How can we improve the Forums?

[Sophie_M]

Hi all,

 

This discussion is a space for all members to share suggestions and ideas to improve the Forums. This can be anything. Navigation, notifications, topics and themes, moderation, community rules, or something else!

 

We'd love to hear about what you think we can do better. We are really grateful to everyone who has contributed their ideas already, and we're always keen to hear more. 

 

Kind regards, 

 

Sophie M

 

Please note: 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 

[Sophie_M]

Hi Summer Rose,

Thank you for your support, and welcome to the new Forums!

I’m not tech savvy and none of this is intuitive to me, so please understand that my questions are coming from a low knowledge base. Here goes…

I want to continue conversations with people I was previously talking to, how do I now find those conversations?

Great question. Apologies in advance if you've already found the answer from others on the thread!

You can find all the discussions (threads) you’ve started by clicking “Your discussions” at the top of the page.  'Your discussions' only shows the discussions you've started, but you can click 'Follow Post' at the bottom of other people's discussions to receive notifications from them. We can hear that a lot of you are frustrated with this, and we are prioritising it as an issue to fix when we can. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.  

I want to offer support to new posters to help ensure they are not left waiting, how do I find new posts? 
To ensure I am putting my effort toward those people most in need, how do I know how many people have already responded to their new posts?

The best way to do this is to click on All discussions at the top of your page. On the right-hand side. Once there, check that the results are sorted by “Most recent”. This will show you all the discussions which have recently been posted to. From the list view, you can see a preview of the original post and it will display the date the discussion was started, you have to click on the post to see the full discussion and the latest post. 

We can hear that many would prefer to be able to see who has posted most recently, and when the last post was shared. Some are finding it confusing seeing the date the thread was started. We’ve shared this with our team, and we’re looking into how we can improve. 

We hope that's helpful. It certainly helps us to hear the questions and concerns of everyone here, so thank you for being part of the conversation. 🙂

Kind regards, 

Sophie M 

[Summer Rose]

Hi Sophie

Thanks for your response.  I'm relieved to learn that we are all in the same boat with regard to the inability to continue previous conversations.  Hopefully this will bring some comfort to people who may be hoping or waiting for a response--at least they can understand why the communication may have stopped.

Thanks also for explaining how to find a new post.  Very helpful.  I'm going to give it a go ... fingers crossed!

I'm assuming privacy concerns aren't your wheelhouse.  Are the issues I raised something I could explore with the moderation team?

Kind thoughts to you

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Summer Rose,

Thank you for sharing all of your feedback and your concerns.

With your private stats, for the first time they are being shown to you- but they have been hidden before.  All websites that you go to (whether that be Facebook, Coles, Harvey Norman, Government websites, YouTube) record this information.

There are other sites that will show this to you like Facebook for example, but a lot of it is hidden from users.

One of the benefits of seeing this is for you- so you can see if there's been logins from different devices that aren't yours.  

The benefit for the company/organisation/Beyond Blue is to help keep the forums safe.  So if there is a cybersecurity or hacking incident, all of our IP's might link to a different country.

I hope this makes sense to you.  If you email modsupport@beyondblue.org.au they can help you out as well.

rt

[On The Road]

I think the previous colours are better, just as same as the main page. This is too "white and bright", feeling cold... 

[Summer Rose]

Thank you very much, rt.

The tech sphere and how it works is a mystery to me, and you’ve explained the process and why this type of data collection occurs so well. Very much appreciated.

Can’t say that I like it but now at least I understand it.
You and Sophie are doing a wonderful job answering questions and I’m sorry I added to your load. But as the saying goes, “if you don’t ask, you don’t know”.

Kind thoughts to you

[james1]

I think it would be great if we could see some more posts on a single page, so people don't get missed because they're not on the front page.

[geoff]

Hello All, the post count is in 'My Profile', but who is going to look in another person's 'Profile', I would expect no one, except for that particular person, so I believe it should go back to how it was before.

I understand we wanted the forums to make changes, but there's a saying 'slow and steady wins the race', but we have to realise that when someone who is feeling depressed can't be bothered trying to understand a totally different forums and therefore won't post a comment.

Secondly the aim is not to lose people who don't want to try and take the time to comprehend a new format, the New Posts etc were a great way for people to actually know what is going on, then introduce 'email notifications etc', posts that you or someone else has replied to should be mentioned with the date, whereas in 'All Discussions' all we see is the name of the thread and have to open it to see who has replied.

Post counts should be returned rather than only in my profile, and only having 5 threads posted on one page is not enough, whereas in New Posts the list was endless, people knew where they were, at the moment it's unknown and that's confusing people trying to navigate what to push.

The greatest fear is losing people who really need the help, that's what I am afraid of happening.

Geoff.

[therising]

Thanks Sophie, your care and attention is much appreciated🙂

[geoff]

Hello therising, I really appreciate your reply and do understand that it's all too much far too quickly, at the moment I must be fair and say that anybody wanting to start a new thread is much better, however, I'm sure all the Mods would have been taught how to use this new forum, while us, the volunteers have had to struggle.

All the intentions have been good and money spent, but as I've said as well as many others, New Posts etc need to return, so we can begin to balance some changes.

At the moment I have 15 emails from posts, similar to My Threads, but I will have to look and see how I can be notified only if someone emails me back, rather than 'Email Subscriptions Options' which means I 'check or uncheck', that's not necessarily what I want, what I/We wanted was to be notified if a person has replied back to us and wanted an answer.

Perhaps a model should have been put to those who frequent the forums on a regular basis and get their view.

Geoff.

[quirkywords]

Geoff
thanks for your feedback.

I must be slow as I look in my profile but can not find any post counts. Any ideas ?

Forum users were asked their opinions on the thread about changes to the forum and the ideas were listened to. 
I am hoping I can adapt to the changes but st the moment it is a learning curve. 
thanks to everyone for their feedback.