I hate the latest changes

hehe, we can talk later. I have an early conference call this am.

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comment deleted by user

Oohhhh...

ahhhhh...

Mmmm. kien, I think you should change business schools. This would not pass my test for either product differentiation or price discrimination. Which are two different things. Both of which are fine by me and have no necessary negative connotations. But deliberately investing in an 'inferior' product (problem defining this but I think you mean something that is bad for consumers or faulty) would not be in either the producers interest or in the interest of the community at large.

But maybe you are thinking of pricing schedules - it is clever pricing to guide the consumer in the direction of the product that makes the most profit for the producer. Sometimes firms take advantage of faulty thinking that we can all be guilty of.

And I thought that I was cynical. ;-)

hehe,bodawei

I like your tributes to my compatriots....... On ANZAC Day too; it makes me feel warm inside.

..cheers mate for this which extended the glow and your kind words.

Hey thanks heaps RJ,

You cracked me up with this:

in the age old tradition of Aussies trying to live off land that didn't want to support life

...which I very much enjoyed. A nice insight [into Aussie history/cultural background ] though one I certainly don't feel I personally can live up to but I do admire the spirit of those pioneers and that attitude. Thanks also for your wishes.

da_beijixiong

Fair point - I was aware that ANZAC stood for "Australian and New Zealand Army corps", so I wasnt leaving you out.

rjberki & bodawei, slight correction for you lads. ANZAC is not all about Australia, its about Australia, New Zealand and increasingly the other countries who also lost sons, brothers, and fathers. Yes, I'm a kiwi and served in the NZ military, so I feel the need to remind people that the day is special for several countries just not Australia.

Well said. I hadn't made the dashboard - threading link. Good point.

I read previously that CPod had completed a round of funding (through outside investors) for new projects, and then there was the substantial increase in membership prices awhile back. If the dashboard and threading are the promised results, then I'm looking forward to the release of the book How Technology Killed CPod by Edmund Backhouse and Harry Potter.

Paul

bodawei responded to my original post and you are correct, this did not show up in "replies to me". It is horribly complex and Im sure intimidating for a newer user to figure out the system, including what will be seen by whom where. And evidently it is not working properly. The official definition of what it is supposed to do seems to change daily, according to what it has been observed doing. :-)

Re: surveys... we all know that true surveys are site polls, easily done, transparent, and objective. Without a poll, mention of a survey is simply a reason given to support an agenda for having done something.

We were told that all these changes of past year were meant to create an environment which will be less intimidating for lurkers to post. Are you kidding that in this day and age of Twitter people fear to post unless the environment is just right? No need to be psychologists to know that lurkers will post only when they have the time or a personal need to do so.

So, it is very unlikely that all these technological changes (and disruptive time) to the Conversations page in the past year will bring more people out to chat with other poddies. Which then brings back the question, why all these technological changes to the site? To help poddies learn Chinese ? Maybe, or maybe it is just a simple case of corporate liking for technology, sort of technology fetishism.

For some poddies all these technological deliveries may be just what the doctor ordered, enabling them to quickly learn and become fluent Chinese speakers by say, just listening to the dialogues via apps on the Iphone and chatting on the site. The rest of us still learn by the old fashion way of learning a language - quiet time to study the dialogue and text, and opportunities to practice.

CPOD: Please note.... I replied to RJ's original post however after posting I saw that it did not indicate "reply to RJ", instead it just showed reply to blank. Does this mean that when someone replies to the original post (thread header) the message will not be reflected in "Replies to me" i.e. RJ will not get my post in his "Replies to me"?

I've deleted my original post and reposted as a reply to RJ in his reply to Bodawei.

My hat is off to all Australians on ANZAC day, especially the Diggers. I hope you enjoyed the celebration.

Nice post, RJ - thoughtful as usual. Hear, hear. Just the right amount of meat. And I like your tributes to my compatriots go_manly and Barbs. Go-manly the epitome of tenacity and Barbs the personification of optimism. On ANZAC Day too; it makes me feel warm inside. (For those that are not up on things down under, Anzac Day is our fourth of July. We have an 'Australia Day' in January but being in Summer that is just an excuse for everyone to have a barb-b-que at the beach.)

:)...well I hope you did see it though before they resuscitated all the others or it'll have made no sense,but despite the return of the lost sheep, I think the 214 equivalence status hould remain ,hehe ;)

I know I've spent too much on facebook when I tried to "like" your comment...

Like any good business, Chinesepod are just respecting the local traditions and customs. ;)

Where is tals comment?...and there must be one other missing [since the others went missing] as the count is now 219....should be 220 after this

莫名其妙 ！！

LOL LOL LOL....I love it mate [hilarious...you're on a roll]. I'd love to see that. :)

ok, I'll start...I know I have a tendency to laugh when I know I shouldn't.

A recalcitrant 胡说人

In China we are used to this. ;-) All those who made comments here will be 'asked' to write self-criticisms.

hehe,sebire your comment was deemed so good that it was rated as the equivalent of 214 usual poddie comments.

No, it'll be there for you too. Go to http://www.chinesepod.com/trevorb

I suspect that is because that is in your internet cache so don't expect it to stay that way forever ;-)

go_manly,

I made a reply to your post earlier.

The easiest way to find replies of this type is to check "replies to me" on your dashboard, which is working properly.

Xiaophil,

I think the new version of the site shouldn't have been released with this kind of problem. To me it suggests inadequate QA and lack of management oversight. I develop software for a living, so I may be over-critical about this, but it is my opinion.

Hey Mark,

You wrote:

"Also, the discussions seem to highlight the post that started the discusssion, not the most recent post."

This is a temporary problem, apparently. We have been told that this will be fixed, but thus far, no ETA.

热逼慝

hehe,well that explains the "wa" at the end of bababardwan ...thanks for the self discovery and the reference...perhaps as I continue to adapt I should change my name in steps to eventually wawawardwan.

Hi Baba,

就是，fans "adapt". Reminds me of a quote in Dudley Lynch's famous book 《 Strategy of The Dolphin》"Adapting is something a frog does when the heat is turned up slowly"

Paul,

But nothing that Cpod does will really annoy the fans

hehe,yeah well I think we're all fans here [perhaps to varying degrees..dunno] of the site in general [but not necessarily of the latest changes] or else we wouldn't be here [ the old vote with your feet/wallet response ] but as I'm at the top of this subthread and a "says" instead of an "in reply to" can indicate a reply to the original comment [or it can just be a comment added at the end] I will respond in case you were referring to me. I will just say that speaking personally, beyond breaching confidentiality and giving out personal or credit card details [which I can't imagine happening] I think you are right...things on a website aren't going to annoy me. I might not "go for" or think some changes are ideal in my view or particularly like them,but extra mouse clicks for example will never annoy me.I still think they are issues worth raising in a constructive way to try and optimise the site for all though [and go_manly has started an excellent thread listing the current tech issues that poddies have discovered need addressing].In the main I agree with much of what you have written above. In fact if you go here:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/new-dashboard-scarlett-and-teachers#comment-157946

...I may have missed it if someone posted such a comment before me,but otherwise I think you will find that I was actually the first to raise what I see as one of the main concerns for those who like to be active in the community.

Fans are easily trained

...hehe,you make it sound like such fans are mindless loyal puppies. For myself I would say that once again I think it is worth raising these issues [as for example I did in my post I have linked to above] and giving constructive feedback.I'm not sure how much I like the new system at this stage...it will be easier to tell once the tech glitches have been sorted and for example I've had a chance to check out the manage lessons functions [ I think I recall suggesting there should be more tools to allow us to manage our lessons better...but don't know yet how this has been implemented]. My understanding of what has occurred to bring about some of the changes is this.I think there were quite a lot of complaints about cliques [if you know the history of this ...I was quite vocal that I did not agree with such complaints].CPod listened to the complaints as they should { I think they're listening to everyone].This resulted in the "improve the CPod community thread" giving everyone a chance to have their say where you will see that these complaints were real.They have then researched it taking in the views of volunteers and random sample and have now tried to come up with a system that will result in the most folk being happy [and I can't see that they would have any other agenda than this...why would they?...it just wouldn't make sense].I think they're now also listening to the feedback.As I say I am with you in terms of much of what you say but if there is an overwhelming silent majority that want it another way then I think one has to accept that.I think they're looking for the best compromise and I hope they find it .But I wouldn't call it being "trained" the way you put it but rather having ones say and then accepting the will of the majority [bearing in mind that those who post hear are a tiny fraction of the whole community ] and learning to "adapt"

It's all quite puzzling to me... these non-stop efforts of Cpod to categorize and fragment users. When I joined Cpod Jan 09 I didn't have trouble at all finding what I needed - subscribed to lessons I needed, joined groups I wanted, started a group of interest to me and probably to others, and checked out the Conversations page when I was in the mood to participate in the community. Nothing like an open and transparent environment to enable a new poddie be quickly orientated and enjoy the full benefits of a subscriber. Sadly, such is not the situation now

The only improvement in this Dash board implementation is that you can now see 10 new posts on the same page as the subscribed lessons. For this small benefit, you now have to do mouse clicks to get to the Discussion - Exercises five tabs which previously were right there on the Home page.

10 new posts on the lessons page - is this real candy to the Dash board system? Should you wish to see what's up with the Cpod community you'd need to click the Conversations Page anyway.

And as for having to select groups, the old system showed me all the goups I've joined right there on the Home Page. I didn't have a problem at all finding out when there were new posts in the groups - the Conversations page alerted me.

So it is quite puzzling to see all these Cpod's initiatives to put blinders on poddies unless they opt to remove them, and not all can be removed either.

But nothing that Cpod does will really annoy the fans. Fans are easily trained. They know it, so life goes on.

Ah, yes sorry Barbs, I was addressing the question to you. Because (a) you are the most prolific poster (please no-one turn that into MPP, you know I hate acronyms), a kind of Superpoddy :) and (b) you were involved in the consultation, so I wondered if ChinesePod did do a feedback for those that participated. Standard practice as I said before. And (c) I have posed this question to John and not heard anything back (but then he is probably sensibly taking a break from the front.)

而且，I was interested in the comment by Catherine somewhere today that ChinesePod staff see exactly what we see. I can remember some discussion about this before when I thought Matt advised us that staff get a customised view that optimises their ability to see all poddy comments. I remember at the time it reminded me of the seven-second delay - a kind of monitoring role that you would expect on a site like ChinesePod. Do you remember anything about that? It just occurred to me that if staff are seeing what I'm seeing then they will have big problems following the feedback.

The latter, I suspect. The dashboard however, puts it all on one page. I suspect the hope of the Cpod team is that by placing it all on one page and allowing people to specify the conversations they want to see, conversations will catch their eye and they will participate more that way.

I love to read all the conversations, and when people have posted on older lessons that weren't in my feed, I've noticed that lesson, bookmarked it and joined in the conversation.

But I concluded my comment by asking: How is that going to happen?

Do they really browse through the list of discussions, or do they only find discussions when they study the related lesson?

Though, it is one of my least favourite sayings of Chairman Mao. Kind of creepy. China does not need to talk about strength of numbers - makes people nervous! :)

But we already posted. They wanted the people who didn't post to start posting...

It does seem beyond belief that feedback acquiesced to the 'dismemberment' of user groups

...of course that would be the last thing I would want also,but I bear in mind that mine was but one voice amongst many and of course I have no idea what was said by others. However I think it has been hinted at that there was also that "improving the CPod community post" and that there have been a lot of complaints about cliques frightening off lurkers etc,silent complaints etc.I don't think we need have that debate all over again though..I think it's all there in that long thread.

Do you know what the plan is?

..I'm not sure if you're still addressing me when you pose this question mate,but if you are I can say that I have no idea. I am not privy to anything that you aren't.

I wonder how many users in the survey said 'a Dashboard would be good' ??

The dashboard issue can be divided into 2 parts - how it addresses lesson management, and how it addresses conversations.

Perhaps, when the bugs are ironed out, the dashboard will be useful in a lesson management sense (for those who choose to use it).

But why weren't more users who actually take part in the conversations asked to participate in the survey?

The people who don't post many comments - don't they generally enter the lesson discussions through studying the lessons themselves? That's certainly what I did in the beginning. Do they actually browse through the conversations, and will they really start doing it now?

Hi bodawei

With this change, I'm sure User Groups will definitely become a graveyard. Who wants to post a thread and a comment when you obviously know there are far fewer audience than before. It takes a certain amount of people to make forums active and attractive. 毛泽东也说过“人多力量大”，呵呵。

Barbs, I have no doubt at all that you gave him good advice and useful comment. Which raises the question about process - the usual approach is to report back on what you found out, even as a courtesy to contributors. (Very important but often forgotten by researchers.) In this case it would have been good form to provide a summary of what was discovered in the consultation process, and what ChinesePod planned to do about the matters raised. It does seem beyond belief that feedback acquiesced to the 'dismemberment' of user groups. I can't see any point in posting to user groups, much less creating a new one, until this matter is acknowledged. There has been no response from ChinesePod on this matter. Do you know what the plan is?

Yeah Bodawei I wasn't thinking my suggestion above would solve all User Group problems or address the question you and others have been bringing up all this time (and if you guys hadn't done so I would have myself). I was saying that if you have a 10 most frequent commenters rankings (which just looks sillier by the day, when CPod have overhauled the site in order to get greater numbers of users involved in the "community" and not just the tiny minority including you and me), you really would be better off having a 10 most active user groups list (which isn't simply a "latest" list; it should be currently most active--it can't be that difficult can it, to know which user groups generated the most traffic say within the last 10 weeks for instance? And I meant not 10 posts, but you see 10 different User Group names which are all links to those groups of course, just like the current 10 most frequent commenters rankings).

Of course I agree that everyone needs to be able to see immediately when a new User Group has been created. This issue needs to be addressed.

But in any case the Groups page should be reorganized to give people good information. And meanwhile, I suggest a list ranking the 10 most active user groups.

Hi Zhenlijiang

I think it would be a useful addition as you say. But it does not solve the problem of nurturing new groups. Say someone came up with the Next Big Thing in user groups - it will not appear on your Most Active User Groups. Funnily enough it will not even pass Catherine's meagre test for an active group because it will only have one member at first. So the best thing ever to hit ChinesePod (potentially) could be 'blown in the wind' and we would never be the wiser. It's very simple really - new user group posts have to show up on the Community Board and on the Latest list in the dashboard. But the Latest List is quite deficient for this purpose. Ten posts only - the Next Big Thing can be shovelled out of the way in a couple of minutes if a spammer comes along wanting to be our friend. :)

OK, thanks for clarifying. It would be very helpful if you would indicate the Most Active User Groups then, in some way that's easy for everyone to spot. As others have pointed out already, the "Most Popular" groups list on the Groups page isn't helpful in that regard; that just indicates those groups that have the most members if I'm understanding correctly, regardless of how active it is/isn't.

Here's a suggestion--how about making a Rankings list for the Most Active User Groups? To replace that Most Active Users (most frequent commenters) rankings even? I've been wondering for a while--long before the dashboard or even the new style was rolled out--why that list wasn't made obsolete, especially with all this effort now to get more people involved and commenting! Why have a top ten most frequent commenters rankings? I can see no meaning or use for it (it has been used occasionally to call attention to "people who are posting too much"). But I think being able to look at the 10 Most Active User Groups rankings would be a great addition, now in this new environment. Makes sense, doesn't it?

No there is no "active groups" list or page. I basically went through the groups list ("most popular" or "newest") and added myself to the groups that have two or more members. I guess "active" is a subjective designation. Then again, I think it's a safe bet that groups with only one member aren't going to be home to many conversations...

Could you please explain (again, if you've done so already) how we know which Groups are "all the active groups"? I'm not clear how I would know I've joined "every active group" like you say you have. I'm not aware of any section on the Groups page or elsewhere indicating which ones are all the active ones.

Noob is often spelled n00b. Zeros instead of letters

Well, I never lurk, I signed up and didn't really look at the community. I remember listening to news and features back when the jingle changed (there was a competition!) then majorly slacked off with my chinese learning (这是为什么我还说得不好!).

I suddenly realised at the beginning of this year, I have a rather pressing need to improve dramatically quickly, hence my increased involvement. Plus having dipped my toes in, I've realised it's a very nice community, and having the teachers be so responsive to question (sometimes :-p) really helps. Other than self-study (which I'm also doing) there's only really one option that's as flexible as Cpod for people with busy lives, and they have a bloody annoying video on their front page, so can bugger off.

yeah,following on from bodawei, I'd like to know why you were a lurker before and why not anymore? This may give us all some insight.I'm not sure I know of any that've made the dramatic transformation you have.

I'm also wondering if it's a kind of evolutionary process that might fit in the scheme of things as described in the reference paulinurus gave us:

Dudley Lynch's famous book 《 Strategy of The Dolphin》

So you are a reformed lurker.

It's ok, I cried it out with my counsellor. I'll be ok in a couple of weeks.

;-)

I've never thought of it as derogatory, so I am sorry if it came across that way. I was teasing!

Thanks...so I guess I was along the right lines...Good to know its ironically used..

Give it a couple of years and it will probably end up in the dictionary.

pwned comes from "owned" as in "I PWND JOO!" (I owned you!) and is gaming slang. The change in letter is due to frequent typos in fast-moving games where it became funny to ironically deliberately mistype it . Noob, as previously stated, is horrendously common internet slang for newbie, and is both patronising and derogatory :-)

I joined chinesepod in 2007! Admittedly, I've only been active this year.

Ah, I get it. I've never heard noob before, and outside CPod, I've rarely heard newbie. I think noob must be post-my generation.

Speaking of new internet spawned words...I keep coming across "pwned"

Any ideas anyone?

My best guess is something to do with being "owned" but I don't get the change with the "p" and i am equally unsure about how to pronounce it in my head when I read it.

It's short for newbie. I was just joking that this was perhaps Xiao_liang's first experience of the joys of a cpod update.

Catherine was referring to the former.

The missing comments have not been deleted, and are also being investigated.

"The tech. team is aware of this comment deleting issue."

Does that refer to the failure of the delete button to work, or the fact that numerous comments seem to have been deleted since the dashboard was introduced?

The tech. team is aware of this comment deleting issue. We will let you know when it has been resolved.

Yeah xiaophil, I realized that after I posted, but was unable to delete my comment.

Depends on the context, I guess. I can't recall where I first heard it, but I'm pretty sure it has its origin in US slang. As for the contraction of language, I agree, but isn't this the age of the text message and the short attention-span?

I hadn't heard the term Newbie until I visited Chinese Pod. Is it meant to be an insult? I don't get it.

You are probably right - that did not occur to me. Do you ever get the feeling that the English language is contracting, words getting shorter and more likely to be monosyllabic. Eventually we will get back to just grunts and hand signals. :)

‘Noob' is a short version of 'newbie' as far as I know.

I can't imagine sebire would call someone a knob!

I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps it is the British version of 'knob'?

It was certainly less irritating when it used to be free.

What is a noob? Is it a British thing, or a younger generational thing?

Hey Orangina,

You said:

"The word "Groups" has now changed definition. What were groups before are now posts in the General Discussions Group, and groups now are categories that can be filtered. If you belong to the General Discussions Group you see all of the posts that were once groups, right? Or is that not the case?"

Wrong. The General Discussions Group is the miscellaneous group, i.e. it is a group separate from all other user groups, and conversely, user groups are not a category of the General Discussions Group. This means that if you belong to the General Discussions Group, you will NOT see posts from Transcripts With Tal unless you specifically join Transcripts With Tal.

Personally, I wish the system was the opposite. I wish the default was everything, and we could choose to filter out groups we don't want to see, not we have to actively choose every group we want to see. But I guess there are technical reasons they can't do this, and on top of that, they are trying to focus the community a bit more.

Ok. Glad it was just me complaining about it then. I feel so silly now!

No, tech changes at CPod are always like this, unfortunately! The trick is to lie low for a week or so, then work out what has happened after everything has settled down.

Wow, thanks, condescension :-p You think it's been an efficient and successful rollout? Or do you merely mean this is quite good compared to... something else?

"What's clear though, is that the implementation has been a shambles."

Wow, you really are a noob ;)

Maybe I am missing what the problem is? The way I understand it is this:

The word "Groups" has now changed definition. What were groups before are now posts in the General Discussions Group, and groups now are categories that can be filtered. If you belong to the General Discussions Group you see all of the posts that were once groups, right? Or is that not the case?

I don't like that if you want to see all of the comments you have to join all of the groups because I don't want Upper Intermediate Lessons showing up in my lessons, but I am often quite interested in a specific lesson when I see it being discussed in the comments. I bet when I am an Upper Intermediate student I will feel the same way about Advanced.

Anyway, I don't mind that it is different. And I do like the dashboard view better than the Me page. I don't really care what it is called.

EDIT: ummmm, the delete key doesn't seem to be working.

So I will just add that I did figure out that I was wrong about the General Discussions Group, and I now understand the complaint.

...

Of course, you're completely right, and probably correct. That makes me feel a bit better, thanks xiaophil :)

Just one quick thing to mention, it is quite possible that the news and features episode was actually recorded before the roll-out. That doesn't mean they shouldn't apologize. It just perhaps explains what was said.

You know, I partially agree with you. I think continual development is necessary, and the concept behind the dashboard is brilliant. It's a much better way of presenting information on one screen, and I fully support it.

What's clear though, is that the implementation has been a shambles. It doesn't work as designed, and the fact that that wasn't spotted in testing beforehand is shocking. And having worked in websites even that doesn't bother me as much as the total lack of contrition for the mess we're currently working with (and bug testing ;-) ). I was actually quite angry after hearing the news and features yesterday, not even a "sorry, it'll be fixed soon", or "bear with us while we fix a few bugs". All we got was "we understand everyone is very excited about getting to grips with the new dashboard".

I just feel a lot of people would be a lot less pissy if an apology had been forthcoming, even passingly. As it is, I just get the impression that by complaining about the various broken features and breaches of privacy, we must be being difficult or something! It's not as if we pay for the servic.... ohhh hang on.

Anyway, sorry, rant over and off my chest. I'll go back to learning chinese and being annoying on conversations :-) I'm generally very happy with Chinesepod, by the way! Love the site, love the podcasts. So much so I upgraded from basic to premium recently, and will be probably accessing executive for a couple of months later in the year.

The comment was intended to form part of the preceding discussion, begun by sebire I believe. Obviously my remarks are addressed to the CPod decision makers and/or powers that be.

Just so everyone is aware, no I haven't taken over Chinese Pod. I think Tal's comment is meant to be addressed to John.

Seeing all posts and conversations should be the frickin' default, not some option grudgingly added as an afterthought to mollify people. If you don't do that, of course people are going to wonder why and see 'agendas'.

I and others here put considerable effort into a group which was aimed at helping all other poddies, and at a stroke, all that effort is rendered pointless by the design of a system which does not allow people to see new posts to the group, which in fact will mean that newcomers won't even be aware that the group exists.

Sorry if I'm not ready to roll over and thank you for the mess you've made. The changes to the site never seem to end, you can't let 6 weeks go by without rolling out some new redesign or feature, (which usually never works properly until the many bugs are wrinkled out by disgruntled users, and by then it's time for another change of course.) Of course I have no direct knowledge of how you plan and implement changes at CPod, but I continue to get the impression that the place has too many techies and iPhiles who love designing shiny new toys, fiddling around endlessly with 'site development' and change for change's sake.

I wasn't implying any 'sinister' motives, but I can see why my comment could be read that way. (In fact, any situation that the word 'sinister' could be used to describe, I'm sure is beyond the capability of this website to bring about).

But I have learned something for future reference - throw in the word "agenda" and you will get a much quicker response.

Hi John

I want to add my thanks for all the hard work. I think I understand the main aim of the game. Don't take the few harsh comments too much to heart; we are a tough audience.

Just one question at this point doesn't seem to be answered and that is the question about nurturing User Groups - I see some difficulty in getting a new user group up, with support, in a system that does not show any posts to non-members. Any thoughts on that? Granted this is not your highest priority - but some people at ChinesePod seem to like the user groups as a means of learning. Best to keep people happy if at all possible. Works for politicians.

Yeah, thanks yet again for the reply. It's all crystal clear in my head now (I think, heh), and I think your compromise solution should satisfy at least me.

No worries, xiaophil. Explaining changes and answering questions is very much a part of my job :) The functions on the site are exactly the same for users as they are for staff. My only point is that I am able to see everything because I've joined every active group, and the other staff members at CPod have also done so. Nothing terribly special on our end!

To add to Catherine's reply...

Our "agenda" is to improve the user experience on ChinesePod. I did lots of user interviews to try to better understand how people use ChinesePod, and what would help them to learn better. The thing is, with the exception of Bababardwan, the users I interviewed are not the ones you normally see posting every day. They were a random sample of our userbase provided by marketing, with a few volunteers added in (the people that replied to the News & Features call for volunteers, like Bababardwan).

Anyway, that's where our direction came from.

Currently we are also looking at a solution to make users like xiaophil happy. If we're going to display all latest comments/posts, we can also display them unthreaded as well, which is something that we've had requests for. The big issue is database query efficiency. Separating conversations by group makes it much easier to give each user his (limited) set of relevant conversations (which is what we got requests for), but it makes it much harder on the database to display ALL conversations. It's a trade-off.

The solution we're looking at is to display ALL latest (public) conversations, up to a certain number. This means you can't go back and back through the entire history of the community, but you can see everything in the past two days, or the past 5000 comments, or whatever reasonable limit we set.

This kind of "everything in the last 2 days" option would not be the default view for the Community "Conversations" page, but it would help users like xiaophil find what they're looking for, provided he visits the site fairly often.

Hi Catherine

Thanks for your latest reply. I know it can be tiresome always having to deal with these kinds of complaints. (You don't have to deny it. Nobody thinks it is fun.)

Just a thought: if staff can see everything, then there must be a way for us to see everything too...

We did a great deal of research and user feedback interviews. There was overwhelming support for a more focused community on CPod. People said that they felt there was a lot of "randomness" and that they wanted to see changes that helped them find content/comments that were relevant to them and to their interests. We feel that groups is a great way to do this.

We recognize that some users still want to see all conversations going on at all times. Our tech. team is currently investigating whether it would be possible to add a "view all" feature with this current system. There is a bit of technical complexity here (unfortunately it's not as simple as just adding a button) so we'll be sure to update you when we have more information.

In response to go_manly, I can promise you that there is nothing sinister going on here. We only want to make ChinesePod a better, more efficient platform in which students can get the most out of their Chinese studies.

I suppose it's an unintended consequence of trying to encourage less brave posters to post in less general forums. Speaking personally, If an "all conversations" option were available, I'd first check "replies to me", then "my conversations", then I'd look at all conversations to see if there was something more general I'd be interested in.

But that's just me eh. .

And if its not a question of difficulty, then it must be a question of agenda. So, why does CPod want to make it so difficult to add all groups, and why does it want to make it so difficult for new user groups to spring to life?

That's what I'm saying! But if I understood them correctly, there is a reason they are doing it this way. Somewhere on another post a staff member mentioned something about increasing conversation activity through compartmentalizing or such. Perhaps I got it wrong...

It just needs an "all conversations" tab at the top really. Can't be that hard to implement?

Catherine

Thanks for answering. I think it answers one of my questions indirectly, but there is another left unanswered.

So you mean there is no way to simply see all user group posts without having to go through all the trouble of joining every single group? If yes, that leads me to the second question.

What purpose does it serve forcing us to join every single group if we want to see every single post? I ask this because I don't think I have joined any groups from seeking them out. I join groups because I see them on the community page and they seem interesting. Now if there is a new group started, how will I know if it exists unless I am constantly checking the lists of groups? I think this new policy (if I understand it correctly, of course) will greatly stifle user groups--not improve them. Not only that, it is just plain inconvenient. I don't want to have to always look for new groups to join. I want to come here and immediately study or get involved in the conversations. Honestly, there generally aren't many user groups on the community board at any one time, so I don't feel there is any good reason to deny us the ability to see all the posts in user groups. I'm sure there is a reason for this, but if there is, it is counter-intuitive to me. So I guess what I am saying is, what is the reasoning behind not allowing us the choice to see all user groups without joining every single one of them?

Note: I do like the ability to filter. I just think that you guys shouldn't make it hard for us to see all posts if we indeed want to.

If you want to be a part of all conversations (i.e. you want to see EVERYTHING that is going on) then you should join all the level groups + general discussion +any other groups that interest you. I currently see all of the conversations happening on the site because I am a member of all the level groups + extra shows groups (News and Features, for example) + most active user groups.

When I want to reduce the amount of noise (for example I want to use my language skills to help give advice to newbie users) I can then choose to see ONLY newbie level conversations. Please let me know if this doesn't answer your question.

Catherine or anyone at CPod who can explain this,

My understanding is that there will not be an option to see all conversations on the conversations page even if we so desire to see all of them. Is this right? If yes, can someone please explain to us in simple language why we should support this feature? I really hate being a complainer, but I find this very, very odd. I can understand having optional filters, but I cannot understand why we should be forced to wear blinders. I'm not angry, just baffled.

The tech. team knows about this problem and is fixing it.

呵呵, looks like one of those old CRT ones, he's probably got a new one to take out of the box! Anyway, think catharsis!

I like how contented the little guy looks after he throws his monitor.

Hey Tal,

I prefer former US Attorney General John, John Ashcroft's singing and song writing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFmMGYv3mag

Note: requires a VPN to view in China.

I would prefer a more upbeat message for this contrail-free sunny Sunday.

:P

P.S.: Eyjafjallajökull = 埃亚菲亚德拉冰盖

That's the spirit! 这样吧, you try your hand at dashborad poetry, and I'll follow up? No borrowing from Donald Rumsfeld !

Whoops. I failed English Literature I at my first attempt at university (I think they picked on me because I was doing economics.) I went back for more. :)

bodawei, you're an Economics prof, right? Maybe you should consider switching disciplines!

There is a broken rhyme scheme here (a metaphor for the Dashborad?) but in any case Henning is allowed to break the rules. I just love the rhythm, imagery and melodic devices. The visual imagery in 'This dump of conversation ruins'; the cacophony in 'dump'; the consonance in 'lesson list debris'. The hyperbole. (Henning's, not mine.) :-)

Hi changye, 'highbrow' English poetry rarely rhymes, and Henning is no lowbrow!

No rhyming?

That's cool. Henning is indeed the poet amongst us.

@Henning

Your last post is a fine piece of poetry from the Existentialist School - consider:

Somehow this dump of conversation ruins,

lesson list debris,

and orphaned posts

meandering through multiple realities

led me to take the placement test.

Following the Conversations was already hard

with the unfinished threading.

Now it has become impossible.

I would really like to comment along the lines of 'beautiful work', but no words are necessary.

RJ is 'watching the show' I believe, 呵呵. I'm sure he has no plans to move to Australia. I think that like me he now realizes that complaining/commenting has zero effect on what CPod does re. our 'community', so his emphasis is shifting to study over social interaction. If I'm wrong I trust he'll put me right.

Do you guys know where rjbeki is now? Is he too busy learning Chinese or preparing for moving to Australia (is that true?) to post a comment, or has he just gotten tired of complaining about the forums?

haha I can SO relate to your going to take the test!

"Universe" is generally translated as “宇宙” (yu3zhou4) in Chinese, and I think it can be sometimes translated as “世界”.

请问用中文怎么说“universe"

Just curious :-)

I think we probably all have a common universe but are in different dimensions ;-)

Not sure Changye, but I do hope so, otherwise we are further apart as we speak (forever) :-).

Hi chanelle77

Are we in the same universe now?

haha trevorb, if I didn't know you better I might have wondered, what sort of person that indicates you are. But I agree, use of language is not easy, and not just foreign languages.

I should point out I meant it was the right behaviour of the system stopping access to personal lesson groups NOT that it is the right behaviour to go to peoples personal lesson groups!!! :-)

Alas it appears my use of my own language is as bad as my use of chinese!

I agree. As long as they fixed pretty soon, that is :-) Not sure I can cope for, say, another week :-p

了不起！！！

I wonder if this explains the mystery of the recent login troubles.

..but it doesn't look like you can stay in that view....if you click on community you are taken to the old community look. If you then click on home you are taken to the new dashboard.At least that's what happens for me.

amesburygeorge,

If you go to "http://chinesepod.com/yourusername/" it seems as if the old interface is still available. I have that address bookmarked so at first I didn't notice that the dashboard had arrived.

From my conversations list on my dashboard:

bababardwan - Previous Counseling

I've no proof,but between you and me I strongly suspect that trevorb has been in here reading my lesson plan...xiaotou xiaotou 小偷小偷 !!

LOL!

Sx

trevorb...yeah ,exacltly mate. It has never given the "in reply to" button when you're the first to reply creating a subthread [I guess they figured it was obvious who you were replying to]. In ubsequent subthread posts hitting that "reply" button will render the "in reply to button" as you've just discovered.

Interesting how do you get it to say in reply to! I replied to your message so..... Hmmm I think it may only do it inside a nested thread...

But alas your reply to me did not show up either.....

Xiaophil, don't know but it seems arbitrary and indeliberate to me.

Zhen,

Thanks for telling me. I hope that is on purpose.

I'm now getting Newbie and Ele (lesson) discussions in my dashboard even though I've neither subscribed to lessons in those levels nor joined those level Groups. So yes I guess so.

It's not priority now nor the hugest problem at hand, but if we are going to have this Home Page / dashboard at all, then I personally would rather NOT receive those discussions in the dashboard (= I'd prefer there to see just the discussions I've made clear are priority for me), AND have at least an OPTION to go see ALL discussions in the Conversations page ... that makes a lot more sense to me.

Again, can anyone confirm that as Xiao Liang says here, we can see groups we are not subscribed to in our dashboard? Thanks.

xiao liang.

Did you notice if the groups that you aren't subscribed to show up on the conversations page? I hope so because I hate scrolling down on the home page.

But this one will! :)

No, because your message doesn't say "in reply to". So this one won't show up either on yours I think.

Does this show up in your "replies to you" tab?

"No, only Chinese style software engineering, no testing, no quality checks, just a tweak here and there. We all want everything super-cheap, and that's now the result."

Have you never used Microsoft products :-) This is the way most software companies do it, it makes development affordable. Bug less software is expensive and normally used in things like aircraft control systems!

It will settle down, hopefully with all of us still around and learning....

I kind of hope he's not feeding his guests either of those!

Hi bababardwan

Please be careful not to take 狗屎 for 狗食 when you serve your guests dinner.

狗食 (gou3shi2) dog food

狗屎 (gou3shi3) dog poo

Seriously, would you like some cheese with that?

What's more, the "Private Groups" are still open. Everybody can see who is in "Guided", his/her teacher, his/her assigned lessons, etc. The staff was not able to solve this in one working day ... And now we have weekend! Great!

Dreadful?

No, only Chinese style software engineering, no testing, no quality checks, just a tweak here and there. We all want everything super-cheap, and that's now the result.

Back to the old-style textbooks! They will never disappoint you!

“狗的早饭”让受欢迎被Roy和HG

yeah,I've known of folk to serve their dinner guests dog food, based on the justification that if it's good enough for my dog its good enough for my mates...我的妈呀 ！！

lol

I swear I saw your avatar twitch as I read that.

Come on, dog food is not that bad these days!

In Aus we call it a dog's breakfast. I guess when your dog in the UK is having dinner, our's is having breakfast.

Anyway, some things ARE dreadful - other things will be fixed - yet others will be fine once we get used to them.

wasn't discovered

...sounded more like a deliberate plan to avoid a potential system crash rather than an oversight.

Bababardwan,, after a year of hard work of evaluating and testing before implementing this change, it wasn't discovered that the newest comments are not showing up?

我同意。我吃好了，所以很开心，呵呵

Yea, these (beyond the new level on the dashboard) were all existing issues. The scrolling thing doesn't really bother me, to be honest.

But I'm notoriously tolerant :p (HAH!)

Actually, I made my original complaint about a month ago. It is not connected to the Trashboard.

Others are sleeping, working or learning, or have better things to do - so, no complains!

Your first point I've complained about before. It happens when you enter a long thread. You are taken straight to the selected message but, inexplicably, after a few seconds, just as you start to read the comment, the page scrolls up then back down again to the starting point.

My guess is that it is a result of CPod opening up the threads instead of restricting them to the 5 most recent comments. I suspect it is a patch job - when the page opens, I think only the 5 most recent are shown, then the page scrolls as the thread is opened up completely. As you say, its extremely annoying, and it should be redone.

But you and I are the only ones to complain - noone else must see it as an issue.

Yup. I've mentioned it several times across the discussion threads, but no official response yet. I'm feeling a bit ignored :'-(

as someone mentioned, you can still see the first couple sentences of private messages between counsellor and student on the dashboard page... maybe CPod is just trying to bring the lurkers out of the closet by publishing their private messages to thousands of users?

good tip zhen

Never mind Bob--by hovering over the grey default icon, or anyone's avatar, in the dashboard Conversations section you can see their username.

Looks like they've fixed it. You can see who they are teaching, but their messages are no longer accessible.

And touché, hape (which kinda rhymes!)

I will try to avoid the temptation of looking up your teacher while I am able.

xiao_liang wrote: "I do feel bad for the teachers who put hard work into adding value to these guided subscriptions."

I had not the impression that my Guided teacher put a lot of hard work in either assessment and/or lesson plan.

lame excuses for not doing work

lol,sorry mate,please don't take it the wrong way if I confess you made me laugh. The teach in you is shining through. Jiayou manly, hehe :)

Yes, I do see what you're saying. I know the plans are tailored, I guess I was just offering some sympathy to the teachers who might be aggrieved as much as any student? Who knows, we don't see them too much here as they are too busy teaching! Anyway, we all agree that we hope it's fixed soon so we can get over this little drama (although we do love drama...) and get on with learning without distraction :-)

And don't downplay your chinese! Your command of grammar far exceeds mine, online dictionaries or not! :)

I think the main problem is that all the private comments made between teacher and student are there for everyone to see. All the errors in attempts that students would not have had the courage to make if they had known the conversation was public. And all the lame excuses for not doing work, not answering the phone, etc.

having a free lesson plan drawn up for you was one of the promotions for the site

...yeah,a great promotion and the key word is "you".

I should think the teachers spend quite some time tailoring the correct lesson plans for people

...I'm sure they do and there is value in that.But here the key word is "tailoring".I'm not sure if you're kidding around with me or not ,but to not belabour the point too much myself, ones Chinese learning needs,interests,purposes are not going to be the same as the next persons so while it is valuable for the person it's tailored for it's not particularly going to be valuable to the next person [above just choosing lessons themselves].In fact it is that very individual tailoring that is what makes it valuable.

*doesn't understand the lessons because he's so much better at chinese than me*

...now clearly you are kidding around in this section [a quality I admire/enjoy...I love some kidding around myself as you've no doubt noticed...I don't think life should be taken too seriously] but if you were trying to say I'm better at Chinese then you are just fooled by some online dictionary use my friend.Tip...mdbg is your friend ;)

Well, I don't wish to labour the point to make anyone feel bad, but I remember for a while, having a free lesson plan drawn up for you was one of the promotions for the site. I should think the teachers spend quite some time tailoring the correct lesson plans for people as part of a paid service, so to have that work suddenly available for anyone to take for free, I would find a bit vexing, were it me.

*steals all bababardwan's lesson plans*

*doesn't understand the lessons because he's so much better at chinese than me*

*goes off in a (fake) grump*

;-)

I do feel bad for the teachers who put hard work into adding value to these guided subscriptions

...actually I don't really follow this line of thinking. The point being that they are tailor made and personal lesson plans. What is going to be a good plan for someone isn't going to be the plan most suited for someone else so I don't think anything has been lost here or that it's worthwhile for anyone else to grab one of those lesson plans.Further most of the "added value" in the guided plan is not in those communications, but rather in the regular sessions with guided teacher,and sometimes in emails that were not shown there.

feel bad for the teachers who put hard work into adding value to these guided subscriptions——说得有道理。

Oh undoubtedly, I agree, and I didn't think you were! Excuse my flippancy :-) I do feel bad for the teachers who put hard work into adding value to these guided subscriptions. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I wasn't getting all huffy at you xiao_liang! But I would be pretty pissed, if it were my privacy being compromised in such an unprofessional manner (that's a lot of "pr-"s).

Maybe they wanted everyone to have a free (someone-elses's) lesson plan... ? :)

Emphasis on "some" of the missing comments :--p

Well I would hope the privacy issue has been THE priority all day.

I notice that some of the missing comments have re-materialised. I'm sure they're working on the privacy issue next as a matter of urgency.

Ok but you probably get a couple fewer comments displayed on the dashboard then; it's not about the scrolling which I have to do any which way. Sure, this is not big enough of a deal to squall about.

Again, I personally like the way the dashboard Conversations looks now fine and don't care to see usernames there.

The dashboard My Lessons now--has issues that need addressing. But that's not even priority now. I'll bring that up later, once the more pressing issues have been taken care of.

I don't really get that. On the Conversations page, the usernames are shown at the bottom of each conversation snippet, taking up an extra line. We've been happily scrolling down that page for some time - I'm already scrolling a bit to see all the conversations on the Home page - it wouldn't hurt to scroll that little bit more. There's no need to shrink text at all.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll all get back to using the Conversations page when CPod fixes up the problems, so it won't be an issue.

Space issues Bob don't you think? Surely you don't want CPod to think it might be a good idea to shrink the small text even more so that our usernames can be shown.

EDIT: Of course I don't mean you should feel forced to take an avatar. I have no problem myself with our usernames not showing on the dashboard comments section. That is NOT one of the many things I think need to get fixed here.

Zhen... Yes! This is the part that REALLY bothers me. CPod has made it less functional as far as I am concerned. Why can't I simply go to conversations and see all conversations at once without joining every group? I just don't understand it. People have been asking for a clearer way to follow the comments. They haven't been asking for blinders as far as I can tell. I mean, I would like to have the option to filter out distracting activities at times, but I don't like it being the default.

PS: This is coming from a guy who liked the threaded comments (mostly). My standard setting isn't "CPod is bad." I just don't like being forced into smaller subdivisions in order to somehow counter intuitively increase conversations in the entire community. It's all too abstract if you ask me. Actually, I wouldn't care if I hadn't paid money... Okay, I ranted. I hope its out of my system now :-).

Well, let's first see if we can convince CPod to show usernames.

CPod, why aren't they shown by the way?

Hi catherinem

Let me say a word. I think you'd better not say something like "many really hardworking people have spent a lot of their time and energy/Our teams are working around the clock", because it sounds just "not professional".

"many really hardworking people have spent a lot of their time and energy researching (talking to users), building, implementing, and tweaking these new changes over the past year."

So you're saying that this redesign has been in development for A YEAR, and yet no one, NO ONE noticed that the privacy of those users on Guided was open for all to see? Catherine, pull the other one please!

Bob would you consider taking an avatar now? I only ask because those default grey CPod icons in the dashboard, where we see no usernames, all look like spammers, or uncommitted users anyway. An avatar would make it easier to tell your voice apart from theirs.

"Show All Conversations" or "Select All Groups" in my opinion ought to be made available as an option, even if it's only to ease us through the transition. Why would CPod withhold this option from users, when providing it could stem a lot of unhappiness, and address concerns raised already regarding User Groups?

In general, it seems the (few) people who say they like the changes post seldom here. Perhaps these people are in the majority, and don't want to comment.

The regular commenters, by and large, do not like the new approach.

So, perhaps the new design is advantageous to the actual study of lessons on the website (I generally don't study lessons online), but not good for discussion. I really think the presentation of the discussions needs to be looked at.

Of particular concern:

1. How do you expect User Groups to operate, and how will they attract participants?

2. Why is there no 'Select All Groups' option?

It works for me, in the sense that I can login, but I then just get a blank screen.

Sorry, the link doesn't work. If this doesn't work also just go with go_manly and type in the URL. It works fine for me.

I think henning's link is wrong. Just type in m.chinesepod.com

Great suggestion by the way. I think I'll be going there from now on.

Hi henning

I'm afraid the page doesn't exist anymore.

404 Page not found.

(Sorry this page does not exist.) Temporary problem? Or is ChinesePod re-writing history?

The idea I have is: Simple yet powerful. If you require a two paragraph page about how something works, perhaps it is too complex. Simplicity is power. Complexity is a road block to learning.

I'd say CPod needs a 'rear-view mirror' more than a new 'dashboard'. If only the current gang of geek-speakers and iPhiles could take a look back occasionally to the days when CPod was simpler and greater, (indeed greater because it was simpler).

My iTunes feed is not downloading some of the lessons in some of the groups. Not sure what's happening here but the I've missed a number of lessons this week. I've joined the groups -- or at least it says I have, but the lessons I used to get are now not arriving in iTunes.

Hope there's a quick fix for this.

@bodawei To join a group you can go to the groups page, click on the group you would like to join (doing so will take you to the group page, where you can read a description about it). On that group's individual page you can click on "join this group" or, if you are already a member, you can "leave this group," if you'd like.

As a side note there are a few ways to go to the groups page from your dashboard: (1) under "Home," on the top of the dashboard page, there is a drop-down list called "Dashboard View." Here you can click on "More Groups >>". (2) You can go to the Community page, then click on the "Groups" tab.

Perhaps Cpod realises that the most efficient way to test the dashboard is to expose it to the people who are most likely to find all the glitches - the people who want it to fail! Imagine the money we are saving them.

> why (as usual) all these latest changes were not perfected BEFORE being implemented?

This is a Chinese custom which is called “试营” (trial operation = "trials-and-errors" operation). In China, you can see a lot of restaurants doing "trial operation" before they hold a opening ceremony.

Maybe there will be space on the Home Page where poddies can advertise their groups. :) (I haven't worked out how to subscribe yet - better go and read the blog.)

I agree. Furthermore, the less audience, the less people want to post a new thread/comment.

The technology should be transparent. It should be natural and not get in the way of learning. Don't know about it? Don't visit here that often.

你说的不对，you are never too old to learn :-)

I think the simplest, clearest user interface is the best. No sense in clouding things with unnecessary difficulty or complexity. That said, I really don't know whether the changes are for better or worse. Overall I would say that the quality of C-Pod has gone up over the years. Some pluses, some minuses but overall the experience is better.

I am completely lost with all of this since I don't spend time on the message boards (that is what they used to be called back when the fastest modem was 14.4). Anyway, I just wait for my iTunes lessons to arrive and do my studying. Then I come to CPod for the vocabulary and the expansion sentences. I do wish however they would pay a little more attention to the quality of the Premium Sections. Particularly, would like to hear a male voice every now and then. Also, would like the sentences to be spoken clearly, enunciated clearly and tones well said. Most of the "readers" do a good job but every now and then it just sounds like blah, blah blah as my kids say to me. In the meantime, I just listen once to the reader to catch the rhythm and trust my own bad sense of the rhythm, tones and sounds of the language. I would also like to hear native speakers there. Especially important for those who are learning to sound these Chinese words out for the first time. Advanced students already have earned their chops when it comes to pronunciation. Newbies don't.

Because it never seems to stop changing for long enough!

Oh, I have to start calling this a dashboard now, do I? Did I mention I'm sick to death of geek speak and associated acronyms too?

Anyway never mind, I'm done.