New community forum feedback

[#1]

dynoman wrote:

Sorry but i have tried now for a couple of days to get acclimatised the the new forum, but i have to say that i think the new layout and format of the forum is absolutely dreadful. Its messy and confusing to navigate your way round.

Maybe i will get used to it but at the moment it's a thumbs down from me sorry.

Sorry to be a grumpy old downer perhaps i'm just getting old 🙂

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... have to say I felt a bit the same at the outset.  There doesn't seem the same degree of cohesion that there was on the original Comm Site forum - there, if you clicked on a very recent topic, you went straight to the most-recent update on that thread - here you often seem to have to scroll down the last page to get to the last entry.

Regarding the look-and-feel of the place - curiously, I like it rather more now than I did on the first day.  It needs to lose the extra-space-everywhere and make navigation more direct, but in a lot of ways it seems more friendly and pro-active.

A comment I *would* make, though, is that it could really do with a "like" button as well as "thanks".  I've come across quite a few witty posts where the instinct is to put a "like", but "thanks" really doesn't fit.  Likewise where someone makes a point with which one agrees strongly, but again "thanks" infers the receipt of useful information, which again doesn't apply.

This is not a suggestion that "likes" be totalled up and broadcast on the main page, as "thanks" are - rather that they would be a way of signifying broader agreement about an issue, or acknowledging that the post is liked in some other way.  Not everyone can come up with "solutions", but knowing that someone out there actually likes whatever it was that was posted, is something that would strengthen involvement for many people (aside from the most-technical, perhaps, who may well get "thanks" for a large proportion of what they post).

Meanwhile I know things are a bit haywire just now because of all the various bugs that have surfaced (there's a bugs-thread with about four pages so far), but hopefully all that will get sorted out within the next few days.

Regards,

Penny.

[#2]

Hi Penny,

Like & Thanks is yet another of the considerations we discussed at length during the pre-release trial.  It used to say "Thanks" and is reported as "Thanks".  We found ourselves "Thanking" things we "Liked" or agreed with.  So we concluded that the word "Thanks" should be removed and replaced with a "Thumbs-up" effectively saying "I appreciate your post - either as in thank you or I like it".  The system does not have separate counters for like & thanks available.

The other points you commented on were also fully discussed - shall I say we won our arguments on some matters but not others?

One of the last changes were these much improved similes.

As for getting to the first unread post, I rather feel that the DEFAULT user settings are wrong - go to settings (click you usename top right) preferencies - linear layout and select go to first unread post.

It is an easy and obvious setting to find ... NOT!

[#3]

Bob did point that setting out in another post. I think someone else did too. This should all be in the FAQ which I've had a bit of a moan about.

[#4]

@Penny
I've thanked people for posts I've liked even if they were not exactly technical.

[#5]

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@Townman wrote:

Hi Penny,

Like & Thanks is yet another of the considerations we discussed at length during the pre-release trial.  It used to say "Thanks" and is reported as "Thanks".  We found ourselves "Thanking" things we "Liked" or agreed with.  So we concluded that the word "Thanks" should be removed and replaced with a "Thumbs-up" effectively saying "I appreciate your post - either as in thank you or I like it".  The system does not have separate counters for like & thanks available.

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thanks for the detailed explanation : ) 

If the system doesn't allow for separate options for like/thanks, and the thumbs up is intended to enable both, then the alt text should say "like/thank" rather than "click here to give thanks to this post".

The main page says "Top Thanked Authors" - needs to be changed to something like "Top Rated Authors" or some such.

... and the "Thanks:4" total (or whatever) displayed by each individual post, needs to change to something like "Notable Posts:4" (or "Rated Posts:4" or whatever).

Don't have an issue with the thumbs-up being designed to cover both thanks/like, so long as there is proper follow-through so that it can actually work as intended : /

[#6]

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@Anotherone wrote:
@Penny
I've thanked people for posts I've liked even if they were not exactly technical.

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Thanks for the reply : )

I do recognise that all that were involved in setting all this up, or who have posted a lot here, know that thanks/like are both intended - however it's not immediately obvious to yer-average-user and the three factors I've flagged up above, simply need to be changed so that the wording conveys the intended usage more accurately.

[#7]

I suspect you will find that most people don't really care, I think it's nice that people are doing it though.

[#8]

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@Anotherone wrote:

I suspect you will find that most people don't really care, I think it's nice that people are doing it though.

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... actually I think it can be an important part of community-building, but it needs to be an involvement that everyone can be part of, that's all.

[#9]

I've found that thanking people for posting something, providing it's sensible to do so of course - ie the post is informative, constructive, something you like or agree with - it encourages people to thank back. Now dvorak will come along and call me a rate tart as he did townman

[#10]

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Penny wrote:

If the system doesn't allow for separate options for like/thanks, and the thumbs up is intended to enable both, then the alt text should say "like/thank" rather than "click here to give thanks to this post".

The main page says "Top Thanked Authors" - needs to be changed to something like "Top Rated Authors" or some such.

... and the "Thanks:4" total (or whatever) displayed by each individual post, needs to change to something like "Notable Posts:4" (or "Rated Posts:4" or whatever).

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The system allows for separate Thanks and Kudos but we (the preview team) felt having both was confusing so the latter is suppressed. Personally I feel that is appropriate.

I support the suggestion to change the alt text to "click here to like/give thanks to this post".

To avoid long phases I suggest "Likes" in place of "Thanks" in the post originator panel.

Some changes might be appropriate on the main page but I need to give more thought to that.

[#11]

i have been on this new thingy for a ferw days now , and must say i much prefer the old version .

Even tho it was tested there seem to be several problems being brought up , The default settings are not intutative so you have to take time to search through your settings to get forum working as before

ridiculous amount of wasted space on screen

its not to easy to see new posts , like the old forum new posts were highlighted on heading of post , now its just a number on right .

The silly fixed green tick is a waste of time , i confuses people the problem is fixed but you still can add posts ?

And the default Email setting need to be Binned !! 

Reply to thread ??  i just see a reply to last poster .

Basically i think it  just aweful , badly thought out , and not tested enough

[#12]

We've been harping on about the waste of space for some time. Eventually somebody may take some notice!

Now I'm getting used to it, there are several useful features that we didn't have on the old forum, but there are some features missing here that we are pressing to be provided.

What default settings are you having a problem with?

As far as replying goes, you can "reply" to any of the posts (and then quote as much of it if/as you want). The advantage of replying to a particular post is that if you contribute to a thread, you don't have to "subscribe" to replies to the whole thread. You can just subscribe to replies to particular posts, possibly just your own. There are pro's and cons at the moment, but finding ones way around is important and when (if ) we can get it bashed into more of the shape we want, it could be more promising.

I presume that you've discovered that if you click the > on the RHS of the Unread Topics/Posts modules on the Home page it takes you to a more detailed listing, or you can use the quick links at the bottom of the page. Similarly for the Recent Topic/Latest Posts and the link on Latest Posts go straight to the post.

Edit: And of course there are several things you can get to from the Fly-out menu at the top.

[#13]

Has it been raised that there's no longer a date/time next to 'last post' in the forum list? Just another useful feature of the old forum where you could decide whether there was anything new in a forum since you last visited and worth looking.

Apologies if it has been I just can't face scrolling through all those pages of white space to find out.

[#14]

I may not be looking at the right thing atm, which page exactly are you looking at?
All the ones I've just looked at have date and time BUT if you aren't logged in, you do get a number of pages showing "relative" dates like "yesterday", "5 hours ago". You can change your default logged-in settings if you want.

[#15]

I'm looking a the forum index here https://community.plus.net/t5/Forum/ct-p/Forum

It's just giving me the subject of the last post, no date or time. Am logged in.