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 

[PandoranMama]

While I find the basics of this forum pretty easy to navigate, having been on forums for many years in my time online, there are some things that I find to be kinda counterintuitive to how the forums are run.

The two main things that I find to be a bit confusing for some people are things to actually do with the rules for participating in the forum. I agree and abide to them, but a few tweaks to certain things could probably help with such confusion.

1. Links — they are something that is not allowed to be posted on the forum, per the rules, but the text box to reply has a button that allows people to insert links into their text. While I know this is probably either a, "we can't remove it from the box" or a "we didn't know" situation, I just thought I would point out that, if able, removing it would lessen the chance of links being posted in replies. I ended up being confused by it, as it contradicted the rules, and so I posted a link — which was to a dictionary definition of an acronym — only for it to be removed.
2. Reply Button — having a reply button on every post in a thread is confusing, especially when all it does is end up replying to the thread at large. I will admit that the fact there is a reply button on every post had me believing that if I clicked the button on a specific post, it replied to that post specifically, and because of that, two of my posts got removed because I was accused of trying to work around the character limit, when that was not the case. I had simply replied to the main thread, and then went to reply to a post I saw afterwards, that I thought I could give some helpful info to. Removing the button on every post and having a single reply box at the bottom of the page may be much more straight forward, but also being able to quote other people could help with replying to specific comments.

These are the two things that have stuck out to me in the few days I have been here. If anything else pops up, I'll be sure to post again.

[OgresHaveLayers]

I have only just become a member and am not finding it hard to navigate, I guess because I am not used to the old layout. Something I think could be a good idea is an option to suggest new threads. I saw someone else mentioned they have a chronic illness which I have too and it contributes quite a lot to my depression, so something there would be good. This is a difficult one as it can go be both over and under eating but something for eating disorders.

I really do like the fact we have these forums. I am finding it very settling to see what other people are going through and being able to offer support to them.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hi all,

So far, I think the new forum - now I'm used to it - is a neater and more functional improvement on the old one. Good work on the upgrade. I do have a couple of suggestions re character limits, though. Firstly, please bring back the thing the old forum had that tells you as you go how many characters you have left - I find it really stressful not knowing when I'm approaching or passing the limit, then getting the notification over and over that I've gone over as I edit it bit by bit, but I don't know how much I have to pare it back by. I've come up with a workaround for that, which is to copy my post into a document and perform a word count on it, which also tells me how many characters it is (many of our members may either not know how to do this or not have the energy - it really wears me down to do it).

This brings me to my second point, which is that posting on the forum has a 2500 character limit, but when I do my character counts in a document I am finding my posts are only 2350 characters and still getting rejected based on being over the limit, which they are clearly not. I've seen others mention that the same is happening to them. Please fix this, I'd like to be able to use the whole character limit and be a bit less confused about how much to cut my posts back by!

Thanks,

Blue.

[Summer Rose]

Hi bb team

How are you going with fixing the issue where some community members don’t receive notifications when others post on a thread they are participating on? Or, am I the only person still experiencing this?

I realise you must have a lot on your plate but the absence of these notifications makes participation challenging.

Kind thoughts to you 

[Paw Prints]

Hi Summer Rose,

I'm still not receiving notifications either... 

Paws

[quirkywords]

Welcome ogreshavelayers. What an interesting name.

maybe if I had joined with the new forum I would be finding it difficult at times. I find I only post a fraction of what I did before.

Thanks everyone for you feedback. I get a notification and find the latest post was mon5bs ago. has anyone found that too.?

[Sophie_M]

Hi PandoranMama,

Thank you for sharing your feedback and suggestions with us. We really appreciate these points. 

“Links - they are something that is not allowed to be posted on the forum, per the rules, but the text box to reply has a button that allows people to insert links into their text.”
Thank you for letting us know about this. Really good point - we’ve shared this with the team who can look into fixing it.

“Reply Button - having a reply button on every post in a thread is confusing, especially when all it does is end up replying to the thread at large.”
This is a really interesting insight and we’re looking into this. We’re sorry that your posts were removed when you were simply trying to continue a conversation - that’s our error and has been reviewed and corrected. It sounds like there’s a bit more work for us to do in figuring out how to display replies - thank you so much for letting us know so that we can share it with the team and make some improvements.

Thank you so much for being part of the Forums, PandoranMama, and for helping us to make them easier to use and more functional - we see your awesome posts and we really appreciate you. 🙂

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[Sophie_M]

Hey OgresHaveLayers, Clues_of_Blue, Summer Rose, Paw Prints and quirkywords,

“Something I think could be a good idea is an option to suggest new threads. “ - OgresHaveLayers
We love this! The Forums structure is something we’re really interested in feedback on, and we’d love to review it sometime next year to make improvements like this. This is such a good suggestions and would work so much better with how so many of you use the Forums! Thank you for sharing this.

Hey Blue,
We hear you about the character limit. How frustrating! Thank you for your patience on this, we’re sorry it’s still going on. The short answer is we’re working on it. The longer story is that it’s a bit of a complicated issue, but it is high on our priorities so we’ll keep working on a fix in the New Year. We’ll try to share some more regular updates of our progress with this, too.

Hey Summer Rose, Paw Prints and quirkywords,
Thanks for checking in about notifications and letting us know this is still an issue. We’re going to pop a response up for everyone to see next just to touch on this.

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[Sophie_M]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for sharing these points here. It’s really important for us to hear what you’re experiencing on the Forums so that we can keep improving things.

Here are some of the issues we’re currently working on.

Notifications
This is the top priority for us right now, as we know it can make keeping up with important conversations difficult. The Beyond Blue project team are working with our external provider to fix this, but it is a complicated issue and will take some time. We’ll keep you posted on our progress into the New Year. In the meantime, we've heard of some temporary solutions. If you haven’t yet, please try:

• Checking your Notification settings to make sure everything is switched on.
• Hitting Follow whenever you come across a post, thread or topic you’d like to hear about.
• Manually checking the conversations you’re part of by going to your Profile.

Character Limit
There’s a problem with our character counter, which sometimes stops posts that are under the character limit from being accepted. It’s our second priority! In the meantime, it’s best to stay well under the limit. If you’re not able to post and are under the limit, please try posting in two posts, and then using the Report button to ask the moderators to combine your posts or make an exception to the multiple posts rule. If your total text is under the stated limit, they'll be able to do so.

Thanks everyone!

Sophie M

[Ghost_Rider]

Hello,

I have been registered now approximately two weeks.

Three observations from my experience as a new member:

•Setting up an avatar has been problematic. 

•My first introduction post was not auto-saved. Upon finishing and replying it was discarded. It had been well under the character count with great care in the thoughts written.

•I’m not comfortable with badges of merit shown on profiles unless to indicate a moderator/administrator. Anything else I find a distraction from the purpose of the forum.

Having given the forum a trial I feel it is not what I was seeking but happy for those who find it a valuable tool in their journey.

Regards and thank you.