Flarum Wallet & Purchasable Features

Reinhard

It would be very useful if Flarum would have a Wallet for members.
Members would be able to fund their Flarum Wallet with through their PayPal account or credit card.
The balance in their Flarum Wallet could then be used to buy purchasable items, transfer amounts to other members or buy an account upgrade for other members.

The admin should be able to set purchasable items. For example:
- use feature X for Y amount.
- post content in node X for Y amount.
- download/access content in node X for Y amount.
- display custom field X for Y time for Z amount.

An important benefit of having this in the core is that addon developers can expand this in a lot of ways. It would give the Flrarum add-on ecosystem an important boost. As it's a financial feature that needs to be trusted and expanded by addon developers it's best to have this functionality in the core. This function would make Flarum more profitable for webmasters as it would open a wide array of monetizing avenues.

Please note that I am not proposing a conventional credits system to reward users, but a financial wallet instead.

ShadowArmadyl

Why not just make this an extension?

Reinhard

ShadowArmadyl It could also be an extension, but it is much better that it is a basic feature of Flarum. And from it are derived many extensions that enhance their capabilities and expand their functions. It should not be an extension, because its purpose is to be part of Flarum. And be a base to monetize and finance your own project.

jordanjay29

Reinhard While I understand this perspective, I'll just remind you (as @Dominion has done previously) that Flarum's philosophy makes a distinction between a core feature and an extension-worthy feature with most falling in the latter category. This even includes such basic Flarum features such as tags, approval & other moderation features and language.

Moreover, I think this feature is outside the scope of Flarum's core featureset, even as a first party/bundled extension. Flarum's aim is to create a community forum, not necessarily to monetize one. This is really best aimed at extension developers to create and extend Flarum beyond its basic purposes.

Reinhard

jordanjay29 Excellent, but I consider that basic features are part of the core. Since it is a base. To create a forum for the community, it must have the basic and necessary tools for the administrator. As a financial tool, a total control from the administration panel, a moderation panel with extensive options.

Exactly my suggestion, is that this option is part of the core, since it would form the necessary basis for developers to expand and work on it. And so it would not clash with the philosophy of Flarum.

Since it seems to me that Flarum is potentially the best forum software, but if it is wasted, if it is to make many features and functions essential to a community be extensions created by developers. This will cause a serious problem, at least from my point of view.

Because every owner of a forum, tries to make sure that your community does not use many extensions. Also if extensions are created by developers, then many essential features for a community, by their importance, can be paid. Imagine you need 15 extensions that offer a language pack, features for the administration panel (which are basic), normal features that is achieved in any other forum software but in Flarum does not exist except as an extension. And in the end you buy 15 different extensions, which can make you spend more than $ 150 USD.

I'd rather pay a license of $ 140 USD for XenForo which has many (essential) features and functions at its core. And it does not need so many extensions for its operation.

Also while a community of forums depends on less amount of extensions much better. Because you may have 15 extensions of different authors installed, but it turns out that in a year or two years, the extensions are no longer supported or tracked by the corresponding developer. You will be obsolete, and you should also communicate with several different developers.

It is true that an extensions market is very essential for forum software, but it should not depend entirely on it.

jordanjay29

Reinhard What you're describing is the antithesis to Flarum's outlook. Just keep that in mind, this request is a more likely candidate for an extension than a core feature.

wwwill

Reinhard Take it like this :
1- XenForo is a HP desktop computer with Windows 10 and many ready-to-use software preinstalled.
2- Flarum is a set of computer parts with a Linux that you have to install yourself in command-line.

One is ready to use and has everything you need, but it has also everything you don't need and that makes it slow. Plus it is an expensive solution.

For the second, you have to set up everything to make it exactly as you want, but it is lightweight and a lot cheaper.

2 different visions.
I tend to the second one more. And that is why I chose Flarum.

Dominion

Reinhard Excellent, but I consider that basic features are part of the core.

I'm sure you would also consider things such as category tags (e.g. Feedback and Features) and subscriptions (that is, the ability to "follow" a discussion and get notifications by email) to be basic features, hence part of the core, yes? After all, a forum script that lacked these features wouldn't be very useful at all ...

Well, you'd be mistaken. Tags and Subscriptions are both bundled extensions. You won't find them in the core code. That means you can disable them if you don't need them, or replace them with something better. And even if you do disable them, the core will still function as a forum; it will merely be lacking those features.

What I'm getting at is this: the term "core" has a very specific, technical meaning in Flarum. If you insist on using it in a different way (e.g., "all the features I consider basic to the kind of forum I want to create") then you will only end up creating barriers to effective communication ... and that will in turn decrease the chance that the features you want ever get built.

... This is what I was trying to caution against in that other thread: you now have seven replies telling you why this feature can't / won't / shouldn't be implemented in the core ... and exactly none discussing the feature you're hoping to see added. That's not progress. Wouldn't you rather be talking about how you want this feature to work?

In any event, we had this other discussion last year about the possibility of creating an extension to support exactly the sort of premium access system you're describing. If you wish to add any concrete ideas or details about how this system should work, please feel free to bring them up over there.

Kakifrucht

Flarum is amazing because of it's lightweightness and very clean core. It is not to be bloated with features.
This is something that doesn't belong in the core at all. One could write this extension, which serves as the core integration API for other extensions, which could then use the API of that core extension to create all the functionality necessary.

I've seen this happening way too much, a good open source project that's clean and lightweight gets bombarded with very specific feature requests and over time, what once was a very clean and neat extendable software becomes unusuable ugly bloatware. It's what happens with way too many open source projects nowadays. The whole Flarum philosophy of mainly providing a great clean and robust API to work with is what makes this Forum most attractive in my opinion. Of course, that is not what everybody wants. But for people who want to have everything already there, without much work from their side, you got your alternatives.

luceos

The bloatware part happens when all specific feature requests are fulfilled.

That sentence alone should give you an idea how fast cool, fast and shiny applications become horrible fat monsters.

Developers, in most cases, love to make the customer base happy and would more than happily agree to add this and that. But how would you feel when user profiles by default would show your sexual preference and the list of sexual preferences would include all possible sexual preferences as properly researched from tumbler ☺

Let's keep this app as clean and extensible as possible. Include security and speed. The featureset is up to the fantastic developers willing to commit to extension development.