Maybe @Powerglove can do the magic hat trick once again?
This sounds like an easy task for Powerglove and something he can add to his always-growing to-do list if theymos gives him the green light.
@PowerGlove take a look at this topic!
I'm here, I'm here. 
Yup, this is something that's pretty high up on my list (not that I tend to do things in priority-order, but still). I'm hoping to get to this one before 2024 is over (no promises, though).
There's some background work (not user-facing) that's keeping me pretty occupied at the moment, but once I have most of that behind me, this is probably one of the first things I'll tackle (between now and then I'm going to alternate between the soul-suckingly tedious background work I mentioned, and picking some more low-hanging fruit by doing little micro-improvement patches here and there).
In the meantime, here are my thoughts from the last time this came up:
On-topic: Yep, the profile page/settings could use some attention. I've got some ideas about how to migrate those fixed-label messenger links to something more free-form, but I haven't thought about it deeply. I'll read through the topics logfiles posted, and see what folks have said/suggested in the past.
I've read through the topics helpfully posted by logfiles (thanks, man), and I've looked at the relevant SMF code, and I think I can put together a patch to improve the usefulness of those old fields. It's a little tricky because those fields have been baked into SMF's code without much forward-thinking or extensibility in mind, so I don't think it's wise to keep adding new fields using the current approach (both from a programming point-of-view and in terms of visual clutter). Even though most of those fields now refer to defunct services, I also don't think it's wise to remove any of them (with Bitcointalk, especially when messing with existing functionality, my inclination is to have a conservator/preservation mindset and to steer well-clear of destructive updates).
I think the "Skype" field should probably be moved upwards to sit with the other fields, like this:
Then, I think those 5 field labels could be converted into dropdowns, like this:
That way, everyone's existing field values would remain intact, but people would be free to switch them out for more modern alternatives (and whenever those get out-of-date, adding new choices would be really simple).
There's some extra per-choice stuff to keep track of in the background (an icon, a regex to limit what can be entered, a template to transform what was entered into a link, etc.) and some database adjustments would be needed (I think ~5 new columns on the members table, and 1 new table to catalog the available choices would probably do it).
I'll see what I can come up with in my test environment...
(If anyone has any notes/ideas about this, feel free to either leave them here or PM me about it.)
What about something like this:
- The number of fields, platform names and user input remains the same. This is how existing information is preserved.
- In the Forum Profile Information page a dropdown menu is added next to the defaults to switch with some new ones (Discord, Telegram, etc). This also keeps the same number of contact fields.
- Updating the contact fields should also update the small logo under the user's avatar, displayed in posts.
Yep. That's just about the best way to approach it, IMO.- The number of fields, platform names and user input remains the same. This is how existing information is preserved.
- In the Forum Profile Information page a dropdown menu is added next to the defaults to switch with some new ones (Discord, Telegram, etc). This also keeps the same number of contact fields.
- Updating the contact fields should also update the small logo under the user's avatar, displayed in posts.
I think the "Skype" field should probably be moved upwards to sit with the other fields, like this:
Then, I think those 5 field labels could be converted into dropdowns, like this:
That way, everyone's existing field values would remain intact, but people would be free to switch them out for more modern alternatives (and whenever those get out-of-date, adding new choices would be really simple).
There's some extra per-choice stuff to keep track of in the background (an icon, a regex to limit what can be entered, a template to transform what was entered into a link, etc.) and some database adjustments would be needed (I think ~5 new columns on the members table, and 1 new table to catalog the available choices would probably do it).
I'll see what I can come up with in my test environment...
(If anyone has any notes/ideas about this, feel free to either leave them here or PM me about it.)