Differences in Forum Experience
Some feedback on a few differences in the MoneyWell forum experience:
The "State" of the discussions seems too restrictive. If a discussion is marked as "resolved," then no additional comments can be added, and you're forced to open a new discussion. Unless, that is, the person that originally started the discussion "unresolves" it. Given how other users might want additional clarification on a discussion, perhaps months or weeks later, it's unfortunate that they'll be prevented from doing so. It seems to me that a rich dialogue will occur more naturally if it is kept within one discussion, rather than users having to refer to previous, closed discussions.
As far as RSS feeds, I'm subscribed to all discussions, but I've noticed that only new discussions are seen as new content, rather than new posts. So, if I mark an initial post as read, I won't see notification in Reader of new posts to the discussion. This makes it much harder to keep up with new responses in discussions.
As I mentioned before, I also liked the seamless Reader-to-Groups experience, where I could jump into a discussion without having to sign in. Admittedly, though, it's a small sacrifice.
Other than that, I'm very satisfied with the new forum so far. I'm glad to hear it helps you provide better support!
Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.
2 Posted by Patch Hoctor on 19 Jun, 2009 06:18 PM
Well, i'll reply to the first paragraph saying this: If it's an open discussion and not just a simple answer someone wants, they probably won't 'resolve' it unless they really think it's done. We resolve things that have been answered completely, and most of the time the private ones are getting locked, as opposed to the public ones.
You'll have to take it up with the people whether or not they want to close their own topics, but in my opinion if someone posts a public discussion, I don't think they would feel the need to resolve it, and I doubt we would resolve it (Being that it's an open discussion, instead of a direct question that needs to be answered).
Hope that helped a bit on your thoughts. :)
-Patch
3 Posted by Drew on 19 Jun, 2009 07:05 PM
In general, I'm not sure whether one person knows that a topic is flushed out to everyone's liking or not, be it a simple question or an open discussion. Someone's answer might satisfy the topic's originator, but perhaps not everyone that happens by a thread. They might formulate additional questions based on another user's response, or want to provide additional clarification.
I thinks it's great for a user to be able to signal that their question has been answered, but I also think other users should have the ability to resurrect the topic, and respond to previous posts.
4 Posted by Patch Hoctor on 19 Jun, 2009 09:37 PM
I know what you mean, but if the topic starter gets his question answered, and others wish to further discuss it, they are welcome to make another topic specifically dedicated for discussion :).
-Patch
5 Posted by Mark Bestley on 22 Jun, 2009 06:13 PM
I can understand wanting the idea of being able to close a discussion however sometimes i can see the discussion going on from what the originator wanted.
But it will get hard to follow if the thread is sropped and we have to start another
Support Staff 6 Posted by Kevin Hoctor on 22 Jun, 2009 07:16 PM
We'll try to keep most discussions open that look like they have some life in them but it's nice to close some that have had a feature change or bug fix added to MoneyWell that resolves the problem or other threads that asked a simple question and can be closed after answering them.
It just keeps the clutter down. If you see a thread needs to be opened up again, you can send us a private message and we'll unresolve the issue to open the thread. Thanks.
7 Posted by Drew on 08 Jul, 2009 12:11 AM
You may have noticed this, but some private discussions also show up in the RSS feeds. I can see some of the text in Reader, but when I click to see the item, I am brought to this help site (where none of the text is displayed), and informed the discussion is private. This is obviously an issue for Tender, but I wanted to make sure you all know that private discussions aren't in fact 100% private.
8 Posted by Patch Hoctor on 08 Jul, 2009 01:41 AM
Thanks for telling us, Druzyne. I personally don't use an RSS feed for Tender, so I wouldn't know about those bugs if not for you, we'll look into it.
Support Staff 9 Posted by Kevin Hoctor on 08 Jul, 2009 02:40 AM
Druzyne: Which private discussion(s) have you seen via the RSS feed?
I think the ones you see are public discussions that we switched to private ones but if there are privates ones that are leaking to the RSS feed, we'll get it fixed immediately. Thanks.
10 Posted by Drew on 08 Jul, 2009 03:48 AM
There haven't been that many of them, so I think you might be right that they started out as public, but switched to private. One of the more recent ones was "Data import totals issue" by Kurt. As is the usual behavior with RSS feeds, though, Reader shows perhaps the most recent post for the discussion. I can see the message that begins with "Did some more research on this..."
Support Staff 11 Posted by Kevin Hoctor on 08 Jul, 2009 03:56 AM
Thanks. We'll look into this deeper.