Note on Lesson Comments
John
April 15, 2010, 07:28 AM posted in General DiscussionDear ChinesePod Users:
The final step of the dashboard/groups switchover is to optimize the database queries. Displaying the latest lesson comments is an intensive operation, so we have delayed the display of the newest lesson comments on the Community page and the dashboard page. For the time being, you will see new user posts, but not new lessons comments on these two pages (even though they are there, and you can post new ones).
Thank you for your patience as we restore full functionality; we are doing this as a precaution to minimize downtime and reduce risk of our server crashing.
Thanks!
John
Yes, we're still making adjustments now.
Still, full lesson comment display will take a bit longer to restore. Rest assured our team is hard at work on it!
changye
April 15, 2010, 12:44 PMOn the community pages, every thread shows a few lines from its original comment now, but not from the newest comment anymore. Is this also one of the "improvements"? Or is that some kind of a bad joke/glitch?
xiao_liang
April 15, 2010, 09:08 AMLove the new dashboard! Much more sensible way to display lessons and conversations on one page. Thumbs up so far :)
John
Great to hear! (It's so convenient to see all "Replies to Me" right there, isn't it?)
As I said before, lesson comments will be back soon, and everything will be much more 热闹 again. :)
John
April 15, 2010, 09:12 AMGreat to hear! (It's so convenient to see all "Replies to Me" right there, isn't it?)
As I said before, lesson comments will be back soon, and everything will be much more 热闹 again. :)
zhenlijiang
April 15, 2010, 09:23 AMCould you please give us the option, in the Conversations page, to actually show "All Conversations" (because that's what we think the Conversations page is for now), not just All My Groups or All Replies to Me?
I think it's a good thing for us each to be able to sort out what discussions we want to look at and maybe participate in. But then I would like, on our dashboard, to be able to delete or hide any individual conversation from the page. This is because General Discussions are just so numerous, and there are both many I am interested in, and many I don't care about--besides a lot of junk and spam that goes up there. Those become bigger eyesores when they're in your "Home" page as opposed to the "public" Conversations page.
Thanks for listening, and all your hard work. I am quite hopeful about these new developments.
changye
HI zhenlijiang
I don't know at all what is going on here now, and what "improvement" we will get. I just hope they are not going to “矫枉过正”.
John
zhenlijiang,
The idea of breaking discussions into smaller groups is one that sprang out of a discussion called "Improving the ChinesePod Community Section." It's also consistent with the research out there on online communities.
The key concept is that when communities are smaller, more people participate, because the content of the discussions is more likely to be relevant to each individual member. In theory, dividing the conversation should result in more overall discussion, by a greater number of users. As this happens, following all discussion will become more and more impractical. ChinesePod is still growing, but the proportion of users that participate in discussions is shrinking. The new groups organization is designed to help with this issue.
zhenlijiang
I do understand that John. That's why I wonder if we can't just have the option, to show All Conversations that are out there, if we want. The default setting can remain as is.
zhenlijiang
Changye, I think the changes will bring more focus to the discussions and probably get us users to think a bit more (?) before, be a bit more deliberate, when we start new posts. That's good, right?
Also, being able to see Replies to Me will prove quite useful--because for instance * (いただいたお電話ですみませんが！) I replied to you in the UI Piano Class lesson, guess you haven't seen?
http://chinesepod.com/lessons/piano-class#comment-158407
go_manly
John. A question relating to user groups.
I think most groups grow in size after users notice interesting contributions to the group on the Conversations Page.
How will this work in the future. (When a new group is added) we won't see those contributions, because we will not have had the opportunity to add that group. The only way we will know these groups exist is if we go searching for them.
If a group was started today, for example, don't you think it would take considerably more time to grow than if it had started 12 months ago?
xiaophil
I thought of this problem too.
I can understand the theory behind limiting what we see in order to increase conversation activity, but I, like Zhen, would like the option to see everything if I want to.
changye
Hi zhenlijiang
I have a bad feeling. My hunch tells me that the number of comments would further decrease after the "improvement". FYI, the English counterpart of the chengyu “矫枉过正” should be "the cure is worse than the disease" or something.
Considering the current number of comments, I think there is no need for breaking discussions into small groups. As you say, we definitely need the option to show all the conversations. Is that really going to disappear after the change?
I just can't believe it!
changye
On the community pages, every thread shows a few lines from its original comment now, but not from the newest comment anymore. Is this also one of the "improvements"? Or is that some kind of a bad joke/glitch?
John
April 15, 2010, 07:50 AMYes, we're still making adjustments now.
Still, full lesson comment display will take a bit longer to restore. Rest assured our team is hard at work on it!
go_manly
April 15, 2010, 10:10 AMJohn
Just found one issue. I've just gone into the thread by 'mark', called 'Character Points Reprised'. He made a comment there a day or two ago, and I replied to it yesterday. But when I clicked on the thread, neither comment was anywhere to be seen. The last comment on the page was on March 17.
Clearly our new comments are on page 2, but there is no longer a page selector visible.
Further, the number of comments in the thread is shown to be zero.
John
go_manly,
Hmmm, that is definitely strange. So it was a general user post, not a group post? All "general user posts" should be found in the "General Discussion" group. We'll look into this.
go_manly
Yes, it was in the General Discussion group.
go_manly
Strange. I copied and pasted your link, but I still can't see my comment. As I said, the last comment on the page is dated March 17. What am I doing wrong?
zhenlijiang
Sorry about that Bob, I deleted my last comment because I went to that thread myself and saw the problem you describe, it's not anything you're doing wrong here.
I'm also unable to get to a post I made some days ago, a General Discussions post. The only way I can see it now is from Posts, but none of the comments people have made on it appear. I'd really like to respond to a couple of them, and also add to it--hoping this gets sorted out very soon!
xiao_liang
I've also noticed some responses are missing on conversations... hopefully a temporary state?
John
April 15, 2010, 10:14 AMgo_manly,
Hmmm, that is definitely strange. So it was a general user post, not a group post? All "general user posts" should be found in the "General Discussion" group. We'll look into this.
John
April 15, 2010, 10:21 AMzhenlijiang,
The idea of breaking discussions into smaller groups is one that sprang out of a discussion called "Improving the ChinesePod Community Section." It's also consistent with the research out there on online communities.
The key concept is that when communities are smaller, more people participate, because the content of the discussions is more likely to be relevant to each individual member. In theory, dividing the conversation should result in more overall discussion, by a greater number of users. As this happens, following all discussion will become more and more impractical. ChinesePod is still growing, but the proportion of users that participate in discussions is shrinking. The new groups organization is designed to help with this issue.
go_manly
April 15, 2010, 11:08 AMA suggestion:
Create a new group called Language Exchange.
Display it prominently on the home page in 汉字.
Then, of course, we will all leave that group switched off.
changye
April 15, 2010, 10:02 AMHI zhenlijiang
I don't know at all what is going on here now, and what "improvement" we will get. I just hope they are not going to “矫枉过正”.
xiaophil
April 15, 2010, 07:48 AMAhhh, I just saw the notice that you guys will be working on this until 4:30. I guess I will wait and save further judgment until you guys say it is all done.