Ideas for Board Changes in 2022

[Dean]

With the new year almost here, I was thinking of what changes could be made to improve the community board. My main thoughts were on making it easier for new users to know where to post, and keeping the forums simple without needing to create new ones.

• Close old threads. - From what I've read about the Khoros platform, there is no automated way to have old threads closed. But I still like the idea and it could be done manually. How old should a thread be before it is closed? I was thinking that at least a year without replies would be good.
• Forum descriptions. - There should be a bit more description about each forum so people know where to look and post. I'm not sure if there's a place to put that but maybe a pinned thread at the top of each forum could have the detailed description. I was also thinking of linking relative help articles to each forum, such as Using Ibotta: Answers to Common Questions pinned to the How to use Ibotta forum.
• Start new trouble topic. - Create a new Post Your Ibotta Account Issue(s) thread for the new year. The current is huge and messy.
• Combine or define the Help forums. - Should Troubleshooting and General Support be one forum, or should they just be better defined and explained?

[LaraL]

• We can archive threads, although it does seem to remove post credit from anyone that posted in those threads. If you mean to disable replies then yeah, I'm all for it
• I definitely agree about the board descriptions, that's actually on my list and just kind of buried at the moment
• Agreed on a new megathread for account lockouts. I'm really hoping we can get this issue lightened up with some of the efforts we're making but I don't quite know yet
• We could certainly rename them or something so it's more intuitive, totally open to ideas

[Icequeen813]

@Dean  I think you’re rehashing information that’s already readily available.Personally I think that many people want to be “spoon fed “ information ., instead of reading for themselves 

[LaraL]

Well the problem is that we end up with dozens of "can't withdraw" threads every week, so the difficulty is finding a way to make sure they actually read the FAQs for it, prior to posting. Usually these are new accounts so I could maybe restrict posting new threads until the account has been live for at least 10 minutes or something.

[Dean]

Exactly @LaraL . I’m tired of seeing that broken piggy bank posted over and over. I don’t think it’s spoon feeding providing general information to get people started and searching on their own. 

[Dean]

Forgot to mention another idea is to disable the Teammates forum from any new posts. I think that should be a simple change. 

[Rickibotta]

A disproportionately high percentage of people with problems do not even try to find help.   They don't even seem to try to search or look.  They also don't even say 'thanks'  all too often.  So for many there will be no making them happy.

I am in favor of shutting off comments from many threads.  I am not in favor of  deleting old threads unless they can be deleted without affecting the 'likes' earned.

[SaverGirl67]

@Dean    I think these are all good ideas - especially starting a new lockout thread. I think newbies see that huge thread and get discouraged. But I also think the boards are unnecessarily flooded with individual complaint posts.  

Regular users want to come to the boards to share ideas/have fun but they have to sort through so many newbie complaints to do it. (and I feel it’s getting worse not better unfortunately)

Perhaps we can restrict troubleshooting posts from appearing in the general thread?  The average user is not responding to them and really doesn’t need to see them.  

Maybe newbie posts can be kept separate like the “in crowd board” ?  

Just my thoughts but I do feel the negativity of constantly reading people’s complaints and sometimes outright anger and aggression diminish user enjoyment and overall decrease positive participation. 

[Icequeen813]

@SaverGirl67   You are absolutely correct! 

[Dean]

@SaverGirl67 

So what do you define as a complaint? I see a lot of posts about being locked out, gift card problems, app issues, and not getting a response from the Help Center. If that was happening to me, I would be complaining too. I also don't see how to restrict new users or trouble posts to certain boards. I don't think that users should be restricted because a lot of useful information is spread throughout the entire forum. Since becoming a mod a couple of months ago, I've been checking to see what can be done with the forum. I've spent some time moving posts and sharing some ideas with @LaraL . Honestly, if there was more moderating going on things might be better managed.