Discussion Forum feature idea

Judith,

We will be revamping forums this week. Expect many enhancements. As part of this initiative, we plan to add a feature that we are tentatively calling "member tagging". Example: you will be able to tag members in your group with a labels such as: "Committee Members" or "Friends." When starting a discussion topic or replying to a discussion topic you will be able to select one or more of your member tag groupings so that your discussion blasts goes only to them.

We also plan to extent use of the "member tag" functionality to email blasts and calendar invites. We are currently trying to decide if this functionality should be extended to non-managers as well.

Example:
We are thinking that non-managers should no longer be able to send discussion blasts or event invites to the entire group... but only to "member tag" groupings that they have created.

Should members who are tagged by other non-managers have to accept their tag? What are your thoughts?

Because my members are not the most savvy users, I generally resist over-complication (e.g. tags). Tags are useful but only for a small number of people.

I think this is related to the overall challenge of keeping members up-to-date with the most relevant stuff for them. and this is a complex area. People in my group are complaining about receiving too many updates but that these updates do not include enough information for them to make a decision as to whether it is worth logging in. Preferably as a manager, I'd like them to receive 1 email every 2 days that summarizes the content that has gone on the site. In this email, I can (as manager) highlight certain things ("Hey everyone - this is what group manager Gareth wants you to know about") and likewise non-managers can highlight specific content ("hey everyone - this is what Joe Blogs wants you to know about"). Down the track I could see a more complex system working (i.e., information received on basis of tags) but I think it is early days yet.

Thanks Clarence. I like the tag idea and I would use it. I have no problem with it being offered to my members but like Gareth said, my members are not that sophisticated, so I do not think a lot of them would use it. If I created groups and tagged them with a name, would my members be able to select to send to the groups I created? That would be good because I don't see many of them creating groups themselves. Actually, would be good if I (the manager) could create a group, tag it with a name and then designate private or public. If "private", only I could select that group to receive a mailing. If public, anyone could select that group to send to. This would be ideal for my networking site where I have many PA, MD and DC members... it would help us to just get the relevant events to them instaed of all of them.

I do like the ability for members to be able to send invites to events on the calendar (so long as the current option for individual members to say they don't want individual e-mails remains)... less work for me to do if they can send as well.

I don't like the ability for members to blast a discussion to all because what is near and dear to one person is irrelevant to most others. Making them pick a subgroup would be good.

I would still like to be able to reply to a discussion posting and have it sent to a specific member (vs just a tagged group). For example, when a Job Opp is posted, I often want to get that to one specific person and right now I have to copy and paste it into an e-mail if I don't want to send it to all.

Also, regarding pending members, I think the managers should be able to blast them but no one else (for anything ... event or discussion). For the pending folks, I want them to know that they are missing good stuff but when they get lots of stuff from everyone, they decide to decline thinking this will go on forever (since they are not members yet, they don't know yet that they can set thier profile to control that).

Hope that helps Clarence,
Judy.

Judy,

Great information. I do like your idea of limiting the creation of "communication groups" to managers and giving managers the ability to define the accessibility of communication groups -- managers only or all members. We could also add a setting that would enable managers to allow group members to add themselves to some "communication groups." The manager would determine which communication groups would be open for members to add themselves.

I like the sound of "communication groups" better then "member tagging." If you were to name this feature, would you call it "email groups" or "communication groups"?

Also, our current setting for alerting pending members will remain the same. Only managers can alert pending members of discussions or events via email.

Hey Clarence:

Yes, I do like the name Communications Groups better but since each collectivex site is already a communications group, I would call these Communications Sub-Groups. I would still allow the members to create groups (esp their own private ones) but I just don't think they will do it a lot which is why I think they should have access to just use the managers sub-groups... the public ones. I would still like to have private groups for sending invites and such. I love the idea of being able to set up a sub-group and have the option to have members opt in... instead of me having to do all the assignments... that would be great. Hope that helps

good news on the pending member communications as well.

Surely the manager could define the name of these groups. At a basic level, I think of them as sub-groups. If I created them though, I would probably call them Interest Groups or State Groups (for localized content). Members could then choose whether they would like to belong to any of the "Interest Groups" and "State Groups".

Sub-groups would open up all sorts of possibilities and internal networking opportunities. I like the direction of this thread.

I like "interest group" better than "state group". State group does not have an immediate meaning to me. thanks, Judy.

Yeah - state groups was more related to me thinking about the different states in Australia that I am likely to have members from. It will make sense for those states to be able to communicate within themselves because events are generally defined by location.

Well, tagging did not make it into this build, but we will definitely be adding more features in the near future.

I just talked about tags because Clarence asked my opinion about them... my original request and what I really want it to be able to select an individual member from a drop downbox (or any way) and forward a discussion topic that person if I feel it is particularly relevant to them.

hope that clarifies a bit. thanks for the update,
Judy.

I see what you mean. This would be a good feature. Maybe something like "[-] Forward to Member" sitting underneath the large "Reply to Topic" link at the top of this page? After clicking that, the area underneath the button could expand and allow you pick a member.

The only missing component for this to be able to work is a nice member picker control. Something to make it easy to select a member from a potentially long list. It should let you pick by letter (A-Z), support type-ahead find, etc. Dropdowns might be insufficient in large groups.

Also, are you envisioning being able to send the topic itself, or replies as well?

YOu got it... whatever method works... drop downs or alphabet. I mostly want to forward the original or current entry to bring it to someone's specific attention, then they should have the option to join the future trail of communications if they like. thanks joe. Judy.

Great ideas!

I see "tagging" as a feature you can extend to managers to help them to target their email blast. Memebrs should not be able to opt-out of a manager-to-member "tagged" group. I see "sub-groups" or "communication groups" as a way for members to opt-in and opt-out of member-to-member group email blast.

I would leave it up to the Manager to decide if members can create "sub-groups."

Sulaiman

I agree with Judith 100%. I want to select who gets notified, otherwise the person may never discover it on their own. Tags are a pull mechanism. This is a push that we are talking about. Actually, a filtered push. The tool that would help in this case is a filter members by criteria, select, saves selected , and take action.

You guys have all provided great feedback and insight. Consequently, CollectiveX is as much yours as it is ours. It's looking like we will create a feature called "email lists" or "blasts lists." You will be able to use the feature from discussion forums and from the calendar when sending event invites. It will enable you to select members to notify instantly via email when creating a dicussion topic or calendar event invite. You will be able to save and name your selections into an "email list" (i.e., Committee Members, etc) so that you can use it going forward.

Non-managers will also be able to use this feature, however, users who have opted out of receiving email messages from non-managers will not be able to selected when non-managers are creating "email lists".

Managers will have an option that will enable them to make their "email lists" available for any group member to use. Again, any group member who has opted out of receiving emails from non-managers will not receive emails that are sent from non-managers.

We are thinking of restricting parts of this feature for non managers in groups that have been set to public visibility where anyone can join... we have not finalized what aspects of the feature will be restricted for these types of groups. All suggestions are welcome.