Sharing your post with Facebook - letting your friends know

edanto

There have been a good few times when I've wanted to share something I've written on boards with facebook friends.

Thejournal.ie have this type of functionality, I can tick a box to [ ] Share comment on facebook and then in the Facebook news feed it says 'edanto has commented on Man Bites Dog near Athy on thejournal.ie'

With boards, it would be ideal if it pulled the first 50 words or so of the post to give people a sense of what you said. I think that would encourage a lot of people to click through and read the discussion, making it much easier for boardsies to share boards discussion with the Facebook friends and making the posting experience more social.

Currently, you can share link to the post, but that doesn't pull through any of the actual text of the post, and if someone clicks on it they just see the single post and don't know how to review the rest of the thread if they are new to boards.

To implement it, it could be a Facebook button on each post (like the report button) which generates a link to that post - and a type of link that will allow the facebook bots to pull through a snippet of text.

Boards.ie: Paddy

Thanks for the suggestion, it's an interesting idea. Personally I'm not mad on sharing what I write on message boards with my facebook friends but you're right, this could drive social engagement and open up boards to a whole host of new users.

We're in the process of updating our development plan for the next 12 months at the moment and we'll put this on the (ever growing) stack of new features to consider.

FoxT

Oooh, do not do this, bad, bad, thing!!

If you do this , your privacy policy will read like this:

" everything you post on boards will be posted on Facebook.It will also probably end up on Google+, bebo, and a bunch of other 'social media ' sites over which neither you nor boards.ie have any control.

By posting, You indemnify boards.ie, its wives, husbands, servants, benefactors, shareholders,and associates,from any pain or grief this may cause you. You have no privacy. The boards.ie privacy policy will be subservient to the lowest common denominator of Facebook/bebo/google+/whatever (FBGW) privacy policy at all times. You might want to run it by a barrister before you post, or, easier still, forget about boards.Everything you post on boards will be kept forever & the (FBGW) folks will be able to access & distribute it whenever they want. DOn't be fooled! this policy will apply to anything you post in private forums also. Good luck! "



I have no problem with a per-post opt-in , ie "do you want to post this on FB/twitter/whatever button. "

- FoxT

subway

Boards = anonymous
-1 from myself

edanto

Just to clarify, the share on Facebook idea is opt-in, per post. Not at all affecting privacy.

Purely for things you want to share with you nearest and dearest and not containing any of the contentious code from the current 'like' button mess on the continent.

Malice

I would definitely not be in favour of this. Can't you just do whatever you need to do manually? Copy & paste the post link and text, stick them into Facebook and you're done.

Boards.ie: Danny

edanto wrote: »

Currently, you can share link to the post, but that doesn't pull through any of the actual text of the post, and if someone clicks on it they just see the single post and don't know how to review the rest of the thread if they are new to boards.

You could stop linking directly to showpost.php and link to showthread.php instead to get around this issue.

For example: Clicking on the #2 in Paddy's post you get this link http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=75058520&postcount=2 - When somebody clicks it this links them to the single post.

However, if you change it to http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75058520&postcount=2 it will link them to the post in the actual thread, where unfamiliar boards users are free to scroll up/down to get some context.

subway wrote: »

Boards = anonymous
-1 from myself

You're never anonymous


To be honest with the chatter going on in here it's probably a feature suggestion that should be moved over to Feedback so the boards community can have a little chat about it

edanto

FoxT wrote: »

I have no problem with a per-post opt-in , ie "do you want to post this on FB/twitter/whatever button. "

- FoxT

That is exactly what I'm suggesting. I really have to work on communicating more clearly, I managed to alarm people that thought I was suggesting something completely different.

Danny wrote:

However, if you change it to http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...20&postcount=2 it will link them to the post in the actual thread, where unfamiliar boards users are free to scroll up/down to get some context.

That will work perfectly well, thanks and I'll use it. Most people won't know about it, thought.

Is there a convincing reason why the #2 link currently uses a showpost link instead of a showthread link with a post argument? ie. could it be considered for changing sitewide?

Boards.ie: Danny

Moved from Site Development, more opinions would be desirable

In relation to why the link is for showpost.php - well because the only place you'll find the #<postnumber in thread> link is already on showthread.php, would be a little redundant. We could look at it some time in the future though.

RolandIRL

Not a fan tbh. If it was going to be the "Like" button you see on other sites, it'd mean Facebook would be able to track my history on boards (even i was logged out of FB).

looksee

I have a FB account for one, very limited, reason. Beyond that I hate it! Boards has integrity and I would not like to see that in any way undermined, no matter how many ifs or buts you put in, once FB has a tentacle into the site it will never be the same again. 'Do you want to share this on FB?'

Corsendonk

Just makes it easier for the American and Chinese military to track us.

Orion

Hell no. Facebook is plain evil when it come to privacy. If boards ever had a facebook link I'd become "Closed Account".

Steve

No.

Just no.

Keep boards sacred.

/post.

Zaph

Oh dear god no. We'd be overrun with people who think that facebook is a good thing.

Overheal

If I really badly want to share soemthing from here i can past the thread link on my wall

_blank_

Faceboards -that was an April Fools right? Right?

Gordon

I think boards should be fully integrated into facebook, completely, and I understand that this may take some time, a week under 5 months to be precise.

Sparks

Given the quality of the average post on boards, and the sheer number of posts made per day, I wonder how long it'd take before Facebook would ban Boards.ie feeds for spamming?

But either way, I'd say no. FaceBoards was a funny april fools day joke, but that's about it.