Useless features that you disable

What are features that you have dubbed "useless" and therefore disabled? On some forums I disable the "Similar Threads" feature and the "Forum Jump" I also remove the "Forum Posting Rules" (BB Code is allowed, HTML is not allowed, IMG code is on, etc.) from the appropriate template.

What are some that you don't particularly find useful?

 

I also dump the Forum Jump and Rules. Although I do add a bottom breadcrumb navigation like you have (I include the next and previous links with it). The biggest feature I disable is the social networking. One of my competitors convinced me I made the right decision when their own forum was upgraded to a version of ning that has social networking. It took a little while, but their forum participation suffered terribly. It was not a very busy board to begin with and now they're lucky to have a half dozen new posts every day.

I also don't use the thread rating system except on the articles discussion forum - it's designed to rate the article that was posted elsewhere.

The infraction system is out too - I never liked that system because it permanently mars a member and the member and staffers can see it every time they go into the infraction area or user CP. I don't care that they expire. If they really did expire, it would be purged from the system entirely. They don't, it's always a reminder.

And finally, the reputation system is disabled too. It may be just an old guy thing, but I have no use for any popularity games. I hate seeing some people on forums with big reputations and small personalities (or given bad rep because they are more forthright in their opinions than others - or didn't kiss enough ass). And the system is also weighted unfairly toward staff - not only in how much they can give, but in how much they can get. I prefer to use other methods to reward members.

Jim

 

found your post helpful! :lol:

:thumbup:



We don't have the infraction system for the exact reasons you mentioned. I do find the rep to be a nice thing so people can give a quick thank you without waking up a 2 year old thread, for example threads on vB.com.


We use vB, visitor messages work ok thanks to the mod that Nick provided. :thumbup:

But the publicly joinable usergroups, social groups, and a few other things are turned off.

 

I disable the forum jump box and the reputation system also.

 

Post moderation. With SFS there's no need for it.

I ended up disabling karma (reputation) on Elliquiy, primarily due to one person's abuse of it.

 

i dont use rep...or that friends thing...we all know each other and if we dont know you...we will soon. ;-)

 

On vBCodex, I don't currently have anything disabled. I should probably disable social groups but no one uses it anyway.

Most sites I have worked on in the past though, I disable reputation. Though I remember porting UBB's reputation system to vBulletin in the old days and releasing it before vBulletin.org existed, I found it wasn't a good system. Later a user by the name of Overgrow asked if he could update it for later versions and I gave permission. It was his updates that were eventually integrated into the main system. One of the few modifications from vBulletin.org that the developers ever integrated directly into the system. I only use it on vBCodex because of the helpful answers plugin. Otherwise, I found it led to infighting or inflated positive or negative reputations as people always targeted friends and enemies.

 

We disabled reputation. It wouldn't be very useful on our site and it would just lead to a bunch of useless positive or negative marks against users based on whether a user likes another user or not.

We also disabled the infraction system. I really, really don't like that at all. I understand it's usefulness on some sites, but we really don't have a lot of problem users and I'd rather handle them individually instead of through the impersonal infraction system. I've found that most issues can be resolved through a PM from a mod or admin and they get resolved in a friendly manner.

 

I disabled the reputation because of abuse.

The similar threads feature was disabled to reduce server load.

I disabled the forum jump, and my members had a fit. Enough people complained that I finally turned it back on.

 

Hmm, I have to say I disable the star system. I don't like it.

 

All the SN stuff, we have absolutely no use for it at all.