Open discussion about the community.

[adamtemp64]

Leading on from a thread that was derailed after a member stated there views on the state of the community I am creating this open discussion.

I am also taking the view that was expressed in the thread from post 24 onwards http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/O2-Community-Rewards-April-2014/m-p/661441#M8644 that @Bambino made.

The discussion lead to hints that many long standing members of this community had left for the reasons as stated in the thread linked. I will not duplicate now as the comments are still there.

As this is a customer to customer community I feel it is time that the wishes of the community are acted upon.

This morning I clicked on unread posts and nearly all were in off topic with a few Questions about o2 that were buried amongst all the facebook like talk.

I am as stated before (on previous occasions) and after much concideration thinking of also withdrawing my support for this community as it is not the place it was. After this thread has been replied to I will make my decision on if I stay or go and will post an open letter explaining the reasons I can no longer support the community if I chose to leave.

[Anonymous]

Like the ideas @Anonymous

[Anonymous]

Hi guys

To be blunt, what board rumours/news go is not an issue at all for us and we're happy to accommodate as it suits you guys. We can be flexible on this and the decision to make Off Topic the home for this kind of conversations was driven by the members' discussions on the subject, to give a clear guideline beyond grey areas.

Personally, I agree with @Cleoriff that a topic on Apple rumours should sit in the Apple board and I'm certainly not too worried if it's in Apple or O/T, I think we're losing focus of what is important and what is desirable.

We have taken on board many suggestions - we've been able to act on some quickly (quick links to specific boards, for instance) but not everything can be implemented fast for a number of reasons.

I'd be most grateful if we could all work together in a more relaxed and constructive way, I'm sure we can all agree that this could be improved.

@Cleoriff - please don't take it personally, it's not
@Anonymous - great idea, I was planning an overall board description edit as I think there's plenty of room for improvement

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:


@Very pertinent points @Anonymous.

I agree.

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 In that case you will have seen my reply:

"If some news is pertinent to a problem that someone has had then it can be posted in that thread or sent as a PM to the person having a problem. No need for a brand new topic.

I read "If you don't need help but just want to discuss something or want to give feedback then do it here" as pertaining to O2 products and services, not for general every day discussions on random topics from around the world, be it tech news or not. It looks as though Chiara also agrees. News topics have never been posted in Discussion & Feedback before and I'm not sure why they have been in the past week...other than posts in Off-Topic not counting towards total monthly post count or the lack of ability to recieve Kudos."

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Hi guys

To be blunt, what board rumours/news go is not an issue at all for us and we're happy to accommodate as it suits you guys. We can be flexible on this and the decision to make Off Topic the home for this kind of conversations was driven by the members' discussions on the subject, to give a clear guideline beyond grey areas.

Personally, I agree with @Cleoriff that a topic on Apple rumours should sit in the Apple board and I'm certainly not too worried if it's in Apple or O/T, I think we're losing focus of what is important and what is desirable.

We have taken on board many suggestions - we've been able to act on some quickly (quick links to specific boards, for instance) but not everything can be implemented fast for a number of reasons.

I'd be most grateful if we could all work together in a more relaxed and constructive way, I'm sure we can all agree that this could be improved.
@Cleoriff

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Thanks for the update Chiara.

However I don't think we are losing focus on what is important and what is desirable. I am not the only member who feels that the board has become cluttered with topics that really don't need to be posted on this community. Websites are available for anyone who wants to find out the latest news, hence my post in Off Topic last night providing links to some of them. if people want to find out the latest news they can visit the site. Would creating a "Tech News" board where these types of topics could be posted be a solution?

The community is beginning to lose value as a helpful resource for customers to come and find answers/ask questions and could become even more so if other members were to begin posting news stories from other websites as frequently as some others have been. Is it going to take someone else doing the same every day before moderators realise what a bad idea it is to allow this type of post?

As I said, I am not the only member who feels this way about this and other issues on the community, I'm just the mouthy one! 

With regard to the Apple Rumours topic, I disagree that it should sit in the Apple board. If the purpose of the community is to allow wide spread discussion on topics then placing it in the Off-Topic forum opens discussion to everyone including those members who may never visit the Apple forum, much the same for any other topic of this type, be it rumours, news or otherwise. 

The exception to this would be urgent advice which should be targetted at the relevant forum/board, ie urgent security or OS updates.

I hope my opinion on how to improve the community will be taken on board as much as anyone elses. We've already lost one technical expert in recent weeks, I'd hate to see the community lose any more.

[Anonymous]

Sorry @Anonymous there might have been some misunderstand. I also said that an Apple article/rumour in my view could happily live in the Apple section. The reason why I opted for O/T is purely to avoid grey areas and more disagreements.

I'm getting confused now about the kudos argument, would you care to elaborate?

[Anonymous]

I disagree @Anonymous There's no reason why people should be expected to visit a number of sites to get information while there are several members who are happy to do their legwork and provide a synthesis of what's going on in the world. Not everybody's main interest is mobile telephony and I think that providing a snapshot, in parallel with support, can benefit a large number of members.

Of course not everybody is interested in discussing news or just have a conversation, hence we've provided quick links to the support boards. We will make them more prominent to improve the experience.

[Anonymous]

With regard to Kudos and post counts I would refer back to these posts: 

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/O2-Community-Rewards-April-2014/m-p/661441#M8644

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/O2-Community-Rewards-April-2014/m-p/661497#M8654

I would only be repeating what has already been said and what I have queried with Toby in the past. 

To answer your last post, I agree that there is no reason why people should be expected to visit a number of websites to get information, but does it need to forced upon those of us who have no interest in it or have already read it? If someone was actually interested they would go and have a look at the website surely? Not to mention making the community more cluttered...look at the Off Topic section now, it looks ridiculous because of the number of news topics created by just one member. Do you really want that across the whole community, so it becomes harder for new members to find useful information on the subject that has caused them to visit the community?

I conducted a straw poll on people at work today and when I asked them what they thought the O2 Community was for the resounding replies were technical help on their phone, and news on the latest O2 products or services. No-one said they would come here for the latest Tech news.

I guess i would go back to this post by Toby:

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/What-s-the-O2-community-and-how-to-get-started/m-p/634739#...

"The O2 Community is a great place to find honest and independent advice and help from other customers about devices and O2 products and services."

[Anonymous]

I strongly believe that members rewarded in the programme earned their rewards. If you wish to discuss, please feel free to contact me by PM.

@Anonymous The reason why we have a separate section for O/T is to cater for different needs. I believe it's already been discussed that some members do enjoy the social area, this is separate from support. The split is to allow members to make their choice on how to interact with the community. As previously said, we've provided quick links to filter unread posts, which I hope you're finding useful. We will make them more prominent in the near future but they should already be helpful for the more tech orientated members.

[Anonymous]

I do truly believe that the social area has a place, and alot of the posts in the Off Topic section belong there. I have no issues with the Off Topic forum being a section of the community and it being separate from support.

I've voiced my opinion and made the points I wanted to make, so I'll try and make this my last post in the thread.

Thanks for your responses Chiara.

[Anonymous]

Hi @Anonymous

Once again thank you for your clarification.

Hopefully as you say the Community can now go back to being a Community.

Just to clarify when I post I do put "News" in the subject field. Then someone has an informed choice at opening it or not.

I'm quite happy to post News in the Off Topic Section.

My only agenda is to help, learn and engage.

I can't speak for other people(s) agendas.

Take care.