How can we improve the forums? Your suggestions and comments please

[Chris_B]

Hi all, this thread is a running commentary for all members on things for improvements to the forums. This can be anything from how it looks, the categories, to moderation, community rules etc.

While we might not be able to implement everything straightaway, or keep everyone happy all of the time, we'd like to hear about what you think we can do better.

This is not a thread for discussing the moderation or editing of individual posts - if you have questions about this please contact the team offline via email modsupport@beyondblue.org.au

To avoid repeating suggestions already received, below are some results from our last user survey giving an indication of which new features people would like to see on the forums. This survey was answered by 1,597 users:

44% - Email notification when I have a reply on the forum
39% - Access to the forums via an app
27% - Ability to block seeing posts by specific users
25% - Ability to contact users privately
25% - Ability to use emoticons
25% - Ability to follow posts by specific users
24% - Ability to share links
23% - Forum posts visible only to registered users
22% - A profile, viewable by others users, where I can introduce myself
21% - Ability to quickly access all posts by a particular user
15% - Ability to tag users in a conversation
10% - Ability to share images
6% - Ability to share videos
17% - None of these

Update July 2022 - This discussion has now been closed. Please go to the updated version below to share feedback and follow our updates:

How can we improve the Forums?

[blondguy]

Hi That Other Guy!

Thankyou for helping out with your input

Sending email notifications isnt in the budget unfortunately as Beyond Blue is a non profit organization. It has been mentioned many times over the years. It is still a matter of physically checking/refreshing to view your replies

Cheers

Paul (Volunteer)

[mmMekitty]

I know & appreciate we are going to have an upgrade soon...however, recently, it has come to my attention how few of us have any knowledge of this marvellous 'smart' technology we use... so, in some future update, or even in between, 😺 can we have something like a IT Support Forum - complete with an expert to help us when some difficulty with the basic technology we use or when something 'weird' happens while using the website?

& I also came across a Thread, from The Other Guy, asking, "So I notice there are no specific forums for neuro diverse people? Where are my aspies at? I feel like it would be great to talk about the struggles with being non neurotypical in a dedicated forum?"

I think that is a very reasonable request & would be a good idea for the forum.

& the other night, when I discovered this site was down for maintenence, firstly - can we hav some warning this will happen, say, a banner message at the top of the page for a few days prior to the 'outage', saying from when to when the site will be unavailable. The message I saw on my screen didn't say when the site would be available again. I found that annoying, but imagine some people might feel very upset about it, especially when it's late at night, & the emotions may be high already.

Thanks again.

mmMekitty

[britishtvfan]

i think it would be good if we could be notified by email or something (& opt out if we wish) when the site is undergoing maintenance. or if the site does have maintenance, i think the webchat support should still be available, even if the forums aren't. some people may feel comfortable just using BB web chat or forums, such as the fact that someone pretty much talks to you straight away on the webchat rather than waiting hours. they may prefer BB webchat over other helplines, i don't know. it's frustrating randomly coming on here to see it undergoing maintenance randomly for hours. i can understand when you will be making the new changes because this has already been posted. i understand things may glitch etc & you need to fix them, but just a suggestion.

[mmMekitty]

Please note, the Thread I fround was from 'That Other Guy', not 'The...'. I'm sorry for this error.

mmMekitty

[blondguy]

Hey mmMekitty

You have mentioned a good point about forum maintenance notifications as the bulk of members dont see the the message that Beyond Blue post as they 'presume' all the members see it when of course they dont

Its only my humble opinion that the forum maintenance notification is somewhat generic and doesnt take peoples mental health into account..yet.... Beyond Blue probably dont have the ability (budget) to send a blanket email to all members either. I dont know....probably as there is a lack of transparency as well...maybe?

What are 'neuro diverse people'? I dont know what that means mmMekitty....I must be getting old!

I hope you have doing as well as possible kitty 🙂

Paul

[geoff]

Hello mmMekitty, completely agree with you because problems do arise as I mentioned in the cafe, hich actually didn't happen while replying, but unfortunately have once again happened

mmMekitty said:

I know & appreciate we are going to have an upgrade soon...however, recently, it has come to my attention how few of us have any knowledge of this marvellous 'smart' technology we use... so, in some future update, or even in between, 😺 can we have something like a IT Support Forum - complete with an expert to help us when some difficulty with the basic technology we use or when something 'weird' happens while using the website?

& I also came across a Thread, from The Other Guy, asking, "So I notice there are no specific forums for neuro diverse people? Where are my aspies at? I feel like it would be great to talk about the struggles with being non neurotypical in a dedicated forum?"

I think that is a very reasonable request & would be a good idea for the forum.

& the other night, when I discovered this site was down for maintenence, firstly - can we hav some warning this will happen, say, a banner message at the top of the page for a few days prior to the 'outage', saying from when to when the site will be unavailable. The message I saw on my screen didn't say when the site would be available again. I found that annoying, but imagine some people might feel very upset about it, especially when it's late at night, & the emotions may be high already.

Thanks again.

mmMekitty

Take care.

Geoff.

[blondguy]

Hey robthomaslover....Geoff...mmMekitty

you are spot on when you mentioned ' i think it would be good if we could be notified by email or something' You and I were posting at the same time 🙂

I dont know if it helps...I mentioned above "Beyond Blue probably dont have the ability (budget) to send a blanket email to all members"...Anyhow...if you want to have look its in my post above to mmMeKitty

Its always great to see you on the forums robthomaslover 🙂

Nice1

Paul

[mmMekitty]

Hi Paul,& everyone,

Good to see That Other Guy is already educating someone! I'll try a simple explanation.

Neuro-diverse people are people primarily are people on the autism spectrum, which includes people with Asperger's Syndrome. These are are a very diverse group of people, themselves. Neurodiverse refers to how people think atypically, have, perhaps, a disconnect with the world, like it doesn't quite fit... maybe... I find it hard to explain.

I know this is an insufficient description, by no means complete. There's lots of info online, so may I suggest some google research.

Indeed I think the line between neurodiverse & neurotypical is becoming blurred all over the spectrum! My own quick search & I wonder if I'm neurodiverse, & not diagnosed with any condition like ADHD or Asperger's Syndrome. The term seems to include more people than I thought, as well.

I've met a few people who are, & they are all different in their own ways.The neurodiverse are as diverse as the neurotypical are all different individuals, too.

There are still far more neurotypical people than neurodiverse people.

I hope that Forum for Neurodiverse People is built soon!

mmMekitty

[Matchy69]

I have Autism and so do two of my children and have a thread dealing with this and have seen other threads dealing with Autism.

[mmMekitty]

Hello Matchy 😺I'm happy to see you again.

Would you be interested in having a section for our Neuro-diverse members?

(my spell checker prefers 'Neuro-diverse' with a hyphen.)

mmMekitty