Alternate UI for RW Forum

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Are there any plans to provide an alternate UI for the forums?

Personally I enjoy Google+ because of the UI as well as the integration with other communities, tools, and resources.

For me being on G+ is more in alignment with personally “having everything under one roof”

Not to mention I have been in the Google Community since the migration from Glassboard.

If the forums had features akin to Google+ then I would be more apt to spend more time over here. However, I’m not sure i can forsee a future where things like Slack Channels and Google+ are no longer used.

Different tools for different uses.

Cheers!

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Slack is perfect for a closed group / conversation. It is not good for anonymous access, which is given here.

Which exact tools do you think of the (IMHO) limited and not user experience friendly Google+ UI has available, which are missing here?

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I agree that Google+ has a great opportunity for growth as well.

Some of the primarily things I have grown accustom to are:

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I hadn’t considered the Anonymous access as a plus.

I can see why this would be appealing to some members and indeed some people on G+ choose to not use their name or an image of themselves on their profile.

However, I think that the lack of anonymity is actually a plus for me. I find the fact that the majority of users use their actually names to be rather inviting and facilitates the feeling of a shared community. There is a certain amount of vulnerability that is required when posting publicly as yourself.

I’m all for people to have the choice to be anonymous as long as it is not enabling individuals to feel they can speak without accountability.

I’m not saying that I have seen this happen in these forums. Just that people will sometimes act different when they know they are protected by a mask. This can inspire positive interactions for some while enabling negative behavior in others.

This is not a desire for regulation in the slightest. Just an aside about mediums of communication.

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  • Private groups are possible
  • for polls, you are right
  • native iOS app would be nice
  • for me, the cards UI is one of the main things which are completely non-user-friendly for a technical forum like this is. Way to difficult to see all comments. This might be nice for a Facebook like discussion, but not for technical questions. But this is my opinion.

But nevertheless thanks for the details!

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I didn’t realize you count have private groups. How do you do that?

I think that is probably the fundamental difference between the two UI.

The forum has a much more technical feel to it while G+ have a much more social feel.

I for one am big on the social aspect of things so it appeals to me more.

It would be nice if users could choose the feel they would like to have. That way we can accommodate the two different styes of using a forum structured community.