Proposal: Remove the Group Update Text Box from Group Home Pages

• 

  Posted by Matthew K. Gold (he/him) on May 27, 2010 at 2:18 pm

  When people visit the home pages of groups, one of the first things they see is a text box that says “What’s new in [Group Name], [Member Name]?” This box allows members to post updates to the group, and it also has the “email this post” functionality that we moved over from the old “Wire” system.

  The problem with this box, as I see it, is that while the box works well for one-time announcements, it works less well for extended conversations — and that seems to be how many people are using it. If someone wants to post a message to a group and have others respond, the group forums would work better because they are thread-based; if you wanted to return to the conversation later, you’d simply have to find the forum thread devoted to that particular topic.

  By contrast, if you wanted to go back and recover or reread a conversation that took place through the group update box, you’d have to scroll through the activity pages of the group until you found the particular moment in time when that group of updates was posted. If a significant amount of time had passed since the messages were posted, that might take a while.

  We’d lose two things if we made this change:

  — a way for members to post to the group directly from the home screen of the group
  — a way for group members to force email messages out to all group members.

  The latter item deserves just a small bit of explanation. Group members are automatically subscribed to group forums when they join, but they can turn off those subscriptions if they don’t want email notifications of new posts. Although I’ve been a fan for a while of the option to email Wire posts out to groups, I’ve begun to think that forcing email messages out to groups, thus overriding the preferences of members who have opted out, may not be a respectful of the wishes of our members. It seems to me that member preferences should trump group admin preferences in this case.

  This is doubly true in light of a new feature that we are going to unveil in early July — a new group subscription feature that will allow group members to choose from five different digest options for group emails. Whereas we now have an opt in or out system for email subscriptions, this new plugin will enable members to receive daily or weekly updates from groups. Hopefully, this will allow members to stay in touch with group activities without receiving a deluge of additional email messages.

  If we remove the text box from the group home page, the first thing visitors will see is a list of recent activities on the site. I think that this will give people a good sense of what has been going on in the group (it will include notices, for instance, that a given user posted a new reply in the group forum). I’ve attached a screenshot to show you what I’m proposing we remove.

  I hope that all of this is clear; if you’d like more details, please let me know. Please think about how this change would affect the communication practices of your group and give us your feedback when you have a chance.

  Thanks,

  Matt

  p.s. Another related issue we should consider is the group navigation bar. If people have a hard time finding it, that will make it more difficult to post to the forums!

• Matthew K. Gold (he/him)

  Member

  May 27, 2010 at 2:19 pm

  Here’s the attachment

  Attachments:

  You must be logged in to view attached files.
  Maura A. Smale (she/her)

  Participant

  June 1, 2010 at 4:40 pm

  Hi everyone,

  Matt, I completely agree that this box should go. I admit that I often use this box to force email out to all group members, but I do think that folks should have the option of receiving notices or not. And I think that you’re right that being able to see the activity stream right up at the top will be helpful in giving people a sense of what the group is about. Now it often gets stuck below the fold.

  I think that the Group navigation bar on the left is pretty visible as it is, but once this box is removed the nav will pop even more, I suspect, so I’m not that worried that folks won’t be able to find it.

  Thanks!
  Maura
  Marisa Panzani (she/her/hers)

  Participant

  June 10, 2010 at 9:32 am

  I agree that this is a problem. But another option would be to somehow allow administrators to “move” a post into a discussion forum if it seemed like a more sensible place for it. Is that technically even possible?
  Matthew K. Gold (he/him)

  Member

  June 10, 2010 at 9:49 am

  That’s an interesting suggestion, Marisa. It’s not impossible, but it would be very difficult. Updates submitted through the current posting box on the home page are part of the activity feed system, while forum posts are handled through the integrated forum software that we use. Then, too, I’d like as much as possible not to put group admins in the position of having to mess with content posted by group members, both because it might cause headaches for group admins and because it might ruffle the feathers of people whose content was moved.

  I am concerned that the navigation tools on the lefthand sidebar on group pages might not be visible enough. If we take away the posting box on group homepages, and then people have trouble finding a link to the group forum, we’ll run into trouble.

  Anyway, thanks for your suggestion!