PROBLEMS WITH THIS (NAS) FORUM - February 2018

I accept that this may be a "Bad" Topic, yet it needs to be highlighted, surely where "NAS" can *not* avoid seeing it, surely...

Current Problems with this Forum:
- Posts Disappear and Reappear at Random.
- Notifications are not always received (apparently).
- Editing Posts - *after* they have been replied to.
- Things such as "Groups" or "BlogPosts" or "Questions"... seem to have no meaning, and so they cannot be applied...?
(Anyone reading, you may currently check your own "Profile" to confirm this. Click upon your own "Achievements", and then upon "List of Possible Achievements".)
- ... There is a great list of "Achievements". Again, many of these have no defined meaning and so are un-achievable. (Linked to "Questions", "BlogPosts", "Ideas", "Status"...?)
- Assigning "Tags" to a New Thread seems to change constantly, and has neither Logical Order nor Meaning.

Here is the "Main" Thread, at which Comments directly to NAS are supposed to be Posted... yet much of it is completely ignored by NAS; It is only responded to by "WebPM", but for whom NAS would not have this "Forum" in the first place, I would wager...
community.autism.org.uk/.../online-community---comments-improvements-and-feedback

Parents
  • I'm very aware of not commenting as much as I could on these conversations. That doesn't mean that we aren't reading them. I'll make up with a more lengthy contribution here. Whether that's a good thing is up to you!

    Former Member's comments are helpful, both on the pace of changes and on editing after posting, so I won't add to them. Regarding references to blogs and other features that you can't see, it is exactly that - you can't see the features. We are using software with many more capabilities than we currently have in active use. Most of those would require additional licensing (i.e. cost) , so I can't give a date for when you might see blogs, for example. However, it does mean that, if we can develop both the plans for effective use and the budgets, there are more possibilities that we can simply switch on, at some future time. I'm sorry that that means that, for the present, there are some references to things you can't use.

    We've already found that features relating to achievements, top users, and so on, aren't necessarily something that interests this Community - hence the turning off of the leaderboard. They are built into the software, because some other communities do value them. If we find a way to hide them more, we will. However, this Community was built by choosing what appeared the best available package for the job, and for the budget (taking into account its compatibility with other systems that we run); it's not a custom development, and so it has some things that maybe aren't quite as we might design them.

    Although the system gives you a lot of control over which notifications you get (see your settings, where the help text gives some indications), missing notifications may well be outside the control of this system. For example, please check your Spam folder in case your ISP has mis-identified some messages as junk mail. You might want to white-list the sending address in your email. Anything that looks remotely like bulk mail is always more likely to be mis-identified in this way, and of course notifications are, by their nature, sent out in bulk to the users who have requested them. By white-listing, you may even help other users too, because your ISP may take note if a number of customers all white-list the same sending address. Of course, you can get notifications as alerts at top right on pages here as well, so there is a backup.

    Tags are intended as a way to allow users to help the system to identify the topic of a new thread. For one thing, tagging should help the system to get better results for Related threads, shown on each thread page. Sometimes important topics are assumed, but not mentioned. For example, it would be possible for someone to say that "a specialist has just confirmed that I am autistic", without mentioning "diagnosis", so diagnosis might be a good tag. On the other hand, "autism" will rarely be a good tag, because nearly everything here relates to that in some way or another, so it doesn't really help in distinguishing one thread from another.

    It's not a perfect system, because ideally we as administrators would go through and amend tags to make them consistent. An example here is Asperger, Asperger's and Aspergers - those will work better as tags if we reduce them to one spelling. However, that depends on available time. A consequence is that the list of tags keeps changing, as other users add to it. If you can choose from the list, rather than add yet another variant, please do.

    The point above that worries me most is missing messages. I don't think I've got it clear in my mind whether this refers to the way that the system is sometimes inconsistent about hiding messages behind "Load Next", or showing them all. Alternatively, do you mean that you see threads where messages are actually missing, as opposed to hidden? I think I mentioned that the "Load Next" behaviour is about trying to achieve good performance, and here mobile devices are a particular consideration. However, I am part of a discussion with the software developers about whether more consistency could be achieved, to give a better user experience.

    I've mentioned before that it is our team of moderators who really make this place possible.

    Regards

Reply
  • I'm very aware of not commenting as much as I could on these conversations. That doesn't mean that we aren't reading them. I'll make up with a more lengthy contribution here. Whether that's a good thing is up to you!

    Former Member's comments are helpful, both on the pace of changes and on editing after posting, so I won't add to them. Regarding references to blogs and other features that you can't see, it is exactly that - you can't see the features. We are using software with many more capabilities than we currently have in active use. Most of those would require additional licensing (i.e. cost) , so I can't give a date for when you might see blogs, for example. However, it does mean that, if we can develop both the plans for effective use and the budgets, there are more possibilities that we can simply switch on, at some future time. I'm sorry that that means that, for the present, there are some references to things you can't use.

    We've already found that features relating to achievements, top users, and so on, aren't necessarily something that interests this Community - hence the turning off of the leaderboard. They are built into the software, because some other communities do value them. If we find a way to hide them more, we will. However, this Community was built by choosing what appeared the best available package for the job, and for the budget (taking into account its compatibility with other systems that we run); it's not a custom development, and so it has some things that maybe aren't quite as we might design them.

    Although the system gives you a lot of control over which notifications you get (see your settings, where the help text gives some indications), missing notifications may well be outside the control of this system. For example, please check your Spam folder in case your ISP has mis-identified some messages as junk mail. You might want to white-list the sending address in your email. Anything that looks remotely like bulk mail is always more likely to be mis-identified in this way, and of course notifications are, by their nature, sent out in bulk to the users who have requested them. By white-listing, you may even help other users too, because your ISP may take note if a number of customers all white-list the same sending address. Of course, you can get notifications as alerts at top right on pages here as well, so there is a backup.

    Tags are intended as a way to allow users to help the system to identify the topic of a new thread. For one thing, tagging should help the system to get better results for Related threads, shown on each thread page. Sometimes important topics are assumed, but not mentioned. For example, it would be possible for someone to say that "a specialist has just confirmed that I am autistic", without mentioning "diagnosis", so diagnosis might be a good tag. On the other hand, "autism" will rarely be a good tag, because nearly everything here relates to that in some way or another, so it doesn't really help in distinguishing one thread from another.

    It's not a perfect system, because ideally we as administrators would go through and amend tags to make them consistent. An example here is Asperger, Asperger's and Aspergers - those will work better as tags if we reduce them to one spelling. However, that depends on available time. A consequence is that the list of tags keeps changing, as other users add to it. If you can choose from the list, rather than add yet another variant, please do.

    The point above that worries me most is missing messages. I don't think I've got it clear in my mind whether this refers to the way that the system is sometimes inconsistent about hiding messages behind "Load Next", or showing them all. Alternatively, do you mean that you see threads where messages are actually missing, as opposed to hidden? I think I mentioned that the "Load Next" behaviour is about trying to achieve good performance, and here mobile devices are a particular consideration. However, I am part of a discussion with the software developers about whether more consistency could be achieved, to give a better user experience.

    I've mentioned before that it is our team of moderators who really make this place possible.

    Regards

Children
  • I didn't know there was a spam folder!

  • P.S. ...Happy New Year to yourself and to all!  :-)

  • The point above that worries me most is missing messages. I don't think I've got it clear in my mind whether this refers to the way that the system is sometimes inconsistent about hiding messages behind "Load Next", or showing them all. Alternatively, do you mean that you see threads where messages are actually missing, as opposed to hidden?

    Glad Tidings to WebPM as always, and Thank You for understanding... and, it is perhaps a good thing you wrote this...! As you specify, it is Messages/Posts are actually MISSING. I do like the "Load/Next/Previous" option introduced; yet it can occur that even after tapping every single "Load/Next/Previous" button, that some replies/Messages (& sometimes even great sections of a Thread) are still Missing. That is what I ( & We ) mean.

    I Post earlier than usual for myself and may sign off after this... (I started this Thread out of "Angry Frustration", sort of...) ... But NAS *can* still start a new "Feedback Thread" at any time, and they still have not done so...