments) discourse2 Hosted by us? This plugin is available on our Business and Enterprise p…
Oh, and here is a Discourse community that looks similar to Google+ at face value. What kind of plug-ins and theme components does it use (or is it a full theme)? Is anybody willing to ask them about it?
[https://forums.runehammer.online/](https://forums.runehammer.online/)
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/70 "2021-10-05T15:04:27Z")
> [@Decorbuz](#):
>
> What kind of plug-ins and theme components does it use (or is it a full theme)?
That’s a slightly modified [Topic List Previews (legacy)](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-list-previews/101646) (and actually a fork of an older version judging by the text labels).
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/71 "2021-10-06T00:47:45Z")
Thanks for the links! You made some interesting discoveries that’ll definitely help out.
> [@merefield](#):
>
> That’s a slightly modified [Topic List Previews](https://meta.discourse.org/t/topic-list-previews/101646) (and actually a fork of an older version judging by the text labels).
How customizable is that #Customization > Plugin/#customization:theme-component? Do you think it could allow for users to “like” and “share” posts directly from their feed? Maybe even a dedicated “reply” button? 🤔
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 7:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/72 "2021-10-06T07:03:13Z")
TLP comes in both plugin and TC flavours.
Currently supports like and bookmark actions from topic list. For that you need to have a plugin to modify the back end, either by using the plugin flavour or adding the small “sidecar” plugin to complement the TC.
Replying would only make sense if you could see the last reply? The excerpt is as per the native discourse approach: from the OP regardless of the length of the topic.
I had thought about integrating Babble directly into the Topic List on individual Topics but that plugin is no longer supported and in any case would be very tricky, especially since, for performance reasons, the Topic Lists are currently powered by hbr templates which have minimal javascript support (helpers only?)
A major challenge there would in any case be funding: quite a sizeable piece of work initially and quite expensive to support. If a third party were to develop it it would probably have to be a subscription based product. There would likely need to be a business case.
So currently the only pragmatic solution for interaction with the discussion is to click into the topic view. I appreciate the option of an in-place interaction could be really nice.
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### Author:  [@Stranik](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stranik)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 7:16am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/73 "2021-10-06T07:16:28Z")
Maybe forums should be different from social media, as well as from strict Q&A sites? I don’t know, I’m just thinking. What if, for example, a feed is added to Stack Overflow, or discussions are allowed? I think about WP a lot. What happened to him. And do shops on it, and forums, everything. He almost stopped doing well what he started with. However, this does not prevent him from remaining popular.
Maybe forums should remain a forum, social social networks, social networks, and strict questions and answers by them. Let Wikipedia remain, I don’t think there is a desire to make a forum out of it. What happens if mix everything.
I just want to say that they are all different tools. They have different tasks, you can of course make a plane and a submarine out of a tractor, but the tractor will be a bad submarine and a bad plane. The forum (like everything else) can be remade, but it loses focus for what it was created for.
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 11:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/74 "2021-10-06T11:12:04Z")
> [@merefield](#):
>
> Replying would only make sense if you could see the last reply?
Replying to the ~~post~~ topic from your feed wouldn’t be possible?
> [@merefield](#):
>
> I had thought about integrating Babble directly into the Topic List on individual Topics but that plugin is no longer supported and in any case would be very tricky, especially since, for performance reasons, the Topic Lists are currently powered by hbr templates which have minimal javascript support (helpers only?)
Isn’t Discourse planning on creating their own implementation of Babble?
> [@merefield](#):
>
> A major challenge there would in any case be funding: quite a sizeable piece of work initially and quite expensive to support. If a third party were to develop it it would probably have to be a subscription based product. There would likely need to be a business case.
Yeah, it would need proper business funding (and a lot of it). Besides, where would you theoretically get the funding from? Investors?
> [@Stranik](#):
>
> Maybe forums should be different from social media, as well as from strict Q&A sites? I don’t know, I’m just thinking. What if, for example, a feed is added to Stack Overflow, or discussions are allowed? I think about WP a lot. What happened to him. And do shops on it, and forums, everything. He almost stopped doing well what he started with. However, this does not prevent him from remaining popular.
>
> Maybe forums should remain a forum, social social networks, social networks, and strict questions and answers by them. Let Wikipedia remain, I don’t think there is a desire to make a forum out of it. What happens if mix everything.
>
> I just want to say that they are all different tools. They have different tasks, you can of course make a plane and a submarine out of a tractor, but the tractor will be a bad submarine and a bad plane. The forum (like everything else) can be remade, but it loses focus for what it was created for.
They become more and more similar by the day. Forums will always remain separate, but doesn’t that limit their future?
I don’t think all forums need to be converted per se, but it would be interesting to see what happens if somebody were to build a social media network on top of Discourse. How successful would it be? Well, I guess that depends on a couple different factors… 🙂
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 11:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/75 "2021-10-06T11:29:57Z")
> [@anon73664359](#):
>
> Replying to the ~~post~~ topic from your feed wouldn’t be possible?
My point was the excerpt only shows the OP so it’s not possible to provide a sensible reply action if you can’t read the last reply, let alone the entire topic.
Anything is possible but within the context of how Discourse currently works and the performance trade offs this is a tricky piece of work. Definitely possible though.
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/76 "2021-10-06T21:18:20Z")
I was thinking of something in line with Twitter.
The Google+ approach might be a good compromise though.
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2021, 7:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/77 "2021-10-07T07:02:16Z")
Yeah that was my understanding. Moving even a good subset of post controls to a topic list view is far far from trivial, however. It would be the ‘ultimate’ customisation though, so there’s that! 😅. If someone is prepared to put up the _significant_ funding to do it you can approach us at Pavilion.
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### Author:  [@anon73664359](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon73664359)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2021, 11:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/78 "2021-10-07T11:15:35Z")
_ **Well… 😗 🎶** _
_ **How much would it cost? 😅** _
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Vega](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Justin_Vega)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/79 "2021-10-07T22:58:42Z")
> [@anon73664359](#):
>
> Well, where did Twitter get _ **this** _ from? 🤣
>
> [Twitter launches Communities, its Facebook Groups and Reddit rival | The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/8/22661649/twitter-releases-communities-facebook-groups-reddit-competitor)
>
> Somebody’s been digging up some graves recently…
>
> 
Some more information on that subject (which is worth taking a good look at)…
Here’s my source…
[https://blog.twitter.com/en\_us/topics/product/2021/testing-communities](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/testing-communities)
As a side note, Google+ was a [social layer](https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/social+layer), not a social media network (according to Google themselves).
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### Author:  [@Decorbuz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Decorbuz)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2021, 11:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-as-a-social-media-platform/202133/80 "2021-10-07T23:31:07Z")
One of these themes would probably serve as a great design basis. After all, they both have that little “post” button in the bottom right corner (just like Google+ from late 2015 onward), which can actually be poached separately anyway!
> [@Material Design Theme](https://meta.discourse.org/t/material-design-stock-theme/47142):
>
> discourse2Summary Material Design has been created to be easily customizable.eyeglassesPreview [Preview on Discourse Theme Creator](https://discourse.theme-creator.io/theme/Discourse/material-design-theme)hammer_and_wrenchRepository Link [https://github.com/discourse/material-design-stock-theme](https://github.com/discourse/material-design-stock-theme)open_bookNew to Discourse Themes? [Beginner’s guide to using Discourse Themes](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-using-discourse-themes/91966) Install this theme Features Color Options
> [@Daemonite Material Theme](https://meta.discourse.org/t/daemonite-material-theme/64521):
>
> The Daemonites have released a brand new, native theme for the Discourse forum based on the Google Material design guidelines. [https://github.com/Daemonite/discourse-material-theme](https://github.com/Daemonite/discourse-material-theme)As Flash as a Rat with a Gold Tooth There’s a lot of effort in Materializing a design that didn’t start out that way. We’re happy with the result. Topic Preview Plugin Support Colourful Sub-Categories New Topic; with Inbox inspiration Menus, Buttons and Mater…
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