Changes made to Suggest An Idea
Answers
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Ah, it's fixed for them, so they erroneously conclude that it's fixed for everyone? Still no reactions for us "mere mortals" in Groups.
And in Suggestions, not only do we not have full voting rights, we can't even really comment. Trying to do so results in a flash of a "when approved" message, but the post stays in Drafts, and well over half a day later, there's no sign of it (or of any new activity of any kind) anywhere in Suggestions. A comment-moderation queue that takes over an hour is nonfunctional; one that takes over half a day is actively disfunctional.
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I have attempted comments, on Suggestions, that have been sitting in my Drafts folder for several days.
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I was about to report I had made a comment which has remained in my Drafts folder for around six hours, but @Áine Ní Donnghaile's post (again, coincidentally being placed at the same time as mine!) truly confirms that these changes have been made without the proper moderation resources being arranged beforehand.
I wonder why anyone thought it was a good idea to make these changes when everyone at FamilySearch was probably focussed on RootsTech matters, so could not possibly be in a position to address the (surely anticipated) teething problems that would be encountered with this matter.
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Great minds, @Paul W. 😎 Julia and I also often give similar replies, at virtually the same time, on a post.
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I assume it is due to your having administrators' / moderators' rights that, since 5 March, you have been the only individual whose response to the original post has "stuck" at Suggest an Idea! Everyone else seems to be waiting for moderation of their comments, which remain firmly stuck in our Drafts sections.
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@Paul W I have no admin/mod rights. I'm not sure why I've been fortunate enough to have a response not stuck awaiting approval.
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But you are staff, as I recall, @Alan E. Brown. As I mentioned above, I have noticed that members of staff have been able to use the reactions in some of the groups where I am a member.
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I have no special permissions on Community. I certainly can't use reactions in groups. So your inference is incorrect.
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Both the downvote and the reactions to group posts are being worked on. Unfortunately the ability to do both is only available to a few people. We were told they were working just before RootsTech, but obviously they are still an issue. I check daily to see if I can do either with a non-moderator account.
There are only a few people that are authorized to approve Ideas and their comments. We are working through them, so please be patient.
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I see some of my pending comments on Suggestions are beginning to appear. Thanks, @Maile L.
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Thank you for coming back to me on the point I raised. Hopefully, we will soon see the moderation period reduced for us all - although I am not implying you have been given special treatment here!
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A week has gone by and nothing seems to have changed.
I still cannot post a comment on a suggestion. I see no message or pop-up or even a flicker. The comment disappears, but it gets saved automatically as a draft and reappears if I refresh the page.
As usual, @Gordon Collett makes comments and observations and questions about the expected operation of this feature that have no obvious answer. Did someone really think this through??
Only allowing up-votes is absurd. Only allow up and down votes is equally absurd. These are not cat videos we're talking about! Many ideas have nuances, misconceptions and related issues that cannot be addressed with a simple thumb.
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Just to be clear, I meant to imply that @Gordon Collett's comments are insightful and right on the money!
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I can't help feeling rather pleased that the moderators appear to be completely ignoring the guidelines at https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/suggest-an-idea. These appear to have produced no added value to that section of Community and, whether a temporary or permanent matter, it appears FamilySearch just does not have the resources to implement the changes originally planned.
Over last weekend, it was noticeable that there were no updates / contributions to Suggest an Idea (lasting around three days), which presumably relates to the fact that FamilySearch does not have the resources to allow for 24/7 moderation.
Regardless, the responses to posts ("Planned", "Not Planned" and "Under Consideration") were only recorded up to 7 March, every item being labelled "Active" since then.
I'm afraid I still can't see how any advantage could be gained through sticking to the guidelines. There is surely no difference in making comments anywhere within Community, yet the implication (in the guidelines) is that negative responses in Suggest an Idea would be more offensive to the original poster than those made in others sections of the forum.
Also, employees / engineers are still not likely to engage with us in explaining just why an idea will not / cannot be implemented. (Even if the plan is for the OP to be advised personally about, say, the impracticality of their suggestion, other members of Community are likely never to be advised just why a seemingly "great" idea is "Not Planned".)
As we appear to have received no updates on this matter since 26 February, I am hopeful the plans to revise Suggest an Idea have been quietly shelved and we can go back to making suggestions for which sensible, polite responses from any Community member will be allowed. (e.g., "You can already do this by utilising an existing feature...."etc.)
As is the case throughout the Community forum, surely it's best to allow everyday participants to provide responses that will save moderators and employees valuable time in having to address certain matters themselves - especially when we are aware, say, of a known "workaround" to a specific issue (being raised under Suggest an Idea).
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And, when our comments do make it through moderation, there are duplicates because we can't see the pending similar explanations of our fellow regulars.
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Yes, it is all very strange.
Someone responded to my suggestion of changing the default setting for downloading books (from the entire book, to a single page) as if I were suggesting to remove the option to download the entire book. I tried to clarify, but my post was only saved as a draft. It is rather frustrating to be misunderstood and not be able to make a clarification.
I trust that the changes are benefitting the engineers in some manner.
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Not the same issue really but related to the configuration of the Community software...
Am I imagining it, or if I hovered over the Agree / Like / whatever links, didn't it originally pop up a list of who had agreed / liked / whatevered? Because all I see now is a pop-up over "Agree" that says "Agree" (shock, horror!). It gets embarrassing if I hit the like-icon only to see the like-count go down because I've already liked it once. (And no, the colour change isn't permanent).
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@Adrian Bruce1, no, you're not imagining it: reactions have been disimproved. I just asked about it in a new thread (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/159132/is-the-unidentifiability-of-reactions-an-interim-disimprovement#latest).
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi I read that thread earlier but when I click on the URL now, Discussion Not Found is the only result.
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@Áine Ní Donnghaile, my thread from earlier today has apparently been moved by a mod to a comment on Mandy's thread from the beginning of the month (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/547656#Comment_547656).
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It's a shame the URL isn't redirected, too.
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Perhaps you would kindly provide an update to how "Suggest an Idea" is currently functioning.
I see the guidelines at https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/how-to-submit-an-idea are rarely being followed, but ideas are still being published, although none have been labelled ("Planned", "Not Planned", etc.) since 5 March.
I have just posted my first idea under the "new system" and see it has immediately disappeared (not even saved to my drafts), so assume it is being moderated and might / might not reappear later.
All this is very confusing and I would assume not how you would have envisaged things would be working, some three weeks after the "revamp".
Any comments would be appreciated.
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We are still seeing posts appear on Suggest an Idea that are NOT Suggestions, so that element hasn't been improved. We cannot comment - or at least not without a delay of several days. We can't downvote.
On a Suggestion made since the update was implemented, I provided an answer showing the requested feature already exists. It took some time before my answer appeared. The requested feature is still open and being upvoted; it can't be downvoted.
On another, the poster asked for comment, but when I tried my comment was disallowed, and I received a message from management that it would not be permitted.
Just how is any of this an Improvement?
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Well, over 24 hours have passed and my comments at Suggest an Idea still haven't appeared. No response / warning either, so I guess I had better not to make any further attempts to post until there is some update as to what is supposed to be working okay and what appears to be broken.
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@Paul W I've attempted another one this morning. Wonder how long it will take to be accepted or rejected?
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Well I still don't see your item! Neither mine - now two days since I submitted it.
Nothing seems to be working as was announced. I would have thought we would have at least received an update on any progress on the required fixes needed to make Suggest an Idea functional. Hopefully, that's a sign of the team being too busy working on the problems to report back!
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Good morning, Paul.
I have 2 pending in my drafts. And that feature request for something that already exists is still open. Progress?
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The pre-moderating takes time. I would suggest you give it two or three weeks. Complaining will not make things move any faster. Neither will reposting Comments and Ideas that you think have been missed.
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Two or three weeks for a comment to appear, @Maile L? If that is what you mean, why not just shut off Suggest an Idea because it will be useless.
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