Community
You may be a part of another online community and have grown to like things on that community that you haven't seen here. What is that feature that you would like to see here? Pick from the list below or add your own. Then tell us more about what you like about it and how you envision it being part of BecomeAnEX.
-Mention another user
-Micro blogging
-Quoting other's comments
-Live Text/Video Chats
-Reply by Email
-Wikis
-Polls
-Photo Albums
I am not a member of any other site. This like and high 5 prop. It doesn't let you know who liked what when..
I agree with what Giulia said. I would like to see text/video chat. Another one would be to post personal milestones via another website ie. facebook or any of the other social networks.
Would love to be able to send personal messages to more than one person! More like a true email, but still within the site.
Regarding Sarah's message above: on the old ning platform we used to be able to click on specific "friends" boxes and send messages across to all of them at once. So that we didn't have to go to each person's page individually to say Happy Monday or thank you or whatever. Saves a LOT of time. And time, as we know on here and in all areas of our lives, is very precious.
I think it would be nice if you comment on a person's blog and they comment back that you get notified that someone added something to that thread. Chatting would be WONDERFUL!
When BecomeAnEx was on Ning the original web site we had the ability in the groups to get notification on any blog or discussion and all of the comments on the comment page. Each blog and discussion individually had at the bottom of each blog or discussion a place that we could click on to follow or unfollow. We could even follow a blog with notifications even if we did not comment on that blog. It sure was nice having that function with the notifications. When we came to the new web site we lost all of that and a lot of people left because the groups did not function like we wanted and when someone yelled help or just showed up after 6 months and said anything in our groups in a blog or the comment section only the person that created the group would get notification and so the groups are not so active as they were on the original BecomeAnEx web site.
We also had on the Ning site on the main page all blogs had that same notification function on each individual blog to follow or unfollow even if you did not comment on that blog. That was the nicest feature that I do miss the most.
It would also be nice to have somewhere a list of most popular groups so that group is not buried back so far in the list people stop joining. I think the pledge group should be one of the most popular groups displayed somewhere easy to find maybe somewhere off to the right of the main page.
On the old Ning site we could also with ease post a video not just the link on any blog or group blog or discussion and that was nice. For example I have on my page those videos you can see the video on my page without leaving this site. When we have bonfire it is nice to be able to stay on this site and listen to a video and still be able to scroll down the page and read comments at the same time without having to go to YouTube when we follow a link. Right now I have to have a window open to watch one of the video’s and one window to read the comments on the bonfire and that was nice on the old site being able to just put the video on this web site and stay on this web site. We had so much fun posting videos on bonfires or any blog or discussion but now we can’t.
If you look at the popular groups listed at this place some are not even active anymore and the person that created it they are not here anymore to monitor the group.
Re: Legends comment..we have alot of new ones that create groups to get their badge and some of them, never return to the site.
I am going to add in some other things that i was thinking about as well.
I do wish that what we say on Ex stays on Ex. For example, blogs, message boards etc never be made to the public unless they create an account. Sometimes we have ones that might give a little more information that the public don't need to know about especially when it's personal struggles.
i do wish also that we can see when a user logged in last. It helps aid some of us that have spreadsheets for different functions.
@Guilia
Great Ideas about Live Video/Text Chats.
Google Hangouts and Microsoft Skype and other free services are getting easier to use. Certainly at times of Bonfires and other select times the benefits of having a live chat tool would help immensely.
Great examples of polls! Like your questions!
Spell Check. Most of the time your browser should check within the text to underline a word you are spelling wrong or give you an option in the toolbar to perform a spell check. The formatting options are limited and something in the pages is blocking Chrome/Firefox with assisting in spell checking. Thanks for pointing that out.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Jackie 012515
Most other community platforms I have seen do give you an idea of who liked/high five/kudo'd your comment or post. So that's something that very likely could happen.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Shawn
Yes I think it would be good to be able to post your personal milestones on other social media sites you participate in, if you choose to do so. Giving you the control to do so is important as you may encourage others to start their quit and also help others understand your accomplishments and effort to be nicotine-free!
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Sarah
Yes I agree Group Private messaging. I've wanted it with several of the previous community platforms I have used before. It would allow me to message several people without exposing my email address to the person. Thanks for mentioning this.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Giulia
RE: Group Messaging.
Good to know about the functionality of Ning. I wasn't aware that Ning had that functionality. Some of the other platforms that I've encountered do and others do not. Good to know context and your frame of reference with your past experience. Saving time is always important. :)
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Elvan
This is the only community platform that I have worked with that doesn't notify you on any discussion/question/blog if you comment on it. It's odd to me that you only get notifications if they are commenting on your blog. Would love to get more notifications on anything I participate in. Certainly giving someone to have the control of getting an email and/or an on-site notification so as not to innundate them with too much.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Legend
RE: Following Content you participated in. Yes I think this is one of the most frustating things about the community for me. It creates a steep learning curve and people don't just "get it". Thus the reason we have the tutorials and the FAQs that explain how the site works. Certainly not as user friendly as it could be.
RE: Follow/Unfollow content you participate in. Agreeably at times there are discussions that have a lot of activity and some people may or may not want to continue to get notifications. Being able to change the subscription to a group, friend, discussion area as a whole would be nice in addition to being to unsubscribe from a particular topic/discussion.
RE: Group Notifications. Yes it is odd that notifications in groups don't go out to anyone but group owner. In this case I didn't get notifications that people had replied to this thread even though I created this group. :(
RE: Popular Groups. There isn't a lot of structure to the current site so you're not really able to get a snapshot where the activity is or isn't happening and it's hindered by the lack of robust notification system. I only envision it getting better from her. Based on my previous experience with multiple different communities it will be an improved experience for you overall.
RE: Videos. Most contemporary community platforms allow you to embed and/or upload videos to your posts. I'm looking forward to potential for this as well!
RE: Groups. Agreed there are some groups that no longer have a group owner for a variety of reasons. I'll need to find out which ones may need a new group owner (may need volunteers :) ) and others that have members that can be absorbed into a similar active group that already has an active owner. I'm evaluating the options available to us.
There are a lot of groups 634+ at this time with many duplicates. I'm looking through the groups right now and seeing where we can potentially consolidate duplicate groups and eliminate ones that have no activity.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Shawn
I hadn't thought about some people just creating something to get a badge. I'll be on the lookout for this as I evaluate the groups.
Interesting concept and concern about wanting to limit who sees what. For those used to the Facebook approach where you can choose your level of privacy based on the content you are posting. I certainly am comfortable making somethings more public than others when posting to social media. I think the draw to the community for people unsure about being able to join is seeing the real struggles that people share on the site. If that was all closed off so you couldn't see anything unless you joined might prevent a lot of people from joining who just want to lurk for a while or even forever.
Hopefully with a more robust Group system and the use of both public and closed groups, the level of privacy desired by most would be achieved. Certainly I'll look to see what options we have that might give more granular privacy controls for each thing you author. Undoubtedly as you restrict your content to certain people, it may restrict the number of interactions you receive from it.
Great feedback!
Mark
EX Community Manager
@ mark....we still would have the same interactions here on site like we do now. i know from others that i talked to in the past, they didn't blog because of the privacy. Then we had some that would blog and give out personal info that we had to remind them it was a public forum. It would be nice to be able to have that choice between public or loggined in users only.
Some people would like to use the blog for journaling some info for their eyes only so they could refer back to this info in the future. It would be great if that privacy option woulld be available as an option when blogging.
@Shawn and Leeza
Great subtleties that I wasn't aware of. Thanks for sharing the voice and concern of others that haven't yet come to share their feedback. I agree on helping people protect themselves from themselves especially when they are new to a community.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Mark when I was on the original BecomeAnEx web site Ning we had the ability to make our activity on the activity screen private or not and this was good because if someone was stalking someone this would make it harder to see where they went and what they said. Also we had the ability to make our blogs we write private for only friends to see not friends of when someone adds you but only when you add a friend or you could make your blog public if we wanted and that made it easier for women that have been terrorized from someone from their past and still terrorizing them. I know if someone wanted to find out what we said they could hang on here all day and finally find something we said somewhere but it makes it harder for a person stalking someone to find the information about the person he is stalking if we had the ability to have private blogs for friends only or to hide our activity from the public or just friends or maybe keep the activity screen private if that is what an individual wants. Mark one of the women getting stalked is me and this person if very dangerous and very few know about it. I am terrified I will get found and so you don’t see much about me on my page. Sometimes I wanted to make a blog and talk about everyday stuff that was triggering me but I could not because I just did not feel comfortable about it being public because of my situation. It takes a lot of courage for women like me to come out and talk about this and I hope you will take what I said and maybe find a way to help women that are still being stalked. I need help just like everyone else and if I left this place out of fear I would have died from this addiction already because I would not have quit smoking. I was at deaths door when I came here I had already had a heart attack and was getting worse day by day and I am glad I found this place.
With regard to badges - I think they are pretty useless. Some people join, do all the things to get all the badges - then pretty soon we never hear from or see them again. Perhaps the badges might have a finite lifespan and be linked to a person's participation? It would be great if there was a badge that would be earned after x amount of time quit plus # of blogs/responses on the site. That might identify those who have been around and have the most experience being quit and helping others?
Also - not sure it's still happening, but it used to be that fairly often the "Featured Member" would be long gone.
I would also love to xee Spell Check available.
Nancy
Nancy
@Legend
It's not appropriate for people to be doing that to you. Please send me any evidence you have of this behavior. Please include screenshots and any messages you have received and send them to me.
@Nancy
Yes we're going to rethink the badging. There are a couple different types of earned badges that exist on the site. Ones earned for completing profile related ones, ones for participating on the site and others that are assigned. This isn't uncommon compared to other sites. There will always be people who game the system on any community and try to do the bare minimum to increase their profiles. These earned badging systems, also known as Gamification, can help with engagement on a site. What you seem to be getting at is earned ranking systems where badges are assigned at various points along a person's tenure within a community. This is somethign that would be evaluated as well.
RE: New Member Spotlight
This person is automatically picked based on some super secret algorithm. It's not anything picked by me.
RE: Featured Community Members, Conversations and Groups
These people are selected by me. Please feel free to suggest Members, Blog Posts and Groups to feature if you've found someone/somegroup to be particularly helpful. I am always looking around but I love the input of others.
RE: Spell Check
I'm not sure why it isn't working on the site. Will see if it is something we can fix before we move to a new community platform.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Terrific discussion happening already... keep 'em coming!
@Legend
Your username is anonymous, as is your avatar(provided you don't use it on other sites associsted with your real name) and your email address isn't showing with your profile, so you should be fairly safe. If you want other ideas on how to make your profile more anonymous I'd be glad to give you ideas. Please feel free to send me a private message or email.
I apologize if my last reply was very specific to stalking by another member of this community but I realize that your post might have been more broad in nature to include stalking from members in one's real life. This will be in my mind as I evaluate functionality. It's a great idea for an FAQ as well.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Thank you Mark
This is in regards to blogs. I think there should be a time stamp on when a blog was written. We only know the date.
@Shawn
What do you envision using the timestamp for on the blogs? For comments on blogs you can roll over the time ago to see the exact time it was written.
Mark
EX Community Manager
It would be helpful if we could delete the PM sent messages in the same manner we can delete the PM inbox messages. In other words, when you pull up a PM in the inbox and read it, you then have the option to delete from one of the 3 choices below it. But there are no such options beneath the sent PMs. You must first return to the Sent Message page and THEN delete it from there. It would just save a step. Of course this may all be a moot point when the platform change is made.
@giulia
This isn't something we would add to this community but we can look at for the next community platform. We're looking to understand what your needs are currently that aren't being met that we can consider when we evaluate new platforms.
Mark
EX Community Manager
@Giulia-
You can mass delete things from your Sent Box, though you'll have to know which messages you want to delete by the subject as you can't see the body of the message while deleting. I know it's not the solution you wanted but it does give you the option to clear things out if you wanted to.
Mark
EX Community Manager
Yup, I kinda figured it was a moot point on this platform but wanted to mention it anyway for future reference. And, yes, I was aware that you can mass delete from the sent box. Thanks for the response!
@Giulia-
You bet! Sorry it's not something I can just make happen here.
Mark
EX Community Manager
The only thing that was confusing to me and as I've seen from new members that come onto the site is the message board. it's hard to correlate what message goes to what response. I think people are basically seeing it as a Facebook post where they just simply respond underneath the comment. Just wondering if that could be enhanced somehow by showing the response underneath the original post to the message board.
on Mar 11, 2016
Live Text/Video Chats
Polls
I'm not a member of any other on-line communities, so I don't know what THEY do, but I'd love to see a group chat or a group Skpe type of thing. Even a one-on-one chat would be cool. The bonfires would be really great if we could see it each other.
Polls sound like a very interesting idea. As long as we got to see the results. Like: How much time do you spend reading within the support community on this site? 30 minutes or less, 1 hour or more..... etc. Have you used an NRT? Did you find it helpful? Did you quit Cold Turkey? If you had to choose between Cold Turkey and an NRT, which would you choose? A or B. How many times have you tried to quit? What's your greatest fear about quitting? Which kind of support do you enjoy the most - gentle pats, tough love, a combo of each? .... the list could go on and on....
SPELL CHECK!!! Oh please. Would save us so much time deleting and self correcting and restoring blogs.
Thanks for asking!