Where do I go to see content across the whole site?

[crazymama_Lori]

I think a lot of the members when they sign on and go to the home page are clicking on Conversations and expecting to see everything there, blogs, documents, discussions, questions.  The only time these will be shown here is when they are published in the category of Conversations.  Here in is where the problem lies.  When you blog you have a choice of having it either your own blog being published as your own blog or a place blog, i.e. published in a group, in the Conversation section, etc.  Now, mind you, when I was typing this out to you, I had to go back to the page constantly to figure out where everything is going.  I think people are getting frustrated when they get to that part of the publishing, that they finally give up because they have no clue where to stick something.  Yes, the visibility of the blogs are shown on the home page, but if you have no experience on the site, you wouldn't know to navigate down to "more" to bring up the page Browse -Content, where everything is shown, questions, discussions, blogs, polls, videos, events.  This is the page which should be showing up under the Conversations link instead of only the content published under the Conversation category. People are viewing the Conversations link as just that, a conversation with the community at large and not a Conversation category.   So many things are being missed.  Just see how many times I've highlighted Conversation only in this paragraph explaining where everything was going.  If I click on the pencil and select which I want to create, and I select discussion, here I have to pick and choose where I want it to appear.  Whereas under the Conversation link, it automatically places it under the Conversation category.  

Also ask a question should be categorized in ask a site question, i.e. asking where something is located, or ask a smoking related question, i.e. does anyone know how long nightmares last and so on.  That would streamline a lot more effective answers rather than having them sit awaiting a response.  There's way too many categories to choose from. I've ran across some questions not even being answered.  If they were smoking related questions, our members would be all over it.  If they are site related questions, the developers should answer those or a simple FAQ section should populate and then if the answer is not answered, a PM is sent to the admin.  

A perfect example of the confusion is I selected the question category and below it is showing me Publish Location and Conversations is already preselected for me, which it should go under the general category of either General Support or Community Feedback, one or the other, not both.  Now, that begs the question of what's the difference between General Support and Community Feedback.  I'm seeing many blogs, discussions, questions, being shifted around because they are not placed in the right category.  There's so many categories to stick things in, it's not no wonder why.  Personally I think this site needs to be less micromanaged and more streamlined into broad general categories instead of many small ones and really creating more work on your end trying to stick everything in their right drawers.  As with anything in life, consistency is the key.  You know what to expect and you know exactly what to do.  If I'm stuck in a new job and I have 12 people telling me all different ways of doing something to complete one single task, I'm going to get very frustrated and most likely look for another job.  I hate to see that happen here.  Mark‌ scha‌

[elvan]

@Mark I think that every time I feel like I am making progress, I feel like I slid backwards again, the inbox completely overwhelms me I don't want to mark everything read without at least looking, it just seems like I cannot empty it and that pretty much keeps me from feeling any sense of relaxation.  At my job, I have my son, my daughter in law, two people who work in the kitchen, and one person other than me who works the register.  They ALL have their own ways of doing things and they all tell me...being as I am low man on the totem pole, I am in a constant state of chaos there too.  I can fairly efficiently take orders now and process cards or cash, sell gift cards, etc...even handle phone orders and complicated customer requests but every person there has a way of handling things and I am left feeling overwhelmed.  I clean the bathrooms when I work, I also sweep the floors and run the vacuum cleaner whenever I work, everyone pretty much sweeps the same way or wipes tables the same way, it's the complicated things in orders that sometimes throw everyone off...from the cashier to the cook and the entire system was designed by Square and is not able to be altered in some ways.  It is kind of like the message boards.  Like I said...the inbox gets me, there is a little bell and then there is another little rectangle with a number inside of it, the numbers always match, isn't one supposed to be for messages?  See how confused I am?  My degree of fatigue is directly linked to my ability to handle the program(s).  Not sure if that makes the least bit of sense but it is the best I can do at this point.

[CommunityAdmin]

elvan‌. I get where you are coming from.  I like that sense of completion as well. Tangible things.  Thanks for putting into words how you're feeling.  

The inbox number corresponds to the. Umber of notifications.  There are a couple different types.  Some of them roll up into a heading. If there are multiple in a given discussion then they roll up together instead of having 15  for one discussion and then everything else. 

You may may feel more comfortable if you filter to unread and then select messages and get through those and then choose one of the other filters.  Some people don't want to look at the achievement notifications so they just filter to that view and then mass mark them as read.  It's up to you. 

Mark

[elvan]

Thanks, that might help, I can use all of the direction I can get.

[Sootie]

Here's my TWO CENTS-

With this site, the challenge seems to be that on the old site we had pretty much whittled down to ONE PLACE ONLY----THE BLOGS. The groups and forums were fairly non existent (even the groups that were active---you were directed to them in THE BLOGS). The train was in the blogs, new people were in the blogs. ALL community activity took place in THE BLOGS. Now----you can be in blogs, conversations, ask a question, set up a cafe.......there is a LOT going on.

Note in the first sentence I said CHALLENGE---not problem----that's what we say to the children here at my place......not a problem guys....a challenge. Don't see problems.....see circumstances and work with them.

We will all get used to it. It just takes................................................time.

Stay Strong.