Changes made to Suggest An Idea
You say in your announcement regarding changes to Suggest An Idea:
These changes will commence on February 20, 2024, beginning with the closure of all existing ideas for further processing.
Specifically, I wonder how it is being decided exactly when to close an item? I notice that most are being closed fairly quickly, but wonder if you could confirm if a moderator now makes the item "read only" as soon as it is thought the matter has been sufficiently addressed? Are the ideas then being immediately escalated to the appropriate teams for consideration? If so, surely leaving them open for an additional, short period might provide added value to the suggestion - or (conversely) even show there is already a current "workaround" that makes it unnecessary for the suggestion to be implemented?
Perhaps you might also give us a "sneak preview" of a couple of the other changes that might be in the pipeline!
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I just tried to comment, and there was a very brief view of a pop-in message, something like "your message will appear after it is approved".
Aggravating doesn't begin to cover it.
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@Paul W did you see Stephanie's further comment yesterday, with a more changes coming note? https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/545350/#Comment_545350
This implementation will go into effect beginning Thursday, February 29, 2024. There will be clear instructions for you to follow on that day.
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Whoops. No I appear to have missed that one! Thanks for the link.
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I will freely admit I find the current state of affairs frustrating. We may be in the middle of a conversation on a thread when it is abruptly closed with no option to continue the discussion. Often, it's not really a Suggestion, but the door gets closed in our faces.
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Is anyone able to add comments at present to Suggest An Idea items? I have tried with separate "Ideas" - ones still showing as "open" - but my comments just disappear when a hit "Post Comment". Perhaps due to ongoing work before tomorrow's "new look".
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Thanks, Julia. I must have been blinking too much previously, because at my attempt to post just now I did just manage to see the "Your message will appear after it is approved" comment at the bottom left of the page.
I hope this practice won't spread to the other areas of Community and effectively act as a censorship tool, in order to keep certain unfavoured ideas and negative criticisms completely hidden from view.
What's already obvious is that (with "ideas" being "Closed" so quickly) there will be little or no opportunity for any discussion on the OP's comments at Suggest An Idea.
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Well, it's not 29 Feb here yet but I guess it is somewhere. Tongue firmly in cheek.
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@Paul W and @Julia Szent-Györgyi It seems all your tests were approved. I've saved an image in case they are all gone by morning.
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Urk. Well, I hope some of the duplicates are gone by morning -- but it seems to be a demonstration that the approval process doesn't involve a human being. (Or only an extremely inattentive one.)
And it's still in place: I tried to reply to another not-yet-closed suggestion, and got the very brief pop-in again, no reply on the thread, and a copy of my reply in my Drafts folder. (I didn't try re-posting it, this time.)
I devoutly and earnestly hope that this is a temporary state of affairs, because if this is what we face going forward, the Suggestions section will be utterly unusable: it will be cluttered with hundreds of duplicate replies that nobody can do anything with or about, and actual conversation or interaction will be completely impossible. Might as well just disable comments on suggestions, like they briefly did a couple of times in the past year.
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I also tried to respond to a new one and was thwarted. If there was a pending approval notice it was too brief for me to see it.
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And it seems that the filter implemented to ensure the posts are truly idea suggestions didn't quite make the grsde.
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I agree that the changes to Suggest an Idea are not working well.
The first few entries I came across in Suggest an Idea this morning had been closed very quickly. I would have liked to make a helpful comment, but was thwarted by the premature closure. I certainly understand that there could be cases where a thread needs to be closed quickly because of a sensitive topic or a heated discussion, but surely that should be the exception, not the rule.
And when I did get the opportunity to post a reply to a suggestion, it failed. I composed a reply, then clicked Post Comment, but nothing happened. I was pretty sure I had got the button solidly, but I tried again. Again, nothing happened, so I saved it as a draft to avoid losing my work. Refreshing the page made no change -- I still see just the draft. Perhaps in time I will see two duplicate posts. Who knows?
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Thank you for your responses / comments, @Áine Ní Donnghaile and @Julia Szent-Györgyi.
I didn't realise I'd been so persistent in attempting to make my post stick at Suggest an Idea - yes, do hope all those duplicates will be removed asap!
Not a promising start - perhaps "teething problems" in some respects, but I can't see how the moderation (bot or human) feature is going to be a help, and if items are going to be closed without opportunity for user participation.
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Didn't deliberately fail to reference your contribution in my previous post - we both appear to have been commenting at exactly the same time.
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From the new instructions for Suggest an Idea, it would seem we are not invited to comment and should only vote. Of course, we can still only upvote, not downvote, making the vote button(s) rather meaningless. https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/expressing-opinions-and-voting
How do I express my opinion about someone else’s idea?
Voting is the best method provided to express your opinion and assist FamilySearch in gauging the interest of an idea. Upvoting indicates agreement, while downvoting signals disagreement.
Opinions and negative critiques should not be submitted when commenting on an idea. Comments undergo the same review process and are not posted if they do not contribute value to the presented idea.
How does voting work?
Your idea is more likely to gain traction by upvoting an existing idea than by reposting the same idea. Before submitting an idea, search within the Community to see if the idea has already been suggested.
Your votes help us track the most popular ideas. You can vote for as many ideas as you want, but you can only cast one vote per idea. If you change your mind, you may update your vote.
When should I comment?
Comments are used to add clarity or provide helpful information to an idea. Comments are not to be used to express your opinion or criticize another person’s idea.
We strive for the Suggest an Idea category to be a safe environment for everyone to share their thoughts, regardless of whether those thoughts align with popular opinion. Comments deemed contentious, mean-spirited, or unkind are not allowed.
All comments undergo review prior to posting. Please ensure your comments contribute to clarity or provide supplementary information for an idea. Comments that do not meet these criteria are not posted.
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Oy, I hadn't read that yet.
Yeah, they're going the very long way around to completely disable the Suggest an Idea section.
If moderation of comments takes longer than about a minute, and the error message about moderation remains as fleeting as it currently is, then all it will result in is a dozen duplicates each of half a dozen requests for the same clarification (from different people). Or it will, for the first few attempts. After that, we'll all just post to some other part of the Community and avoid the suggestions section like the plague they've turned it into.
Are they planning to enable _down_voting? Or have they forgotten that they've set this place up to be happy-happy-joy-joy only?
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Since this week is RootsTech, we are likely shouting into the void. Maybe a good thing, since some of our sentiments are not happy-happy.
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Looking through the new guidelines it does appear that the Suggest An Idea category is being changed from a community discussion board to pretty much just a display board. This is fine with me. I'm sure the engineers are just as good at ignoring bad ideas as we are at explaining why an idea has problems.
Also looking at the guidelines, as of the moment, the change in function has not been implemented yet. Clicking to start writing a new idea does not bring up any type of form so that is not working yet. They clearly say we will be able to down vote an idea so that still has to be implemented and there needs to be a display of the number of down votes as well as the number of up votes.
Since we are not to repost old ideas but find them and up vote them, I do hope the search capability of the site gets improved. Personally, I can never find any old posts.
It will be interesting to see how this works. If a post has more than one idea, will it be returned to the poster to be split into more than one post? Or will there be some way to up vote one part and down vote another part? Will education be viewed as criticism? That is, if someone posts "the web site should...," can we post "it already does...."? Will there be some sort of official acknowledgment of ideas or readily accessible explanation somewhere of how ideas are processed? Recently, there have been a few posts along the lines of "A month ago I requested that the website does ...., it still doesn't, why not? Why haven't I heard anything from anyone?"
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Stephanie V has posted (in a closed message, hence this thread rather than a reply) that the changes to Suggest an Idea are now live, but this does not appear to be fully true. The new "read more" page (https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/suggest-an-idea), in the "Expressing Opinions and Voting" section, states "downvoting signals disagreement" -- but the downvote arrow continues to be forbidden in this Community.
Are we to interpret this as meaning that we are not permitted to disagree with suggestions, or as merely a sign that the implementation is not yet complete (contrary to Stephanie's post)?
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I recall a previous discussion in which the mods did not realize only they could downvote and the rest of us could not. Perhaps that is the case here/again/still?
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I wonder if these changes are being introduced over a period of time and / or the work is being carried out by a third party.
If FamilySearch engineers are dealing with the process it seems rather odd this is happening whilst RootsTech is taking place - a time when we are usually advised the engineers are busy on matters related to the event.
I assume Stephanie is also too tied-up with RootsTech matters to give clarification on the roll-out of the revised Suggest an Idea.
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Another thought - since reactions are still disabled/broken in groups, perhaps the downvote button will be enabled when the reactions tabs are fixed.
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We thought that had been fixed but apparently not. We are aware and will bring it to the attention of those that can change it.
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I'm also confused by the statement "A template has been created outlining the required information for “Suggest an Idea” category posts. Ideas must contain the information requested in the template. Otherwise, the idea will be returned until the required information is included." (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/157683/changes-to-suggest-an-idea-are-now-live#latest)
Was the template idea dropped? There does not seem to be one. The instructions at: https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/how-to-submit-an-idea just say to write a title, a message, and add tags. No template is mentioned.
Also, I've never used tags because the hundreds of possible ones never really seemed to have any use. But if we are now required to tag a suggestion, are there specific ones we should stick to? What if there is no tag that seems pertinent?
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I notice that since 29 February, there have apparently been no new comments added to the Suggest an Idea section. I wonder if this is because the new "moderation tool" is holding them back from publication, or if Community members (probably quite wisely) are themselves holding back in further participation until we are completely clear on the new "rules of engagement"?
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When did guidelines or information about posting ever stop the newcomers from using whatever input field and button they could find? It seems pretty clear that the Suggestions section has been completely disabled. It's probably not entirely intentional, of course, but any repair will not happen this weekend.
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I just tried posting something and got this:
Maybe those who approve such only work certain hours? Maybe they are still being trained as to what is an idea vs not an idea? Or maybe the attempted update just crashed the entire thing.
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Or maybe everyone's ideas are all about the new Lab features and they are all busy posting ideas over in the various Groups where they can actually be discussed.
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"We thought that had been fixed but apparently not"
I assume this is your response to the ongoing inability to react to ("Like", etc.) posts made in Groups.
If so, can we please have clarification on the main subject raised by @Julia Szent-Györgyi. The guidelines for use of Suggest an Idea mention the ability to downvote an idea, which I have just confirmed is still not possible. If it is no longer the intention to allow for downvoting, could the wording in the guidelines article changed, pleased?
(I apologise if I have misunderstood your response and you have escalated both matters.)
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I've noticed that Mods and Staff/Developers have recently used the reactions in the Groups where I am a member, so that element works - FYI.
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