BBB gets the message

in the old site they were up on top in the Announcements. Here, they are up on top of the able2know tag.
Not sure if it could be a lot easier, maybe only if they were concentrated under a more visible HELP button, which as I understand, is a-coming.

Yeah, I get that. I just never left the Politics forum at all, so I didn't see the threads, and apparently was not the only one.

Cycloptichorn

I didn't know they were coming either (and I ventured to the Politics and Religion forum)....neither did a lot of people who lost some information they valued out of their PMs.

hmmm, well that happens. my local grocery store changed opening hours. i also learned about it only by going and finding it closed.... it was only then that i saw the announcement in their window. and then i found it on their website too... we don't look for such announcements when we don't expect them.
i knew changes were afoot as it was discussed in the threads i frequented, and i scanned the Forum every now and then and kept track of announcements....and I mostly stay away from politics - having too much of it at work, i come here for play.
i'm sure you were not the only one, there never is only one with such things. but people who checked new posts and Forum regularly did know new a2k is coming. there were a few threads going back a few years even. and then more recent ones popping up announcing some of the concrete changes that will happen and explaining them.

I'm amazed at the number of people who ignored the Announcements forum at the old site and complain that they were uniformed. The mind boggles.

And if you do something like email the whole database to let them know, a bunch of people will not like the intrusion (which is why we will do that for this transition only once, and only after more tweaks and bugs are settled).

Ideally, it would be something you could opt-in to, or a specific place like a blog or something. Or even something built into the private messaging system.

I don't think forum topics and posts are a great way to communicate either, but it's the easiest to do until there are better solutions built.

Oh, I'm not complaining that I was uninformed - people do have a responsibility to keep themselves in the loop if they want to know what was going on. But at the same time, I didn't see any of the explanations of how the new site was going to be back then, so it was surprising, is all.

Cycloptichorn

YES! If a2k sent me emails into my personal mailbox, I would be miffed. (I was gonna say i would consider leaving, but that would be a steenking lie). That is the last thing I'd want. I think Announcements were a good system, in fact they might be good here for such purpose too.... and for official get-togethers and other official a2k business.... (one day, of course). A few more buttons will fit on the left :-)

I talked with BBB and she's been reading everyone's responses here, but she says she just doesn't feel comfortable here anymore. To summarize her thoughts:



As my way of trying to explain the techie stuff to her I'm going to use as an example all the work she did on the A2K portal when she submitted all her recipes and labeled them with tags as to what cuisine, and type of meal it was so they could be sorted into categories.

So thanks to everyone for their feedback and please everyone, help make the place more user friendly both in our complaints and our responses to the complaints. That's how the old A2K evolved to the place we loved to gather for a conversation. We can do that here too. It didn't happen overnight back then and it won't today.

In the meantime I'll give BBB an invite to Dlowan's chatroom so she can participate there once we have a scheduled chat time.

k...guess my view of the forum about communicating is outdated (if new to moi ) - I think it's a fab way to communicate - looking forward to any other way tho....

Robert, I didn't mean to start a brohaha and am sorry I created more devisiveness. I hope you know how much I repect and appreciate the work and expense you've endured to create A2K.

I have to comment on your statement about only a tiny number of my thousands of posts were voted down. That's because there were no vote downs prior to the new site. Almost very one of my new posts on the new site were voted down. But that is not my main problem, and I admit it is my problem.

When I bought my first computer in the 1970s, the person teaching me how to operate it talked to me in techie language. I had no clue as to what she was saying. She didn't talk to me in non-techie language that I would understand. I was furious at her and felt she had no respect for me, and certainly didn't help me in my strong desire to learn about computers.

I'm not afraid of change, having gone through constant changes all of my life. But I'm old, and still dealing with change because I'm not a Luddite, but I'm not a techie. The vernacular used is not familiar to me and is not user friendly to the wide range skills of people's knowledge, making it difficult to learn from all the information threads. The designers used current techie vernacular that many of us find difficult to understand. If you're not a techie, you find it mystifying to try to participate. It's clear there is a problem because hardly anyone is posting interesting non-teck talk subjects. The whole site is mostly talking about site problems and how to understand them, how to correct and find things.

I got a similar feeling even though I was reading most of the instruction threads. What the hell is a "tag" and other mysteries. Many of us older A2Kers were not educated for computers while in school. I learned how to use a computer but not a wide scope of operations. I learned enough to meet the needs of my job, which did not include any of the operations of the new A2K site. So it's like beginning all over again trying to navigate the site. That the site is in it's unfinished infancy contributes to the problems.

I think everyone knows that I love A2K and am heart broken that I no longer feel welcome because I'm a non-techie and not capable of being an active and competent poster. The site needs to be friendly to people of all levels of computer skills instead of just techies. That's what I miss.

Butrflynet is correct when she posted that I'm very emotional right now due to the serious deterioration of my son's health. He will have to go through three major surgeries with very long recovery periods and unable to work, the first in September, complicated by a serious complication of large kidney stones this week. He was in so much pain he wanted to die.

I hope you understand.

BBB

The best solution for this is probably some kind of A2K Announcements link at the top of the page near where it says how many people are online. You could then have it constantly display a NEW flag until the user clicks on it to read what's new. Once read the flag disappears until the next announcement causes it to appear again.

I didn't know about your son, BBB. That must be very hard. And I do understand how something like that would make you emotional -- hell I'm emotional and I don't know your son. I can see how any small things on top of that could be too much to bear. I don't know if you want to talk about it, but if you want to start a thread about it I know you will get a lot of support. I completely understand if it's too personal, though.

Robert,
if somone doesn't like an article posted in its entirety, nobody's making them read it. why do they need to make it difficult for others to read it by voting it down? previously, there was a general attitude that voting down wasn't a big deal because it mainly occurred in trivia threads. maybe now the objections to thumbing down will be taken more seriously.

I agree, and that's why Nick and I then queries only recent topics, where the numbers were different (something like 10 out of 27). But I still think that the feedback could change if the news you posted had more of your own thinking in it, I have your particular use pattern in mind for the site for the url sharing feature that's coming but I understand why too much volume of them will get negative votes now in the meantime.

So I still think it's not you, but the format, and I've got a lot planned for the format to accommodate your style of information sharing (it's still a ways away). Soon there will be a different topic type called "Links" or something where you will be able to share sites, articles and more that you find on the web and discuss them. The volume for that kind of activity is very different, and that's what I think is a big trigger here.

Most people on the topic grid are looking for discussions, and when they don't see discussions they vote down. The questions are suffering, the games are suffering and more. The solution involved a big compromise on the part of all: we need to get rid of the all-in-0ne view so that if you don't like questions they won't be there.

We also need to make it possible to filter your views by tag, but that's going to be a lot of work.

But for your specific scenario, what will best serve you is when we launch the url sharing feature, and that will separate out the kind of topics you often post into a category where users browsing it are presumably interested.


I think you are welcome, and I think the voting system is even a pretty good indication of that. This thread is the 6th most popular thread in the last 309 threads.

But I really do get the basic psychological impact of the negative numbers and have plans to show it a little differently. I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to nail it but we are going to change things to get more positive out of the ratings system than negative. We needed some statistical data to write the statistical algorithms we are going to use, and right now it's small scale and rough but it will get better.

Well because without top-down editorial control like the manual featuring of topics on the old site we give the community a chance to make recommendations. Since the recommendations may not be what you want, we also give you the options to use what you see fit as your way of finding content.

Voting is still not that big of a deal insofar as how anyone should take it personally, but it's still very important for us to get right. We plan to get it right, but whether or not we do we still recommend you don't take it personally. I'm much happier the less I care about what others think about me, and I think that holds true for most.

don't want to be self-righteous, but tagging this topic with "self pity" was a *really* classy gesture by somebody.

Is BBB still here? Can we talk?

Put better tags in and if a few people do that they will go away because only the top 5 topic tags are shown there (off to add mine).

And, why 'religion'?