A lot more questions, requests, and reports are being funneled to the renshuu forums (specifically, "Questions about renshuu", "Feature Requests/Improvements", "Bugs/Problems"). This is great, as I feel that roughly 60-80% of all posts can be handled without me needing to intervene at all (thanks to our amazing community).
However, these forums (which are close to 20 years old) have not changed since then, and I feel they are no longer manageable as is, so I'm looking to improve them (and would like some feedback).
Main points/concerns: 1. As noted, vast majority of posts are resolved without me. 2. No way to easily identify what posts need my attention. 3. Because these three forums are treated the same as the other discussion forums, there is a lack of organization regarding the contents.
My goal is to make it easier for me to get at what needs my attention, and let the community help itself when it can. This will let me spend more time focusing on fixes/features that help a larger group of people. It may not seem like much, but scanning forum messages each day to see where I'm needed takes up more time/energy than you'd think (and it's only going up).
A few thoughts that I've had: 1. A way to tag posts for better identification (posts could be self-tagged, but probably needs a way to crowdsource tags) 2. A way to get my attention (but with enough friction that I'm not called to every post) 3. A clearer policy on handling issues that are "left open" by the original poster.
Especially with #3 - this is a tricky one for me. I am plagued by a "want to implement/fix everything" mentality, but that's no longer feasible (and hasn't been for years), but I'm not sure how best to a)communicate that and b)organize it.
I do not think I want to blend in or implement a new system for bugs/feature requests, but I am willing to extend the forum functionality to include helpful tools.
Anyway, none of this is something I'll be able to implement sooner than later, but getting the conversation started now will help me better shape renshuu to be even more robust in the future.
For #2 It's probably easier to implement a feature that let's you know a certain question/problem has already been answered/resolved. You can let users mark their threads as "resolved" and have some sort of visual indicator that let's people know at a glance without having to read though the thread.
It's not a direct solution to #2 and can be folded into #1, but it should help you parse posts better.
Another idea is to give a few active users you trust the ability to tag you in posts they feel need your attention. This is probably better than a similar public system with a degree of friction and some sort of threshold.
The main issue with a system meant to get your attention is that some posts can easily slip through the cracks and if you get used to only looking at what's "tagged" you might miss them entirely.
That's why I think letting you know when you aren't needed might be more useful.
I agree with the other person that being able to mark posts as "resolved" would be useful. It might be sensible to only have this option for certain categories, as it is less useful and possibly confusing for discussion topics to have them be "unresolved".
The biggest improvement I can think of is a search function, especially if it lets you restrict the search to topics inside some category, or filter resolved/unresolved. This might also reduce the number of new posts if its easier to find old answers.
Sorry maybe thats not the weite topic to Post it. But in grammar lesson about node it says its only used die objective reasons, not for Personal or subjective reasons. But in the test its used after tsukaretta, because im tired.... It would bei nice to add sind explanation if test differs drin lesson. Great APP by the Way, thats why i took the Tine to write it. Good work Thanks a lot
It’s been a year… is there an update to the forum ideas I might have missed? I also found a four year old post about the search functionality that I would like to bring up again.
1)
I agree that most posts don‘t need your attention, Michael. But to be honest, many post shouldn‘t exist in the first place and they shouldn’t take anyone‘s attention.
Many questions could be resolved by the person posting using the available help, tipps and even old posts.
I‘m wondering if it’s easy to implement: If a button „search“ is placed next to the „see unread posts“, that would take the user to the existing search page, maybe more questions wouldn’t be asked in the first place. I believe there are quite a few users that miss the search link by accessing the forum in different ways. Once you missed it in the menu, there’s no other option to access the search. So this could be a quick win.
2)
Besides that: Maybe there’s a way to „ask for your help“ in a written way within a post, so that you can find it by search. Once the active users have adapted the phrase, more users would use it, when it’s necessary. Typing in that help request in words might be friction enough.
And if that’s getting to much anyway, a „like“-filter could become another friction to keep your workload manageable. Something like „at least 3 likes“ for Michaels attention. That way further people would have to agree for a thing to be looked into.
I believe entries in the Bugs-Forum are always relevant for you…
I‘m aware that my idea is flawed and far from perfect, but it doesn’t need any coding. Just a few active users supporting Michael. And if it’s not working at all, it could be abandoned without any issues.
Chabaka - any issues with quiz questions: tap the ? button at the top of the app, then "report quiz issue" (do it right after it happens)
3Neko - Never got around to it.
I do partially disagree with your #1, though. For example, there are tons of posts about losing motivation, or asking for help to better their learning. I think one of the reasons people stick with renshuu is that we have a living community here. Discord is the same. I often ask questions in discord channels that I *could* search for myself, but the social interaction with others as I get the info is part of what I'm looking for.
We, a few years ago, thought about this very thing in discord, as we would get so many of the same grammar questions. We decided that it would go contrary to the goals of the community to start seeing more and more responses that are like "read the faq, it's in there", or a link to the faq entry (or whatever). It might be what some people want, but it's also dismissive to others.
I would not be against one of those auto-searches as you type your post, where it scans the text, grabs some keywords, and does a "hey, these other topics exist, maybe they will help?" below the form. I obviously don't want to do any AI here, so it would be a rough, fuzzy keyword matching.
I have to admit that goes straight against my ideas of social behaviour. Yet, if that’s the idea of forums and discord, I guess, it’s just not for me. 😐
