Posting to groups we are not members of
In the old community I was able to post to any group - whether I was a member or not.
Was that just some special access I had - or was it that way for everyone?
In the new community it seems like it forces us to become a member before we can post - which I don't particularly like.
Comments
-
Dennis, your previous access to post a reply to any group was not special, as I was able to do it, and had done a few times recently.
I have not yet tried to do this with the new platform, but if as Dennis says above this is not now possible, I think this is a BAD move, as it cuts down on possible replies to queries posted.
I do not think I would have wanted to join these groups as I assume I would have then received all email notifications from these groups (but as I don't belong to a group I don't know for sure if this is what happens)
1 -
@Dennis J Yancey & @MaureenE123
Yes ...
I was trying a few things ...
But, NOTHING worked ...
And, as has been previously raised, I could not even "Delete" this 'Comment' of mine ...
Brett
0 -
I was just reading through a Group and I came across an unanswered post where I could have added a partial reply, but there was no indication how I could have made a reply, not even a comment about joining the group , but why should I need to do this anyway
Why is it now so difficult to answer questions? This new Community seems to have lost sight of its purpose, which is surely to provide information
Edit: I meant to post the above as a URL, but somehow I did something (perhaps accidentally clicked on it) and it changed from a URL to how you see it currently. I COULD NOT DO ANYTHING TO CHANGE IT BACK TO A URL, I was even unable to delete it.
2nd edit: I see the unanswered post I referred to above has now been classified as a "Discussion" and since I posted there have been some previous responses brought across from the old platform, so that the question had been partially answered.
0 -
no one in leadership is capable of answering the questions about cross posting?
0 -
I now see there is a FamilySearch response posted above
"This is not a feature that will be available in this community. You will be required to be a member of a group if you desire to post into it."
I can understand this comment if it is in relation to posting a question, but if it also means that you cannot post a REPLY to a question I think it is a BAD decision.
Firstly, it is a change in practice, because up until the introduction of the new platform, anyone who was signed into FamilySearch Community could make a reply to a question in a Group if they had relevant information, as I have done on a few occasions. I thought the new platform was supposed to be an improvement, not to cut down on what had previously been available. I thought of it in the sense of making a comment helpful to the person asking the question, not as my "desire to post into" the group.
Secondly, if a person now posts a question in a Group, according to the advice above, they are restricted now to receiving an answer from members of that Group, which could be a small handful of people (although some Groups are bigger) . I think Groups should be required to have a statement to this effect because maybe the person posing the question would be better off posting in the Q&A section where there is possibly a wider pool of people who could answer. Who knows?
I think the situation should be clearly explained so people knows what is going on.
Edit: I have now seen some topics which indicate there is a distinction between Discussions and Questions in Groups. It would appear Discussions, most of which appear to be questions may be read by non Group members, but as a non Group member I have not seen a heading Questions in Groups, so no idea what is there, Perhaps there is some explanation for Group members.
1 -
Dennis, i do not really see any objections to make it mandatory to be a member of a group to post in it.
Even if you become a member, and post,you will only see posts shooting to your mailbox IF you are in the thread yourself and interacting on stage so to speak. Asking an entry in several groups and maintain it , does not exclude anything else.Also, .."if" you post the same question in several different groups at the same time, in the same form,you will see all related reply's from the different groups in your mailbox if interacted on thread.That is not cross-posting , -but cross-docking;....happily avoiding
fire at random,restricting the question and discussion to the field and matter it relates to.
Toughts?
1 -
Under the old platform in the General Questions the person who was I think the Main moderator routinely referred the poster of a genealogy question to a Group. That may have been fine under the old system when anyone who had joined Community could comment freely in a Group even if not a member. I wonder now if that would be an ethical thing to do, unless the Group was large. I have in the past commented on questions , or perhaps they were discussions (I have no idea of the distinction) where no one else in the group had been able to add information. I will not be doing that now as I have no wish to join a group which I assume will generate emails for me to have to go through. I have to much stuff now in my email inbox.
Perhaps there are other people in a similar position. I think it the person with the question who will suffer,
I thought this new platform was supposed to be an improvement, but I cannot see that it an improvement for people who have questions.
0 -
Okay, this platform is certainly not an improvement on what went before, but perhaps those who took part in user testing have to share part of the blame for that. Surely they could see how complicated and time-consuming it would (and has) become to help (and receive help from) other Community members. Reading through the newly raised posts (in Q and A, Ideas and "My Groups" takes me three times as long as under the old set-up.
That said, I don't see joining a group is in itself a big issue. Take an example of mine: I have never dealt previously dealt with Canadian records, but suddenly found myself with a query on a distant relative whose family moved to Alberta. The Canada group seemed the obvious place to post my query, but there was no big deal in making one click of the mouse and straight away becoming a member. If I feel I have no further need to remain a member (after all, there's not much advice I could offer to others) I can easily leave the group.
Sorry, but while I see the problems with the overall set-up of the new Community forum, I just don't see how having to be a member of a specific group to post there is any great problem.
0
