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]

hi BB development team. I hope you are having a wonderful time.

i wonder if you might consider duplicating the page navigation arrows and numbers at the top of the page to save time scrolling through the posts in a thread to get to the bottom to then change the page.

not_batman

[blondguy]

Hey Forum Control 

Can you please find a way to resurrect the 'New Posters' header....Our new layout is excellent yet our best tool was the 'New Posters' page. Unfortunately, someone didnt recognize the importance of this header.  

Beyond Blue are missing the point by expecting anyone doing it hard to navigate to the correct mental health headings we have at this time

Can you please fix this? Anyone with a heavy duty mental health problem wont care about looking for a header to post for support.

Reality check...

* Having the 'New Posts' header reinstated will benefit people suffering from Mental health problems without  

   the need to navigate through various mental health subject headings

* Beyond Blue members/Champions usually check the 'New Posters' header first...to see if they can 

  provide support 

I hope someone can be proactive and fix this

thankyou for your attention

Paul

[ProjectTeam]

Hi Not_Batman,

Thank you for your feedback.

We understand it would save you time scrolling. We would love to understand more!

When you scroll to get to the page numbers at the bottom are you wanting to get to the end of the discussion to read the latest posts in the discussion you're looking at? Or are you looking for a certain page/spot in the discussion where you previously stopped reading?

Or is there another reason?

There's an option on the Forums to change the sort order of all discussions so the newest posts appear first. Is this helpful?

If you'd prefer to tell us more privately you can email us at modsupport@beyondblue.org.au

Kind regards,

Project Team
Beyond Blue

[ProjectTeam]

Hi blondguy,

Thank you for your feedback.

For the moment we have the "All discussions" page and the search functionality as options for people that do not want to navigate the Forums through the sections and topics. The "All discussions" page orders discussions by most recently started/updated, unless people choose a different order.

Our current Community Champions have an additional view to help them provide support to the community.

We know there's room for improvement and we are looking to improve how people can find what they're looking for and support each other better.

We would love to make improvements to the Forums every day, but changes to the service need to be made responsibly which takes time. While you may not see regular changes on the Forums our team is proactive and working hard to improve them.

Kind regards,

Project Team
Beyond Blue

[blondguy]

Hey Forum control

You mentioned and I quote 'Our current Community Champions have an additional view to help them provide support to the community'

Its not working when I (and our moderators) provide support to posts that have been unanswered for 48 hours.

Its not an improvement to the forums. Its only a new posts page that has has been a part of the forums for years, without expecting anyone to navigate to where they are comfortable providing support.

I dont understand when you say 'improvements to the forums take time' when Beyond Blue had the 'New Posters' header before you deleted it with our new and improved format'

Providing quality support is difficult now as you expect members/champs to navigate to where the new posts are. Beyond Blue management have done many checks on this prior to our new format and we had a high rate of replies to new members that required support without the need to navigate through various headers.

Overall the new forums are a huge improvement and thankyou!

Paul 

NB: Special Shout out to the brilliant moderators for their TLC and exemplary work ethic  🙂 

[Not_Batman]

Hi project team.

It's more a case of wanting to quickly navigate through he comments. For example, this thread has 34 pages of comments, and i've read through 20 pages, but if i go away and come back later, i need to scroll through the comments to get to the navigation buttons. The navigation I can see is 

< 1 ... 34 >

I have to do this multiple times to get back to page 21.

Reversing the sort order only does part of the job by showing the last reply, but it may not be the last reply I want to see.

It may also be a possibility to have a jump to page. Something like this...

Thread title

Main comment

Replies

< 1 ... 34 >  Jump to page [ ]

Thread content

Thread content

Thread content

< 1 ... 34 >  Jump to page [ ]

Hope that makes as much sense as my mind's eye.

Not_Batman

[Not_Batman]

Alternatively you could use the ellipsis [...] Which is currently not functional, as the jump to button. I.e.click on the ellipsis to open a text input or drop down list to navigate to a particular page.

[ProjectTeam]

Hi blondguy,

The additional view that we referred to is a view volunteers currently in the Community Champions program have access to. Our moderation team have access as well. We currently don’t provide access to members with other Forums roles/badges like Community Member, Valued Contributor, Champion Alumni and Blue Voices Member.

We have heard your feedback and agree there are improvements to be made to make it easier for members to provide quality support. As we said in our last post, we are looking to improve how people can find what they're looking for and support each other better.

Kind regards,

Project Team
Beyond Blue

[ProjectTeam]

Hi Not_Batman,

Thank you for telling us more, we understand exactly what you mean.

While we don’t have a perfect solution for this need at the moment, there is an alternative method you could use now.

Jumping to a particular page in a discussion can be done by editing the URL in the address bar of your web browser. After you arrive on the first page of a discussion, at the end of the URL add /page/ followed by the page number you’d like to jump to, then press Enter. You'll then be redirected to the page you chose.

For example, the URL for the first page of this discussion is forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/forums-feedback-and-updates/how-can-we-improve-the-forums/td-p/538587

To jump to page 21 of this discussion you’d add /page/21 to the end so it becomes forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/forums-feedback-and-updates/how-can-we-improve-the-forums/td-p/538587/page/21

We hope this makes it a little easier to get to the page you'd like.

Kind regards,

Project Team
Beyond Blue

[Not_Batman]

Hi project team.

Thanks for the response.

For a tech savvy person this is a workable temporary solution, but may be difficult for the lay person.

When it comes to technical things I think of my grandma (GRHS) and having to show her how to use the VCR every week (I think she secretly just wanted to spend time with me). I think, would gran be able to do this?

Anyway, a work in progress.

Not_Batman