Hey drupalers,
I would like to propose a new feature for the redesign of the d.o forum.
Wouldn't it be nice if the author of a forum topic can give the topic a resolved or closed status?
This way it's easier to see what topics need more help.
A proposal for some topic statuses:
- open
- closed (resolved)
- closed (unsolved) -> when a topic is open and has not been replied within a month for example or if the author sets it t manually to unsolved.
Maybe you know experts-exchange.com? This is a commercial forum that also works with open and closed questions.
I really like it, because you know when you are searching that all the topics you will see are resolved. (if you filter your search results offcoarse)
What do you think about this and is it possible to port the current topics to that workflow?
gr,
tom
Comments
A second proposal that has
A second proposal that has come to my mind is the possibility to refer topics to other nodes like handbook pages and modules.
Like this, a visitor can see a list of forum topics related to the handbook page he is reading or the module he is having trouble with.
It also makes it interesting from the doc teams perspective i think.
I think it's a really good
I think it's a really good idea to have forum topics being "open", "resolved" or "unresolved", with the "resolve" tickets having a much higher ranking in the search results. To add more clarity it would be great if a specific comment could be marked as "the answer" to enhance readability.
I think that linking should be done with an html anchor, I don't think we need extra functionality for that.
some other forum related proposals...
hi - we're having a discussion re: the redesign, what tools the community use and how they're used over here: http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-what-makes-up-drupalorg-community/
there are some interesting discussions around role the forum functionality might play. I'd be interested to get your thoughts on that if you have a moment!
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
user experience consultant (design research and user centred design)
working with Mark Boulton Design on the drupal.org redesign project
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
Too bad those discussions
Too bad those discussions aren't a part of this group. I refuse to join YAG just to discuss Drupal. Maybe you can summarize the postings here and if you do use words and not links please.
YAG?
sorry, I'm not sure what YAG means?
I know it is a bit of a hassle that the discussion is happening in multiple places, but there is a rationale behind that, being that we want to make the conversation as open as possible - to try to get 'insiders' and 'outsiders' involved (because they are both important audiences for us).
I know that some redesign discussions have previously happened in 'groups' and then people who don't use or aren't aware of groups have felt that the discussions were perhaps a little hidden away?
not only that but, frankly, the sign up process to become a member of a group could do with a little work and is definitely a barrier for participation.
so that is why some of the discussions are happening outside of the redesign group arena.
I can cross post here if you like (although that's obviously not ideal either)
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
user experience consultant (design research and user centred design)
working with Mark Boulton Design on the drupal.org redesign project
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
YAG
Probably "Yet Another Group" based on the context.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
+1
This would be very useful. I'd prefer it to work like "status" in the issue queue, so that people who reply to the thread can change status, as well. Not everybody who get an answer take the time to reply to the post. When I answer a support request in the issue queue (too seldom these days :-( ) I change the status to "fixed", so that others who're looking for questions to answer can skip that one.
In addition to your list, I'd like an "active (needs more info)" or similar.
See Want issue tagging? We're now one step closer and http://drupal.org/project/comment_alter_taxonomy for a way to implement this.
About your second proposal: http://drupal.org/project/pivots has been used for projects. The block has been turned on and off several times, so I guess there are some performance problems. I made a wireframe for a handbook page with suggestions for more "more info"-links, at http://groups.drupal.org/node/14928#comment-50539 . It does make sense for forum/support requests as well.
--
Hilde Austlid, Drupalchick
--
Hilde Austlid, Drupalchick
Features in Ubuntu forums
I think Ubuntu's forums are a great example: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=930911
Poster join date, post count, number of thanks, number of times thanked, etc. It really gives a feel for recognition and who's who. They also add a [SOLVED] tag to thread titles.
~~~
{ Drupal Themes from TopNotchThemes } Gorgeous Drupal 5 & 6 designs with Views/Panels 2 support, plus Ubercart themes!
~~~
{ TopNotchThemes | Fusion Drupal Themes }
Use the same titles as the issue queue
To make things consistent, I think it would be good if the statuses used a subset of the issue queue statuses. New terms are not something we need :)
--Andrew
good enough for me ;)
good enough for me ;)
support only?
It seems like these statuses would only make sense for support issues in the forums, which means they'd only apply in particular forums (i.e. not news or general discussion) - although I pointed out on Leisa's blog, we might only have support forums by the time the redesign is through anyway.
Since we have a 'support' component in our issue queue (unlike a lot of projects which handle all support, I'd be wary of attaching statuses to forum posts since the forums already attract a lot of questions which would receive better answers in issue queues, and this could exacerbate that rather than reign it in, but if we then took the support forum and made it into a support area - like Yahoo! Answers or whatever - for all the questions that really don't belong in issue queues, then it might help break that cycle a bit and by promoting certain answer enable people to find help a bit quicker.
It would be ridiculously
It would be ridiculously awesome if the Forums could scan the body for project names when previewing, and provide an option to post as a support request for the project found.
"It looks like you are writing for help about the <a href="/project/views">Views</a> module. If your question applies specifically to that module, consider posting this message as <a href="">support request</a> in that module's issue queue, so the maintainers of the module can easily see it.I've also seen some forums do a search on keywords as you type in a post. The idea is to help reduce duplicate postings, and I could see that being a really good feature for both the forums and the issue queues.
--Andrew
yes please
This could really help - both enabling new users to ask in the right places, and in reducing wasted time - although even better would be 'your question looks similar to these previously answered questions - this is perhaps something the pivots module could be applied to.
Why not just use the issue queues for support?
Any "forum topic" that can have a status like "active", "closed", "fixed", etc should probably just be a support request in the appropriate issue queue. If there's any reason that's considered not as "easy" to use as a forum, we should make the issue queues easier to use, instead of trying to turn the forums into issue queues.
Frankly, the more we talk about improving the forums, the more convinced I am they should all be killed. Every last one of them. ;) See my comment #1 at http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-what-makes-up-drupalorg-community
Cheers,
-Derek
except...
That leaves us with support issues like "Can Drupal do social networking?" "Can Drupal ride ponies for me?" etc. - and at the moment, they either go in project/issues/drupal or the support forum. On that blog post, webchick rightly pointed out that we probably don't want thousands of these for core issues. Which to me means some kind of general newbie support area that isn't an issue queue or a forum.
.
Yes, I don't think completely killing the forums is realistic. I spend a lot of time in the forums and the number of questions that would better be in some module's issue queue isn't that high. Sure, there are some there, but most of them the poster doesn't even know what module to use or what module is causing the problem they're having. My thoughts for the forums:
--- Support ---
Evaluating and converting to Drupal
General support (with the description stating that module/theme specific help goes in the queue for that project)
Developers (for questions about how to use the Drupal API and building modules)
Themers (for questions on using the Drupal theme system, not for existing theme support)
Translators (for the folks that deal with languages in Drupal)
--- General ---
General discussion
Announcements (this one is iffy... maybe roll this into GD?)
Drupal showcase (this forum is really nice and surprisingly stays mostly on topic)
Lounge (I know this is probably a no go, but I would really love a forum where I could chat about stuff with Drupal peeps that isn't necessarily about Drupal specifically.)
--- Commercial ---
Paid Drupal services
Hosting
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
Evaluating and converting to
Evaluating and converting to Drupal
General support
- I really think we could have a special 'support' section with voting on 'was this comment useful' and other stuff like that, rather than using the forum system.
Developers
Themers
Translators
- IMO these should be groups, or already are.
General discussion - tough to place this one.
Announcements - should be groups and the new news section
Drupal showcase - I'd rather see a 'showcase' content type with comments enabled - with fields for screenshots etc.
Paid services - we should make jobs into 'job vacancies' and 'classifieds'.
Hosting - this forum makes me cry - for "which hosting should I use?" - it could probably go in the support area.
.
The "ask Yahoo" type of thing sounds nice but does require someone to write it.
I don't know about putting D/T/T in groups. Groups are nice for low traffic things but I don't think the "river of news" style is really good to replace a forum. I know the panels integration has opened up some more layouts so maybe they could be made to look more like a forum. Still, it might be easier for them to simply be a forum. Actually, if you do the Yahoo thing for support, it could be done for these as well.
Replacing paid services with a job posting board would be good.
Hosting... Ugh... I can't stand the forum, either, but I kept getting outvoted when I tried to get rid of it so I included it on the list.
Michelle
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region
what happeneed here? i just
what happeneed here?
i just decided to be more active in the forums, and then opened module support and realised that the first 4 i opened were already fixed, and thought there should be a way to let me know this so i dont waste my time. so search found this discussion. did it move somewhere? was the idea killed? i too think its brilliant; how can i help move this along?
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See http://groups.drupal.org/support-infrastructure