Forum Improvement Wish List

[miiila]

I’ve just noticed 2 super useful features on another forum I frequent and was wondering whether that’s possible for this forum too; I don’t know if that other forum runs on Discourse software too or not, but it looks a bit similar, so I guess asking doesn’t hurt and these features, especially #1, could improve our forum experience a lot:

1. On hovering thread titles, you’ll see a “tool-tip” window with a preview (first paragraph) of the opening post (even for the last post in a thread as well, when you hover that) - genius!

2. When you click an old thread, you see a coloured banner on top and bottom that tells you something like “This topic is XXX days old, are you sure it’s worth bumping this?”

Maybe there’s a way to do this or something similar? 🙂

[imagination7413]

If only it weren’t already locked… Forum Wish list

[iamsachmusic]

There is a way to do all of them that you mentioned and discourse is an open source forum software.
The other communities are way ahead and more packed with features than Fiverr’s Forum. I have seen dark mode in the forum, Spam blocking, Multi-Language support, and so on.

The only thing that can make all of it happen is manforce that it needs. Is Forum their priority? You do know because of COVID-19, the CS representatives are already lacking with the other things, the gigs analytics is broken because of upcoming promoted gigs feature, and god knows what else is not working internally.

At least for now, I don’t think they can do that much change even if they want. Though they are testing the new features and doing some fixing on Forum as per their old pinned global notification on this live forum, but I never saw anything changed, so I don’t know what is happening. Hope to add some new features as soon as possible!

[wp_kid]

We have #2 on the forum, but may be not so much eye-catchy or people just ignore them.

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Screenshot_81337×298 85.1 KB

The resurrection of an old post without adding any value is flag worthy, we need more help from the community. We need more FLAGS.

[miiila]

We have #2 on the forum, but may be not so much eye-catchy or people just ignore them.

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Screenshot_81337×298 85.1 KB

The resurrection of an old post without adding any value is flag worthy, we need more help from the community. We need more FLAGS.

Ah, I see with #2, thanks for the screenshot, maybe I don’t try to post to very old topics often enough to have noticed this feature.

It’s similar, although with the one I’m talking about, you already see the banners when you’re just reading a topic, not after you’ve already hit the reply button.

Not sure if it would keep people from resurrecting dead threads though, then, if the existing feature doesn’t.

Although it might also help people who don’t want to post but are only looking for some info realize just how old a thread is, and that perhaps the info might be outdated, or even dangerous.

But might as well not help, I guess.

But #1 would definitely save many people a lot of time, I’m sure.

[imagination7413]

On 7/6/2020 at 11:14 AM, wp_kid said:

The resurrection of an old post without adding any value is flag worthy, we need more help from the community. We need more FLAGS.

I sometimes run out of flags to flag with. 

[uk1000]

8 hours ago, corsogr said:

like a three year old topic it violates some forum rules. Is that correct?

This is what was said in the Community Standards 2020 thread about that:

Quote

1. When starting a new discussion, please check that you aren’t duplicating an existing discussion thread or creating one that is very similar. These will be removed.

Quote

If you’re adding to the same thought, it’s ok continue an old thread...

 

[moikchap]

Limit Tips for Buyers to Buyers, or make two forums; Seller-to-Buyer Advice and Buyer-to-Buyer Advice and limit the second one to buyers

What I had been expecting I would see in Tips for Buyers:
Post: "I'm a buyer and I'm noticing a trend that whenever I get a botched delivery, there was a specific element of context I hadn't provided. Here is the post-mortem about how I figured it out and dealt with it."
Reply: "I'm a buyer too, I've had a similar experience. Here's my anecdote to help clarify the point, and expand the topic to be more portable between categories."
Reply: "This is the template I use when sending out tasks. It using a combination or checklist and journalistic method to insure critical points are handled cleanly."

What is actually happening in Tips for Buyers:
Post: "I'm a seller and I want to promote my gig under the guise of advice."
Reply: "I'm a seller too, and I'm going to argue about everything you just said."
Reply: "This is a picture meme."

[mariashtelle1]

47 minutes ago, moikchap said:

What is actually happening in Tips for Buyers:
Post: "I'm a seller and I want to promote my gig under the guise of advice."

A lot of categories are misused with a new forum. 
The same is happening in “Tips for sellers” category and all posts that are reported to move to a different category are not moved. I’m not sure what is the motivation behind leaving all spam in tips for sellers and buyers category. I even asked “administration” to clarify what content those categories are supposed to be for but it was just ignored. 
 

you can also use report button on all those topics that don’t belong in “tips for buyers” category and see if they will be moved to different category. 
However I gave up with it. 

@mjensen415 here is another feedback about categories like “tips for sellers” and “tips for buyers” are not being cleaned up from the spam. 

[lenasemenkova]

It goes more like this, in my experience:

“I’m a buyer. I ordered 1 gig, then something really terrible happened. Something so dark and unforgivable that it pains me greatly to think about it. Pains me so much that I won’t give away  any details and just dispense some loud words into the atmosphere, like “thief”, “criminal”, “machiavellian genius”. It has to be as dramatic as possible. Especially if the entire situation was a misunderstanding, the order was $5 and I got refunded in the end. 

I’ll close with (just like I’ve opened with) a warning to avoid using this site, announce my departure to that other site we are not allowed to mention (even though it’s more confusing to use) and mention making a post about this on reddit. Reddit will hear about this, that’s for sure.”

My close second favourite is: 

“Hello, I am a new seller who isn’t qualified giving any advice about anything on the platform. Except, maybe, registering an account and sneaky ways of stealing someone’s gig description or gig image without getting caught. But we’re not going to talk about that. We’re going to talk how you, dear buyer, should hire me for any and all the jobs you might have. You should hire me because of reasons I’m not going to disclose since I don’t have any. And because I’m a good person.”

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Seller-to-buyer advice

It's going to turn into a cesspool of those "Hire me, I'm a good person" posts in seconds. No point in having such a category. 

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, lenasemenkova said:

"Hire me, I'm a good person"

Don't forget "Hire me, Fiverr is my only source of income, I'm depressed" with an addition of a sob story.

[lenasemenkova]

45 minutes ago, catwriter said:

I'm depressed

and my family members have/had covid. Which is shocking and so unlike other forum users' situation. 

[topaz_muse]

Back in August, a News post was made about cleaning up the forum. Here are some items I hope they address in addition to what was mentioned in the post.

1. Revival of Old Posts. This will be nice to see as there were several topics revived that date back to 2016. Yes, the information therein are relevant; however, a simple reaction emoji will suffice.
2. Repeat Topics. Often within minutes of each other. I wouldn't mind seeing a feature where we could nominate posts for pinning or at least collect them all in a single location for reference as they answer these repeat questions extensively.
3. Forum Orientation. Not sure if this is possible but a way to ensure that new users know and understand how the forums work. This includes understanding the different areas along with what can be posted where. After completing orientation successfully, they'll be given x-amount of points. For each infraction that goes against what was learned, a point is deducted. When the number gets to zero, the user will be on probation for a month (no commenting nor posting privileges) and will have to go through the orientation process again.
4. A designated section for celebrating achievements. Just a section for all the posts celebrating their nth order, x-amount of tip, repeat customer, etc. It would just be nice to have as it will take the guess work out of where to post these types of things. OR create a mega celebratory post for sharing this information so they aren't clogging the other sections.

It's not an exhaustive list but it's a start.

[imagination7413]

I'd like community volunteers back. It's rather astounding how much they apparently helped with maintaining a bit of order in sorting topics/threads into the proper category. I appreciate the new staff, I really do, but I don't think the scale of how much the volunteers contributed was quite understood. Sure, I can report all the 'Wrong Category' topics, but that just creates more low-priority work when there are far more serious infractions happening.

A better reporting system would be nice, too, but won't help at all if theirs not the man-power to support it.

[imagination7413]

I mentioned this in another thread, but eliminating rewards for new forum users for the first two or three months. Loosen up the post limit a little, so the people who need help can get it, but 'extinction' might work ('punishiment' clearly isn't). Also, for every 'negative' that's applied to a newcomer's 'Reputation', the rewards option is pushed back another day.

Heh, that actually might make it so that only one month is needed initially, as the spammers would extend their own dry-period to get to earning rewards! (That's how you deal with children who keep making the same mistake.)

 

[imagination7413]

... I still miss the old Regulars 'Level 3&4 Lounge'. I so very much wish I'd copied the recommended book list.

[miiila]

Oh right, I was a bit shocked about the revolving door, but the Lounge's bookshelf was decent indeed. You could open a book list topic, though... although there's the danger of conga rats gnawing away at the books'. 😉 

[uk1000]

On the old forum there was an option to view all the users who had the top badges / those who had the level where they could see the secret lounge part of the forum but in this new forum there's no way to easily click and see all the people who have the grandmaster badge, when there should be really.

[imagination7413]

3 hours ago, miiila said:

Oh right, I was a bit shocked about the revolving door, but the Lounge's bookshelf was decent indeed.

Yes, but that also kept it somewhat exclusive. You had to have pretty good behavior to earn level 3, and keep that behavior up to keep it. It was earned, and only rarely gamed, and the ones who did game it didn't stick around, because it wasn't worth the effort to keep it up.

3 hours ago, miiila said:

You could open a book list topic, though... although there's the danger of conga rats gnawing away at the books'. 😉 

Exactly.

 

[miiila]

On 4/5/2022 at 1:26 PM, imagination7413 said:

It was earned, and only rarely gamed, and the ones who did game it didn't stick around, because it wasn't worth the effort to keep it up.

To some extent, yes, and at the start very much so, later then, less so. Don't want to go into it too much here, but while I loved the Lounge, I also have a big grievance with how it was determined who got in and locked out. I hope that in case something Loung-y ever happens here, after all (as been hinted at once or twice, but doesn't seem to be high on any priority list) it will be handled differently; this is a forum, and supposed to be about community, after all, not Fiverr main site with its response rate and time, or such. I hope that the community will be included in decisions like what factors should play a role, or how they get weighted. I wouldn't want real contributors to all of a sudden find themselves before closed doors, missing the action and bookshelves, just because life decided to run them over with a steamroller for a while, and they didn't have enough "attendance points". 

[mariashtelle1]

10 hours ago, imagination7413 said:

You had to have pretty good behavior to earn level 3, and keep that behavior up to keep it.

Also meant “no debunking stay active advices” because it was considered bullying and I got at least 5 warnings for trying to debunk those myths. I guess I misbehaved too much to reach the “lounge” level 😅🙈