Top 5 Forum Plugins You Can’t Live Without

[Shawn Gossman]

What are the top 5 plugins you can't live without?

Why can't you live without them?

 

[gwolf666]

These 5 plugins are essential tools for anyone who wants to create a high-quality forum

 

[Shawn Gossman]

These 5 plugins are essential tools for anyone who wants to create a high-quality forum

Yep. so... what are your tools?

 

[frm]

I would narrow it down to these 5 (XenForo):

1. As my top, [OzzModz] Contact Us Thread, so that it can create a new thread in a forum of your choice for what someone puts in the Contact us form. This way, you can ensure messages don't get lost/go to spam and don't go unanswered.
2. Change Content Owner or Date - So that you can post from one account and make it use another (for forums that have an Admin that needs to reply vs. your user name). Makes it quicker than logging in/out. I use it on ROFLMAO to change the thread starters (movie, TV series, music) thread owner from the OP to a ROFLMAO official forum account because it's only aggregated content and it shouldn't count towards a user's message count.
3. Anything from @Bob that is fitting to a forum (Link Directory, RMS, Showcase)
4. Custom add on (upgrading to 2.3 now) that allows members to hide forums or threads they don't want to engage with (has options where you can choose which forums can be hidden so that Announcements, or anything important, can't be hidden). I find this an extension, or better, than the ignore feature, because sometimes members don't want to see certain things (NSFW or certain topics for instance) and can hide those without blocking the member across the forum.
5. Custom add on: Locked threads tossed to the back in sorting.
6. ... the rest are really all custom too. If I can't seem to find what works perfectly for me, I have it done. I don't like to settle for 10 features when I only want 2 or 3, nor do I want to be forced to have X work like X when I see that it should work like Y.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I would narrow it down to these 5 (XenForo):

1. As my top, [OzzModz] Contact Us Thread, so that it can create a new thread in a forum of your choice for what someone puts in the Contact us form. This way, you can ensure messages don't get lost/go to spam and don't go unanswered.
2. Change Content Owner or Date - So that you can post from one account and make it use another (for forums that have an Admin that needs to reply vs. your user name). Makes it quicker than logging in/out. I use it on ROFLMAO to change the thread starters (movie, TV series, music) thread owner from the OP to a ROFLMAO official forum account because it's only aggregated content and it shouldn't count towards a user's message count.
3. Anything from @Bob that is fitting to a forum (Link Directory, RMS, Showcase)
4. Custom add on (upgrading to 2.3 now) that allows members to hide forums or threads they don't want to engage with (has options where you can choose which forums can be hidden so that Announcements, or anything important, can't be hidden). I find this an extension, or better, than the ignore feature, because sometimes members don't want to see certain things (NSFW or certain topics for instance) and can hide those without blocking the member across the forum.
5. Custom add on: Locked threads tossed to the back in sorting.
6. ... the rest are really all custom too. If I can't seem to find what works perfectly for me, I have it done. I don't like to settle for 10 features when I only want 2 or 3, nor do I want to be forced to have X work like X when I see that it should work like Y.

I guess you heard that Ozzy has retired from the mod making business now!