Why do you use Groups?
ktrinh87
October 09, 2008, 02:33 AM posted in General DiscussionWhat purpose does Groups serve in the overall process of learning Chinese, for you? On a scale of 1 through 10, how often do you use Groups and how important is Groups as a learning tool. For example, do you use Groups primarily as a means to meet other Chinese language learners? Or do you rely heavily on Groups as a discussion forum.
taiwanator
October 09, 2008, 10:17 AMIn fact I dont like groups.
Group conversations mix up with lesson conversations and mix up with user conversations...
IMHO, the whole community/conversations section of ChinesePod is very poorly designed and hard to tackle for the average user!
The current thing is a black hole. You find nothing after a while. The same questions are asked again and again, and answered again and again.
Why not a professional forum software?
lostinasia
October 09, 2008, 04:17 PMGroups aren't a bad idea, because at least they've made some things "stickier".
However, groups have made the Conversations section unusable. There are too many new posts and things get buried too quickly--and finding them again is impossible. The volume of posts isn't a problem, but the way they're (un)managed is a serious issue.
Just add a threaded system like countless other sites on the web. It's ridiculous - a forum I was using on IndiaMike.com four years ago was far more useful than the system here now. I go to IndiaMike now, and within 10 seconds I've found the posts that I made four years ago! Here I need to scroll through pages of my previous posts to dig up something I posted a couple of months ago.
ChinesePod needs to either shape up the Conversations or risk destroying the community by swamping it.
I guess I should answer the question... at the moment, I'd rate groups as a 2, for limited functionality within themselves, but they're a net -5 or something for the usability of the community.
Harsh and somewhat off-topic, but I'm sick of this. I and others have posted about these issues countless times. I come back after a couple of months away and discover things are worse, not better. I could try to link to those other posts but I'd have to spend half the night "searching" for them.
goulnik
October 09, 2008, 04:53 PMit's true even within groups, I'm having a hard time finding all my posts within a group where I am the only one to have created entries. And you need various workarounds to go edit them, so for phonetic maps I actually keep a list of entries with links in a separate file...
henning
October 09, 2008, 05:16 PMTo add some more fuel here:
Even finding a group has become cumbersome - this is the meta layer!
As there is no structure to guide you besides those 4 generic categories (with 90% of the groups falling into "Interest"), you simply don't know whether or not there already is a group on a certain topic. This was massively aggrevated by adding in all the 88groups - even dead ones.
Result: We see more and more groups on the same subject and with overlapping content. "Character Insanity", "Character Points", "Study Strategy". Next please!
taiwanator
October 09, 2008, 05:43 PMI see so much work done by some guys here:
- goulniky's phonetic maps
- mandarinboy's Character etymology
- goulniky's News in Chinese
- henning's Character Points
- henning et.al.'s 红楼梦
But how will one find this work after some months or so? And after two more versions of CP's server software, all will be gone anyway.
Really?
What are solutions to this chaos?
Praxis' decision to do all by themselves has to be rethought...
goulnik
October 09, 2008, 06:00 PMLet's not throw away the baby with the bath water. CPod is juggling with a number of concepts here, and ultimately they're a victim of their own success.
You can argue they're trying to kill too many birds with one stone, addressing too many needs and overcoming too many constraints. But there's no denying they are innovating, perphaps à la Google, with the risk of constant changes and being forever in a beta mode.
Frustrating as it is, it's still better than having a separate system as with 88groups, or a wiki and a forum as when I first joined. I do like the concept of a unified interface, but that implies a certain level of complexity, and this requires the sort of functionality we've all come to expect from forums etc.
Keeping a slick interface with lots of teaser text across the site may not actually be compatible with the volume of posts being generated here (with less than a dozen entries on each page).
With the underlying lesson metaphor, not to mention multiple languages and corporate services, this calls for a smooth integration and some serious customization. But with all due respect, it probably takes more than a survey from Kate the intern. What surprises me is this has been discussed umpteen times, so there shouldn't be any surprise.
come to think of it, I'm sure henning, much as myself and a couple of like-minded contributors wouldn't object to being flown to Shanghai for a few days of major brainstorming to design this heavy-duty piece of social engineering.
The big brain needs to get to the drawing board at some stage, and not all can be done by consensus.
calkins
October 09, 2008, 08:17 PMThe groups feature is very important to me. It's a great way for users to create (or join) a group that has interest to them. Anything that adds more interest to learning Chinese, and keeps it fresh, is a great help to sticking with the learning process.
For me, I create groups for two reasons. One, it forces me to research and learn something that I wouldn't have otherwise. Two, like all of the conversations, it creates a dialogue that leads to sharing of knowledge from others. It's a win-win situation for anyone with an interest in that group.
I agree that the functionality could be better, but I think the current system is a good start. The fact that CPod gives us this freedom in the first place goes a long way.
I agree that a better search engine could be incorporated, and that a better way of organizing posts would be beneficial (especially for groups like News 新闻 and 红楼梦 that post sequentially or by date).
I can also see how group posts could be annoying to some users, when they're posted in the Conversations section. Part of me thinks it'd be good to have a separate Conversations tab for Groups, but at the same time I think a lot of users would miss out on some good group posts.
One thing that I really miss is being able to post using HTML. The new system makes things twice as hard for me, and I often have to "Save as Draft", review it, then make changes...because it often doesn't post the way it looks when you're creating the post, especially when inserting images. It would be great if we had the option to use HTML or to use the current way. Not sure if that's possible, but it'd be a big improvement in my book.
Overall, I'm happy with the current system. Sure, it could be improved (and I'm sure it will be as CPod continually innovates), but for now it serves my needs.
And it is nice to see that CPod has hired Kate to dedicate her time and efforts to making groups better.
goulnik
October 10, 2008, 04:30 AMIn addition to a better search facility. one way to unclutter the interface would be the ability to define viewing preferences in our profile, so when today we only have Show All / My / User / Lessons / Extra / Grammar / Glossary conversations, we could instead select any combination thereof in a profile, easily accessible and modifiable with tick boxes, with added options such as Levels (Newbie-Elementary only, anything above Intermediate, etc.).
The multiplication of groups could easily be managed by adding a moderation level, suggesting alternatives before one creates a group, which today is a free for all - with only limited risk of hampering creativity.
If there was a hierarchy of groups, one thing that would be reviewed before creating them is where they would fit in a hierarchy, which would address henning's concern with duplication under the 'characters' banner. It should also be possible to archive defunct groups or those with no activity.
We could also add a target level to Groups, News 新闻 would clearly be Upper Intermediate, Character Points would probably be Intermediate and higher,yet for others it may not be relevant.
But then again, so many ideas have been floated here, this is a big-brain, wisdom-of-the-crowd type of market research, it would really be nice to get involved in the real design phase, which in my experience does take some face-to-face. As it is, all this input seems to go into a black box. Not that it's ignored, we just don't know what drives the actual decisions, one day we hear from John that CPod has been paying attention and is launching enhanced version n+1.
henning
October 14, 2008, 10:41 AMHave I already said that I really like and support goulniky's design meeting idea? What about April?
henning
October 09, 2008, 05:27 AMGroups is a collection of user generated study material and ressources. Some of that content has made it into my daily study routine as it fills some gaps, especially regarding formal and written Chinese.