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 

[Not_Batman]

I must admit, i found the new forum layout very user unfriendly compared to the old format.

i found it difficult to navigate, and i couldn't readily see the posts i had often commented on (favourites), or what posts i had already commented on, si was afraid of posting the same comment on the same post.

this is mostly why i haven't posted in a long while. I’m a tech savvy person, but changes seemed to be less productive than they ought to have been.

Not_Batman

[Summer Rose]

Hi Not Batman

Thank you so much for letting us know why you haven’t been around much. I used to really benefit from your posts and enjoyed reading them. Since the upgrade I’ve been wondering about what happened to many people who are less visible or that I just can’t find any more.

The absence of familiar voices and community members is really sad. 
I’ve also struggled adapting to the changes, so please know that you are not alone. My only suggestion would be to reach out to bb for help with specific issues. I’ve thought about doing this myself but haven’t gotten around to it, as I feel embarrassed to be such a technological dinosaur! I just muddle along.

Anyway I hope you can get to a more comfortable place that enables you to participate.

Kind thoughts to you 

[Not_Batman]

Hello Summer Rose.

i’m trying to be patient with the change, and work my way through it. I’m glad to know that I'm not the only one.

[Sophie_M]

Hi mmMekitty,

Thanks for getting back to us on the suggestion of including more images. You make a very good point – accessibility is a priority here. If a new feature like this couldn’t be adapted to meet our accessibility standards, we wouldn’t go ahead.

We’re sorry to hear of the issues you’re having with some of the existing graphics and people’s profile pictures. I’m sharing this info with the project team to see if they can make some improvements here. The team are currently looking into how they can improve the word count issue – so I will pass on the extra detail here to them, too. We’re really grateful that you’ve fed this back to us, and also for your patience.

We’re sorry your notifications aren’t behaving as we’d hoped. It could be worth popping into your notification settings and turning everything on for a short time, and then gradually turning each notification off to see if you can isolate the issue. Another option is to email modsupport@beyondblue.org.au so that we can look into this further.

Thanks again for everything you’ve shared here, mmMekitty. It is so appreciated, as are you. 😊

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[Sophie_M]

Hi Not_Batman,

Thank you for sharing this and letting us know of the impact it’s having on you being able to share to the Forums.

It sounds like navigation is proving quite tricky, especially finding discussions you used to follow. It is possible to find a list of the discussions you follow. Click on your profile in the top right corner, click on settings from the pop-up Menu. Scroll down to Follows & Notifications, then Discussions you follow. We hope that’s helpful, but we also hear you and understand it’s been generally a bit more tricky to participate. As Summer Rose has said, we’d really love to help, and we welcome emails to modsupport@beyondblue.org.au where we can give some more specific advice and even access the account with you to see if the settings could be adjusted.

Thank you, Summer Rose, that’s very well said. We do understand it’s a huge adjustment and we really thank you both, and everyone on this discussion, for your patience and perseverance.

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[Summer Rose]

Hi everyone 

I’m experiencing some problems with the site and looking for solutions.

I don’t receive notifications when someone posts in a thread I’m participating on. I only receive notifications if someone likes something I’ve posted. Yes, I’ve checked my settings. 
So, to make sure I don’t miss something I’ve been using my Profile page because discussions are listed there and it updates when someone posts to a thread. But not all my discussions are there … they drop off for some reason. So, I am finding threads where people are talking to me only by accident when scrolling through All Discussions.

I would really like to be able to respond to people in a timely fashion. Frustrated because it shouldn’t be this hard but have no idea what I’m doing wrong.

Any one else having problems like this? Have you found any solutions?

Kind thoughts to you 

[Paw Prints]

Hi Summer Rose

I have the exact same problem with notifications & like you am using my profile page as a stop gap.

Paws

[Summer Rose]

Paw Prints

Good to know it’s not just me. But be careful because the list on my Profile changes—I can’t trust the information.

Kind thoughts to you

[Sophie_M]

Hey Summer Rose and Paw Prints,

Thank you both for sharing that this is an ongoing issue for you, and the added detail around the workarounds not working consistently either. We can hear that is frustrating and we're sorry for that. Our team continue to work on this, so we'll keep passing the information on to them. We're keen to see this improved, and really appreciate you sharing here so that others who are having the same problem can hear your ways of getting around it.

Thanks again, both of you. If you ever want to send extra detail to modsupport@beyondblue.org.au about this or any other platform issues, you're very welcome. Please rest assured in the meantime we are collecting and sharing all the insights you have already shared with us, and hope the team have some luck with this soon.

Kind regards, 

Sophie M 

[OdliDPrincess]

This is extremely lovely! Keep up the good job!