Reorganisation of forums

[CliveM]

Why do we need two separate forums for "Report bugs or problems" and "Questions and support"? For most software, if you discover a bug the place to go to is usually the support desk. People often don't know whether an issue they have encountered arises from a bug or from their own misunderstanding of how things work. Because Panoramio has both a "bugs" forum and a "support" forum people don't know which one to use to report an issue, and so we get questions in the bugs forum and bugs in the questions forum, and when a major issue arises we get duplicate threads in both, because if people check at all to see if someone has reported it they only check in one forum. This can sometimes even lead to serious misunderstandings, such as when a moderator recently made a facetious remark linking a user who had made another facetious remark in one forum with a user who was throwing his toys out of the pram in another forum over the same issue.

 

While we are on the subject of reorganising forums, if we must have forums segregated by language to save us English speakers the shock of discovering that there are actually people in the world who prefer to speak languages other than English, can't the forums in other languages have the same subdivisions (bugs/support, suggestions, miscellaneous) as the English forum? This would avoid giving the impression that non-English speakers are considered second-class users, and would also avoid people using the English forum for something that they don't think exists in their own forum - such as someone who wants to make a suggestion and therefore uses the English "Suggestions" forum because the forum in their own language is just a general forum with nothing to indicate that they can make suggestions there - and getting the usual "Why don't you either speak English or use your own forum" response from the moderators.

[Draken]

I absolutely agree. We have been asking the same for years. Even when we had a real forum, not this mock of a forum where moderators can't move threads, edit titles, etc.

However, as far as "my" Spanish forum is concerned there are clear indications users can post suggestions, comments, complaints, etc. just by stating the proper status or category in the thread title. I guess it is the same with other fellow moderators. And yet the internal organisation of the so called "language fora" should have subdivisions in the same way this International forum has.

Unfortunately, although the Panoramio Team members have been very receptive regarding this issue the matter is beyond their call. The Google groups platform has proven to be useless for fora.

[hvbemmel]

I also agree with you Clive and with Draken of course. making the same subfora in languages fora would mean an extra branch on a branch on the tree. At the moment the tree has the different English branches and the language branches directly coming from the tree. making subfora in the language forum would mean an extra layer. It is said that this isn´t possible. 

My experience with the changes we asked makes me think the group guys just don´t want to make changes they didn´t think of themselves. The changes I do see are unwanted and break things that worked before, the changes we wanted do not work properly. I really think this is something Google should be ashamed of. Not because they don´t listen to us, that is their prerogative, but that they do not repair things they break or break things that work,should not be possible in  a  company like this. 

[Hans Sterkendries]

As far as the language forums are concerned it's my feeling they are bound to disappear one day. Google Translate is making it so easy to communicate in between languages...

I guess we all react way too harsh when someone chooses to post in the English standard forum instead of in his (virtually dead) language forum when you can get a pretty decent translation with only one click...

[Adam Lasnik]

Hi CliveM,

Thanks for the frank feedback on the forum structure!

We definitely don't consider non-English speakers second class citizens, though ;)  In fact, I'm betting that English isn't the first language for most of our super-active members.

That aside, I personally would love to see fewer distinct forums.  Let me chat with some of my colleagues over the next weeks to get some more historical / technical perspectives on the situation and then we'll see what we can do.

By the way, Herman, I totally get your frustration, but please know that in the context of the forums here, we Panoramio team members are bound by some technical constraints and decisions that go beyond what we personally can adjust.

Regards,

Adam

Program Manager, GeoImagery

[hvbemmel]

Thx Adam, 

I know this is not the Panoramio team. I totally lay the blame at those who maintain this forum, in fact I talked about "the group guys", So I emphasize, not a bad word about this or the former Panoramio team. 

 

[Adam Lasnik]

Thanks, Herman!

I don't envision that we'll be able to do any major updates on the forum software in the nearterm, but -- prodded by CliveM above -- I am now planning to propose a cleaning up of the forum structure in the next week or so (archiving unused forums, renaming some, consolidating some, etc.)

Hopefully that'll at least help things a little bit :)

[CliveM]

Thanks, Adam. It's nice to know that our suggestions are given serious consideration.

[Adam Lasnik]

As promised, here's my initial proposal.  You are welcome to comment right in the doc, or you can add your thoughts here (or both :D).

Very much looking forward to your feedback, and then -- incorporating your input -- I can likely make changes in the next week or so.

[Draken]

Adam 

I am afraid your proposed "Help" and "Feedback" fora may have the same problems we encounter now with "Questions & Support" and "Report Bugs & Problems", i.e., double posting, users not knowing where to post. I thought you were going to propose merging the two of them.

Please bear in mind there are some stickies (at the top of fora) that should be kept, and some others should be rewritten accordingly.

[Adam Lasnik]

Both very good points, Draken.

I plan on archiving various forums, but for sure making them still accessible.  And re: stickies, I may be able to move the posts over to the new forums; if not, even cutting and pasting will be a reasonable last resort, I suppose.

What do others of you think about combining Help/Support + Feedback forums vs. keeping them separate?

[Daniela Brocca]

Do we need to have few fora? We lost a lot of user with the new forum, I hope  a new change will not give  the last blow.

As I'm almost the only one moderating Games and Competitions I would not add the Events to the forum.Meetings have nothing to do with games. The Events forum has almost no photos.It would be good if we could have a subforum.

About Help and Feedback I support Draken. .One only would be the best.I think the users would use only that one.

[RoarX]

Just some ideas.

How about renaming "questions and support" to "Help and support"? I think the word "support" is important to keep.
The games forum should be without "events" IMO. Events should perhaps be included in "The Miscellaneous Cafe", maybe as a sticky thread?
"Feedback" may be renamed "Site feedback" ?

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

I would merge together current:

- Questions and Support

- Report bugs or problems

- Panoramio Groups (I think period of initial promotion is away, so there is no need for extra focus on it)

- Suggestions (?)

Into one section (Note: if the Team monitors Suggestion thread with higher priority than others, then leave Suggestions it as it is).

I'd rather like to keep "Photo finds" threads separated. It's quite different:

- Lookaround gallery (only lookarounds)

- Panoramio Sightseer (it's exclusively about places)

- Share your photos (themes - similar to groups)

By mixing these together you are gonna kill these parts of the forum.

I strongly support keeping Games and Competitions and Events separate.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

Addition to Clive's opening post and languages considerations:

If there is possibility to have tree structure of subsections in LanguageXXX forum, I think moderators of that language can define the needed subsections and give them proper names.

E.g. in some languages are no Games and competitions, whereas in  others games are essential part of local community activity.

Similarly for Photo critique, Share Your photos etc....

[Draken]

Please create a tree structure for language forums!!

[Adam Lasnik]

Tomas, I do get that the different photo forums are for distinct things, but when I checked out the stats, I saw typically just a tiny handful of posts (sometimes only 2) per month in each.  I would hope with fewer forums to check, we might get more critical mass and more posts.

I've gotten the "keep events out of Games and Competitions" message loud and clear, so we'll put Events under either Support or Misc (I'm leaning towards Misc, to keep Misc more positive :)

re: tree structure in the non-English forums... I'm a bit torn on this.  It seems that the non-English forums also get very few posts per month, and from past experiences with forums, I've found that separating low-traffic forums into more forums often results in just confusion and no increase in posts :(.  With that said, you and other moderators are taking the time to be a host of these forums, so I'm open to further discussion on this.

This is, of course, assuming we can even have subforums of subforums, which I haven't yet confirmed with the Forums team.  Perhaps I should check that out first!

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

On Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:22:33 AM UTC+2, Adam Lasnik wrote:

Tomas, I do get that the different photo forums are for distinct things, but when I checked out the stats, I saw typically just a tiny handful of posts (sometimes only 2) per month in each.  I would hope with fewer forums to check, we might get more critical mass and more posts.

Adam, finally it's your call... 

I know, the traffic and activity in these forums went down recently (partially on  behalf of new forum engine and "simpleness" of thumbnail posting). But at the moment, these forums are well organized and it's easy to understand which forum is for which purpose. I am not sure how many users visit these forums when they want to see something specific (so, they are not posting new stuff, but enjoying specific forum) - but think also about this use case. By mixing forums  together... I am afraid of killing them completely.

[Galatas ©]

On Saturday, June 15, 2013 6:53:31 PM UTC+1, Tomas K☼h☼ut wrote:

On Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:22:33 AM UTC+2, Adam Lasnik wrote:

Tomas, I do get that the different photo forums are for distinct things, but when I checked out the stats, I saw typically just a tiny handful of posts (sometimes only 2) per month in each.  I would hope with fewer forums to check, we might get more critical mass and more posts.

Adam, finally it's your call... 

I know, the traffic and activity in these forums went down recently (partially on  behalf of new forum engine and "simpleness" of thumbnail posting).

I always thought I was of at least average intelligence but after many attempts at posting thumbnails I have given up and must conclude that I am in fact too stupid to be allowed to use a computer. I have abandoned taking part in some of the photo forums because of this.

[RoarX]

"...but after many attempts at posting thumbnails I have given up..."

Have you tried this tool Galatas?

It's a pity that the bad functionality of this "forum" have ruined this community so much.

Adam, those forums would have a lot of traffic if we had a better way of posting photos from Panoramio in this forum.
Once we have accompished posting a photo, moving that photo around in the editor is like a wrestling match. Making a post with many photos is very time consuming, and it requires a lot of patience and skills to make it right. I understand that many people have decided to leave instead of spending their time wrestling with the editor, the editor usually wins...

[Galatas ©]

Yes , Roar. I've also read all the posts on how to post thumbnails but I still can't get it right for some reason. Sometimes I get an unclickable thumbnail but that's the best I've been able to manage. I don't suppose I'm the only person that has given up in frustration.
This entire forum business baffles me. Sometimes I can read and post when I am logged into my Panoramio account. Other times I am forced to log in again via Google groups before I can post. The entire layout then becomes different to what I usually see in Panoramio.

One shouldn't need to be a computer genius using a high spec state of the art computer just to post a message on a forum.

[hvbemmel]

It´s Sunday, it promises to be a wonderful and warm day. That´s all I want to say about this "forum" not wanting to spoil that feeling.

[sixten_imgs]

Suggestion to make the forum pages more informative and also to reduce the opening of unnecessary threads:

How about adding some kind of the most important news text line or sticky to the very top of the new forum structure? Maybe with a distinctive text type or colour. And with the links to the right threads where to discuss about the issue.

The problems like the ongoing GE trouble or uploading problems often lead to an endless asking about the same problem and to opening and closing of new duplicate threads. If the first forum page would right away and clearly tell that there is some actual problem ( or something positive news of course too :) it would be helpful for the users and would help to keep the forum more interesting.

[Tomas K☼h☼ut]

On Sunday, June 30, 2013 9:31:06 AM UTC+2, sixten_imgs wrote:

How about adding some kind of the most important news text line or sticky to the very top of the new forum structure? Maybe with a distinctive text type or colour. 

I am not sure if this is possible in this forum - only option is to make some posts "sticky" (with pin or loudspeaker icon), I guess.

And another problem with a beast is... many users can write, but they do not read. ;-)

But generally I do agree. 

[hvbemmel]

I suggested to the team to make a separate forum on top, a kind of "read this first"  forum, with important links like FAQ, help, list of moderators. read only for users other as moderators, so the "clean" message stays. I can imagine that hot items could be in there too.

As Tomas says, how to make the users read this.

[sixten_imgs]

I think these things might help in making the reading more popular:

- The hot items should be handled well =  they would be kept actual. It is true that old texts and old news are not read.

- The important news line ought to be really visible and thus separated from the FAQ lists and other not very active things. Unfortunately those are exactly the texts that are not read very eagerly.

- Probably some good old Panoramio patience would be needed :) but if the users will find the news line and notice it works well it will be read more and more.