Users Contacts need to go: just improve the Friends functionality (with Grouping)
 

As explained in depth already in this now closed thread:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?252029-[3-7]-Contact-list-is-flawed

... the Contact List is definitely flawed. It has been reported and discussed 2 years ago and vB has not improved on any level regarding this important issue. Important* why? Because* vBulletin wants to be the most powerfull community software ( if you are sensitive to this marketing outings) and the market just needs vBulletin to become more social. That was obvious years ago* but still vB4 hasn't done much to improve on this compared to vB 3.8.

The bottom line is this: Contacts are simply redundant. We have Friends now* and providing both Friends and Contact to our users is... confusing. It serves no purpose whatsoever anymore in my view (apart from the fact that you set privacy options for both Friends and Contacts). What we do need* however is this:

Grouping of Friends

If we can group our Friends* like this for example:

Groupname: Moderators
Nick* Sylvia* John* Mr. Cleese

Groupname: Programmers
Peter* Cathy* Frank* Chris

Groupname: Colleagues
Hans* Neil* Dusty* Trevor

... we have much better functionality to organize our Friends. We can then construct our own 'Contacts' Group if we want and if vBulletin would make it possible to set privacy options on custom friends groups* it would make it much more flexible.

And if vBulletin would make it possible to PM a Group* then it would be bliss* because then it will finally become possible to PM a group of people all at once!


Look also at the overview of your Contacts & Friends in your Settings:

Attachment 40136

Quote:
Apparently* Scott is the only person in my list who is not a Friend. Well... it is not that obvious is it in this long list of Friends? vBulletin doesn't provide any way to sort this view by Friends or Contacts.

Really* this needs to be improved. Dish the difference between Contacts and Friends. We only needs Friends and they need to be Grouped by Groups the enduser can create for themselves.

Support please...:)
Attached Images

• http://vb.ma7room.com/jpg.gif contacts & friends.jpg‎ (74.8 KB)