"Equal users" [Interface Improvement ideas IV]

Fwiw, I usually see who has clicked "this is one of the best points" for one of my replies in my GSFN Dashboard

One thing to note about a user participation sidebar: Hotbutton issues can easily grow to hundreds of participating users and quickly the interface gets overloaded with information. At one point, we did show all of the participants, but it mostly devolved into useless info because it was very hard to consume and so we removed it.

Hi Scott. I thought about this of course too! I take this really serious.

Because of this problem, I proposed this drop-down & link option.
Of course there should be something like that implemented before re-implementing this feature into Get Satisfaction!

So, I'd to somehow lean more towards a solution-orientated instead of problem-orientated thinking! ;-) Practically:
Not "Uh, it evolves all into useless, hard to consume and overwhelming information, that's horrible, let's kick it!", but instead "Ok, if there are a lot of users following this topic, it seems that this leads to kind of a mess. How can we clear this and ease the potential information overload? Any ideas?"

And I'd answer:
Filters or maybe showing only the first 10 participants (then link...) or only the first 100 participants on an extra site (then e.g. offering sorting & rearranging options, to see the others, while hiding the already seen first 100 participants"...)

Respectfully -- I don't think showing the list of users in the sidebar contributes to the objective of the site. I think the emphasis shouldn't be on the user, but rather on the problem / question / idea / discussion.

A lot of users don't bother to customize their GSFN avatars. I don't know how getting 10 or more cupcakes on the sidebar will help the site become more effective. Company reps, on the other hand, expect to be around for a long time so they do take the time to customize their avatars.

Third -- I don't expect to see more than 10 company reps participating in a discussion, so there will certainly be a finite list of avatars if we limit it to company reps

Fourth -- if we tweak the user list to showing the first 10 participants and people realize that this is the setup, I fear we will start seeing the "First!" mentality in these forums -- i.e., people who post a reply not to answer the question, but rather to get their username into the sidebar. I'd rather reward participation that adds value to the topic, rather than reward participation for the sake of participation.

Just my $0.02

Hi mdy,

thanks for your interesting thoughts. I am agreeing with you, I see your point.
I know this is a complicated, or rather difficult topic when trying to find a solution.
But I want to try. ;-)

Maybe the cupcake points delivers the solution in itself:
Concerning users, show only the usernames themselves! :)

Because my original intent was to be able to recognize participants you "know" from other problem, idea or discussion topics. This counts also for company reps., who would (as Amy did) like to get in contact with one concerning topic x.

"Third": I don't get this point mdy, what do you mean?
I didn't except more than 10 company representatives too.

I had to (and still will!) think hard about the "First!"-mentality problem.
One thing that could solve this, is to forget about my above maybe (!) brainstorming idea! Instead take the 5-10 most active participants in a topic on the list!! Of course some could spam the topics, but hey where's the "Inappropriate?" link for?
I also think you're a little pessimistic, I think Get Satisfaction in its concept doesn't serve the stupid masses, than spam, troll and flamewar around!

Another point is these will be and already are separate company spaces, the companies will have to moderate, so what?
If some companies are happy with spam or "Me first!" post as they are currently with tons of bogus products in their space (I saw a bunch of those companies with xy employees "participating" still!), ok, I'm fine with that!
You are not? Maybe Get Satisfaction had to show you now, that you can't count on the support of this certain company? Maybe you'll have to find a new one with better customer service. There's enough competition....The world wide web and Get Satisfaction are both open and about transparency, so one does somehow after all reveal his true character (as a company or customer) on the www!

And I have to say, I am, here and now - in 2008, discontent with the customer support of at least 60% of the companies, I use products or services from! So what? I know that some companies and people won't ever learn anything it seems.

The proposed feature won't change anything about that and it will not worsen it, because this is more a company & moderation problem as said.

Concerning: "I think the emphasis shouldn't be on the user, but rather on the problem / question / idea / discussion." - I didn't ever say / think that!

Instead this idea indeed arose from an idea of Amy, which she pointed out to me, not knowing that I already followed it! I quote: "Hi...Have a look at this topic. It addresses at least some of the concerns you guys have raised."

So what was this comment about? About concerns.
Concerns don't equal users, but problems / questions / ideas / discussions! :P

All I think we're all focusing here on, is to make this product, Get Satisfaction, better! Or other products registered here. :) So it is not about ego-building!

At least not for me, or not consciously. ;-) I do ego-building elsewhere. ;-)

You always have to remember that also users and user interaction is needed, to solve problems and improve through ideas and discussions!! So the users are indeed important, but of course not in the conscious focus of the community.
But there need to be such features (as I'll propose another in some minutes) to make it easer to achieve a quick, comfortable and clear usage of Get Satisfaction and its great features!

Hi Philipp 8-)

Could you kindly elaborate further on this point -- "Because my original intent was to be able to recognize participants you "know" from other problem, idea or discussion topics."

Right now, when I skim through replies, I'm able to recognize people from other topics when I see their avatars next to their replies, even though there's no "Users Participating" section.

So I think I'm not understanding your original objective correctly, and would appreciate further elaboration.

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You asked me to clarify -- "don't expect more than 10 company representatives per topic"

I said that statement in support of Scott's observation above -- that with hundreds of users participating on a hot topic, the page can get very cluttered.

With company reps, we don't have the same "risk" of clutter because we rarely see more than half a dozen company reps responding on a single topic.

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Yes, it's entirely possible that I'm being too pessimistic. 8-)

Bottomline, any mechanism that makes it easier for someone to call attention to themselves when their intent is to unhelpful or counter-productive makes me uneasy.

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Re: displaying the names of the X most active users in the topic instead of the first X users to have responded.

I believe this alternative idea places the emphasis on quantity rather than quality.

It's possible that someone may have written only one reply in a topic that has 50 replies. But if that single reply is the *only* reply solves the problem, then that's the reply that deserves to be highlighted. Not the user, but rather the reply.

And this form of highlighting already exists -- when people mark something as a 'best point'

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I didn't mean to imply that you said you wanted the emphasis to be on the user or on ego-building -- my apologies for not being clearer.

I meant to say that adding the "user participating" section will have the unwanted side effect (even if that's not the stated intent) of giving emphasis to users, which IMHO deviates from the objective of the site.

I definitely don't think you're participating here with the intent of ego-building; far from it! 8-)

Hi mdy,

thanks for your reply, I hope I will be able to answer your questions...

I didn't mean to imply that you said you wanted the emphasis to be on the user or on ego-building -- my apologies for not being clearer.

I definitely don't think you're participating here with the intent of ego-building; far from it! 8-)

Didn't ever say or thought that you'd allege me of that! :-)
You were clear, thanks, you're welcome. :-)

Could you kindly elaborate further on this point -- "Because my original intent was to be able to recognize participants you "know" from other problem, idea or discussion topics."

I'll do that in an additional reply (later), although I think everything I meant is mentioned in my initial starting post and in the reply. Read my example.

Right now, when I skim through replies, I'm able to recognize people from other topics when I see their avatars next to their replies, even though there's no "Users Participating" section.

But maybe (more like: surely...) not every user does this! And also (as probably Amy did) one might only copy the link, even without visiting the actual topic again and send it to someone, also participating. Ok, that was only the one special case I experienced. Additionally, especially when there is a long discussion / a topic with many participants that only wrote a post once in this topic, you most likely won't be able to quickly spot a certain person there! Not talking about the saving of time by not having to scroll through the whole topic down to the bottom...

You asked me to clarify -- "don't expect more than 10 company representatives per topic"...With company reps, we don't have the same "risk" of clutter because we rarely see more than half a dozen company reps responding on a single topic.

Ok, if that was all, I got it. ;) :)

Bottomline, any mechanism that makes it easier for someone to call attention to themselves when their intent is to unhelpful or counter-productive makes me uneasy.

Ok, um, I adduced my arguments in my last reply.
I agree with you, but I don't believe in this massively destructive outcome.
Again, we do have to focus on this outcome, to think about how to stop attention craving. Immediate and continuous flagging etc. is only one, but an important part of prohibition and determent (:D). And it'll help!

The main positive decision the Get Satisfaction team made in the first place through not implementing attention craving avatars, signature possibilities and all that stuff. That's a great advantage above normal forums!

Am I oversimplifying, if I say you could even just spam the forums or post one post in every single company space or product space? I think if you want attention and think you could get it through Get Satisfaction, you can potentially get it! ;-D You'll find a creative way, spammers always do...

We derived all that from the simple problem, that not potentially all users can't be displayed at once, but no one did ever answer to my recommendation to just display the user name! You always have to think about that topic will grow faster in "total height" then in the "User participation panel height"! Even if one would allow avatars...I mean: Ok, there are many peeps participating, but as they are all participating, there's also more space on the left side of the topic! ;-)

So no problem there, isn't it?

It's possible that someone may have written only one reply in a topic that has 50 replies. But if that single reply is the *only* reply solves the problem, then that's the reply that deserves to be highlighted. Not the user, but rather the reply.

And this form of highlighting already exists -- when people mark something as a 'best point'

Of course. :) :P But as said, my original intent, was neither about quantity, nor quality. I just wanted a statement of facts! ;-)

Additionally, this get's kind of moral. Although I doubt there will be any topic with a 50:1 of answers by two or three users, the point was only, to bring in any kind of order, if there are more then ten participating users! Because you did forget:
If there are 10-50 replies from one user, how many other users will be participating in this topic? More than ten? I don't think so, not at all. :D
And in the case this would happen anytime, once in a 100 years, how crowded would that topic be? Horrible! So in such a topic, you won't lose track of anything regardless of a potential "User participation" bar anyway, won't you?

I don't know if you get this or if this is an argument that you accept, but for me it is not about "deserving" either, because it is about problem solving and I don't care who did it and how many posts he needed! :D I mean, you say "Not the user, but rather the reply." as an argument against my feature request, but so you do mix it together, because if it would be only about the reply, why do you mention it? I know, your last sentence, but hey, why did you mention it altogether? ;-p Let's forget about it...

I meant to say that adding the "user participating" section will have the unwanted side effect (even if that's not the stated intent) of giving emphasis to users, which IMHO deviates from the objective of the site.

I did and do understand that of course, but I tried to explain on a more abstract level why there is no Get Satisfaction site without "emphasis on the user" and why this is important!
It is only the question "How much is too much?".