Michelle from Shell Multimedia has put together a great Social Network Playground using various modules to build up user profiles. The site uses Drupal 5 and looks very nice and polished. Michelle provides a list of modules used on the site, and I will analyze her list in preparation for a similar site I am in the process of building.

Admin Menu

I did not get to try this one out on the playground, being only a humble user. The description on D.o leads me to believe the module speeds up Drupal administration. This may be true, but a familiar interface can be just as fast as an optimized one, and I often access frequently used ares by simply typing in the URL. This is probably not a module I will use.

Advanced Forum

This is a fairly new module, written my Michelle, that does a lot toward making a Drupal forum look more like a traditional forum. It adds user details on the left next to each post which seems rather useful. There may be more functionality added later. I will put this on my list to try after I get a few more things out of the way.

Advanced Profile

This is another module written by Michelle. It seems to expand the panels module to enable users to customize their profile a good deal. At any rate, the user profiles over at the playground work a lot like I want my site to work, so installing this module will be a high priority for me.

Avatar Gallery

There is no doubt this module would be fun. It gathers up all the user avatars and shows them all in a big block. There is no real added benefit unless it encourages users to customize their avatars, so I may put off installing this module for a while.

Avatar Selection

As I stated before I would like it if users uploaded a picture of their own choosing to use as an avatar, but I will likely have a number of less technical users. This module would allow me to have a number of avatars handy in case the user would rather choose than upload. again this is not a crucial module but one I may come back to later.

Bio

This module looks to be the one that makes everything happen. It allows each user to create a single bio node. It also seems to be quite flexible in configuration. This is probably the first module that I will try out on my site.

Buddylist

This is another must-have module. It is especially nice that it works with the invite module as I will be using that one as well. Everybody likes buddies!

BUEditor

I suppose I will need a WYSIWYG module. This one seems to be ok. It's not that I hate them or anything, more like I just ignore them. I hear other people like them, though. If it does not slow down the site too much and works alright then I will use it.

CCK

Any site with reasonable complexity will likely need the content Construction Kit. It is a straightforward module that allows you to create new node types. There is really no reason not to have it.

Comments Page

This looks nice. It lists all of a user's comments on a single page. There is also an option to list all comments which could be useful. I think this is one to try.

Devel

I guess it all depends on whether I am using the old and buggy Zend Optimizer. I may end up doing some development and if so I may give this a try.

Flatcomments

I don't know. I always liked the ability to reply to either a comment or the main post, but I can certainly see how this could confuse people, especially when comments are wordy or there are many. I will think about it.

Link

This is a pre-configured field type for CCK. It should be helpful for allowing the users to link to their website in their profile. I will give it a try.

LoginToboggan

I have always been curious about this module, and logging into Social Network Playground for the first time certainly was smooth. Anything that can be done to make user registration easier is a good thing.

Mail Editor

Not sure if the subscriptions module depends on this.

Panels

This could be useful in a slightly complex site even if the Advanced Profile module was not being used. It allows you to divide up areas on a page. Looks like I am in.

Privatemsg

A site like I want to build really does need private messaging capability. This is one of my top priorities.

Quote

This is the standard feature that you find on forums used to quote from a previous post. The default is to quote the entire post. Seems to work well but I probably won't install it unless folks really want it.

Signatures For Forums

I don't know, don't you really get tired of seeing that same block of poetry over and over again? I don't wanna.

Subscriptions

This is an important feature, members are much more likely to return if the receive notification of new comments. It is highly crucial to have spam prevention firmly in place before you enable this module.

Update Status

Maybe, maybe not. It's pretty obvious that I will have a metric whack of modules installed on this site, and I would not want to fall behind on the security updates. On the other hand, the Drupal security mailing list does a pretty good job of notification. Another one to think about.

User Badges

This looks like fun. Hopefully I will have some moderator help and it would be good to give them a fancy icon. Sure.

User Titles

Another fun thing, this time to reward frequent posters with a fancy title. Entirely necessary.

Usernode

I am sure I will find a use for this. Similar to the Bio module, it allows for a single, automatically created node when a user signs up.

User Points

Who does not like earning points? This is a great way to make a member feel valuable right from the start.

Views

I have heard of people who use Drupal without installing Views, and they are much better people than I. This one is a yes.

This is a real good start on the research for what I need to get my social website going. There are a few more modules that I will need. I plan to allow photos, but I am not sure if there will be uploads directly to the site or integration with Flickr. The rest will come as we go along.