Secondary Tags in General discussions - part 1

sha_shah1

roxy_r
Sound like a good idea and easy to use for new members.

roxy_r

Great thoughts folks! Cheers for sharing.

So are we ok with having about 1 hour perhaps Wednesday morning where members won't be able to create new threads in General discussions or Forum games as we move them over? You will still be able to reply to existing threads.

Looking deeper at the name of the secondary tag I had a quick chat with the folks here and the engagement team and it might be better to get a bit more specific with what part of Run by You we are referring to.
What I mean by that is that a lot of what we do is about Run by you and I am actually working on a bigger long term vision that will enhance on this which I hope to share with you all soon. So in light of more examples of Run by you on the horizon, it might be better to prepare ourselves and be a bit more specific. The other reason why it would benefit us is new members coming in and seeing the sub- tag, they will understand that this is a specific part of Run by you and not the entire thing.

So what do we think would best describe this part of Run by you? Member led activities ?

extreme_one , danwillen is spot on - at the moment all stiky-ed threads are shown on the All discussions page and it would be great to still give these initiatives a home and make sure members can easily find them. It would also give us the first step towards trying to organise General discussions a bit more.

essie112mm and harrrrrry yep, we need to decide on a way for us to figure out how new threads would go into this tag. Could it be as simple as us having another thread where members can nominate and discuss?

extreme_one

roxy_r hopefully the issue where sub-tags aren't all visible in Mobile view will be fixed before multiple tags are rolled out.

ray2

roxy_r So what do we think would best describe this part of Run by you? Member led activities ?

Off the top of my head "share the love member threads"
"Member led board of activities"
"members activity & sharing cave"
""members creativity corner"

Just a thought 😄

essie112mm

harrrrrry it shouldn't be a complete free for all with a hundred members launching random competitions and challenges as that would dilute the interest

That is not what I want either. None of us does. But if Eds are in charge of assigning threads then they will automatically filter out any which don't have merit or are unlikely to take off, and also restrict the number of threads allowed into the tag.

I feel quite strongly though that if possible at least one new thread should be allowed into the tag straightaway. If the community is to flourish we must make it more open to newbies and members who are infrequent visitors. At the moment someone posts an idea in Labs and gets cut down to size, they make a suggestion on Contribute and for their pains get told off or sarcasm or cold water poured on their thread (btw I'm not suggesting you do this), and here we are again saying only established threads can be at the starting line of the new tag. In my opinion members should be given the chance to pitch any ideas they might have before the tag is launched.

roxy_r So are we ok with having about 1 hour perhaps Wednesday morning where members won't be able to create new threads in General discussions or Forum games as we move them over?

Yes, but would it be helpful to post a thread on GD this morning giving notification as many members won't know about this thread and might assume there is an issue with the forum?

roxy_r So what do we think would best describe this part of Run by you? Member led activities ?

Fine with me

roxy_r we need to decide on a way for us to figure out how new threads would go into this tag. Could it be as simple as us having another thread where members can nominate and discuss?

Can't see why not. It might be useful to have the thread on both Contribute and GD. And how about resurrecting old extablished threads that worked well before? I seem to remember there was a "grow your own" thread which had quite a following.

endorphin

roxy_r So are we ok with having about 1 hour perhaps Wednesday morning where members won't be able to create new threads in General discussions or Forum games

That's fine by me. You don't have to re-enable Games though! 😉

So what do we think would best describe this part of Run by you?

Hmm:

Run by Us
Members for Members
Mutual giving
Community'r'Us

jesi23

endorphin Run by Us
Members for Members
Mutual giving
Community'r'Us

Run By You Member hosted creative initiatives and achievement threads.

🤡

_edited _to _add: Basically, the old Member-hosted threads in which topics were decided in conjuction with Educator input and were stickied on the Lithium platform would belong in this TAG. 🤡

ianmorland

roxy_r

Morning everyone, just a little note to say that I have just finished implementing these changes.

There were no unexpected issues, and all went smoothly. 🙂

Over and out...

Ian

jaymailsays

ianmorland
Congrats on burning the midnight oil ✅🙂

endorphin

ianmorland it seems like the unhide function is not available for the new Forum Games tag!?

Not that I would want to unhide it.

ianmorland

endorphin it seems like the Forum Games tag still has the Hiding function attached to it which should only be available on sub tags!?

No, this is normal. We offer the hiding ability on primary tags as well so that those tags can be filtered from the 'all discussions' view 🙂

endorphin

ianmorland LOL now I've unhidden it the hiding function is greyed out!

ianmorland

endorphin LOL now I've unhidden it the hiding function is greyed out!

That's a bug that's been floating around for a few days now I'm afraid. We're working on a fix... Watch this space

roxy_r

Thanks for the suggestions folks! Any more? 🙂

Also, let's remember that this sub-tag is for General discussions so we should be focusing on things that are related to that. This is also a great opportunity for us to see how something like this could work and also if we need it in other parts of the community.

As you have seen, Forum games has been moved out of General discussions and there was a Run by you tag created but I have asked Ian to hide it until we settle on a name and process.

essie112mm

roxy_r Also, let's remember that this sub-tag is for General discussions so we should be focusing on things that are related to that.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean by this? Do you have reservations about some of the suggestions for inclusion in the tag?

I suggested this thread which I think might have been stickied for a brief while - https://community.giffgaff.com/d/22882339-rby-giffgaff-grow-our-own-corner-2019 - and didn't realise until just now that it was still active. But if @ijustcantdoit agrees, would the thread fit the criteria for the tag? It is discussion-based, with members swapping information and useful tips, and in many cases illustrated with photos.

endorphin

Any more?

Paging @jesi23 @biker_chick_from_zarg 🙂

jesi23

anth006 What on earth is CWC

Actually, since there is no longer a ‘competition it now stands for Creative Writing Challenge where members write ENTRIES each month on a specified topic, and receive reactions from other members. A parallel thread is used for any COMMENTS and further elucidation on the topics, or ‘non-entries’ where any member wants to write more than one entry on a topic. The actual entries are limited to one per member. 🤡 Jes

jesi23

essie112mm But if @ijustcantdoit agrees, would the thread fit the criteria for the tag?

I think this would fit well into Run By You Member hosted creativity and achievements. The ‘grow our own’ are achievements (not necessarily giffgaff ones)! 🤡

roxy_r

Sorry for being a bit quiet, things have been a bit hectic in the office 🙁

essie112mm sure! I was meant more as a general 'let's make sure we stay focused on General discussions' type of threads as it can be easy to slip into things that should be in Contribute for instance. So when we build the description and the process we should make sure we take that into consideration and plan for the situation where an initiative is better in Contribute. Also, another thing to think about is Tips and guides, what is the difference between a member run initiative and a Tips and Guides topic?

I will get the suggestions for the name together and see if one stands out so we can maybe move fwd with this soon. Hope to do this quickly but I am not sure if it will be today as I am helping out with the Q&A later on.

ijustcantdoit

essie112mm suggested this thread which I think might have been stickied for a brief while - https://community.giffgaff.com/d/22882339-rby-giffgaff-grow-our-own-corner-2019 - and didn't realise until just now that it was still active. But if @ijustcantdoit agrees,

Hi
Yes great idea .
I have run this since 2017 and will be starting it again today , thought I would wait for the January blues to pass and get us ready to SOW now in February: 🙃
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33071709-giffgaff-grow-our-own-corner-2020-our-4th-year-running

endorphin

roxy_r Sorry for being a bit quiet, things have been a bit hectic in the office

What have you been up to? 😮

jesi23

roxy_r we can maybe move fwd with this soon

If the definition was “Member Hosted Creative Initiatives and Achievements for ‘Run By You it would correspond to the Threads previously stickied with Educator approval.

Just my thoughts.

🤡

jesi23

roxy_r a member run initiative and a Tips and Guides topic

I think the key here is that ‘Run By You’ threads were actually Hosted by the member rather than just initiated by the member, implying closer scrutiny and focus? With a specific (usually time-delineated) purpose.

I would wonder if ‘Tips and Guides’ might be better as a Secondary Tag in Contribute than General Discussion. Where would you be looking for information?

🤡

essie112mm

Hi Roxy
Thank you for the explanation. I see your direction of thought now 😃

roxy_r what is the difference between a member run initiative and a Tips and Guides topic?

In my opinion Tips and Guides is in sore need of a discussion to decide what kind of forum it is going to be. It has morphed into an "anything goes" forum, and since gameplan was wound down become an unofficial gameplan forum. Apart from a Help question which had been posted on the wrong forum, when I looked yesterday evening every single one of the threads down to "load more" was a hot deal thread. When last under scrutiny in 2017 it was intended to be a forum for hacks and some of us took part in discussions and put forward suggestions, which have not really been taken further. If the current trend continues then perhaps there won’t be a likelihood of any crossover developing between the new tag threads and Tips and Guides because the forum will be gameplan Mk2?

So not sum up what I’m saying, is there a need to clarify what threads need to be in Tips and Guides? If so, would this help define what is a member run initiative for the new tag and allow us to go with jesi23's suggested definition: “Member Hosted Creative Initiatives and Achievements

Edit: just to add, I'm not saying the Hot Deals shouldn't be in Tips & Guides, only asking if the forum needs scrutiny

roxy_r

Great stuff here folks! I think what this highlights is the fact that we have a long road ahead of us in trying to sort out and organise our forum.

endorphin What have you been up to? 😮

Brainstorming a few ideas on where do we want to take the community. I want to share all of those with you soon 🙂

essie112mm harrrrrry endorphin
Let's start small and slowly expand on the changes. That way we make sure everyone knows what we are doing and no one feels overwhelmed with the change.

essie112mm go with jesi23's suggested definition: “Member Hosted Creative Initiatives and Achievements

Love the explanation but it is a bit long to use as a name for the tag. We tried it and it gets cut off 🙁 Same with the majority of the names proposed. And as I mentioned before, we should try and think of something other then Run by you as we don't want members to think that that is the only run by you thing we do.

So, we had a little brainstorm and have a few proposals for you for a name. We started from Community Favourites or Member Favourites but went a little bit further and wanted to make sure the entire name fits so we thought about :
Community Faves or Member Faves

We like it but wanted to see what you folks thought. Is it easily understandable by new members but also does it makes sense for the regulars? We can perhaps do a little test with the pioneers if you think it could work.