Give feedback about Imzy! Let us know what you love and what you want to see made better. Also bug reports & questions.
Give a little posting love this holiday season?
I've been trying to make an extra effort to post in communities that I don't lead, and at least a couple of those posts have led to real discussions. So I thought I might encourage others to do the same!
What I do is this: I just look down my list of subscribed communities, pick a few where I feel like I have something to say on those topics, and post. Voilà! It's not at all difficult, it takes a load off the community leaders who might be struggling to come up with yet another topic for a discussion that they're then going to be in charge of steering, and it's extremely rewarding for everyone (including me!) whenever it works.




This is a fantastic idea! As a community leader (of /code_black and /gilmoregirls) I can definitely say it's a relief for me when people start making their own posts. Even if they don't generate a ton of discussion, I think it makes new members more likely to join and post themselves if they see a few different topics instead of just one person creating all the content--so imo your contributions are making a big difference even if you don't get a bunch of replies.
Thanks! Although it's better when you do get a whole bunch of replies, of course. Maybe I'll make that my next project. ;)
I've made the same effort, and it definitely has made a difference.
We've had an influx of thousands of new users. You should say hi in /introductions.
I always feel shy in communities like that, but I will give it some thought!
Thank you for doing this!
This is a great idea, thanks jae!
Honestly, I have little desire for much posting because unless it does indeed lead to a popular discussion, it isn't going to be seen anyway.
I feel similarly. But it really helped me get over that hump to post a bunch of things in quick succession, in several different places. I found that even if they didn't ALL lead to discussions, I still felt good about the ones that did. In one case, a discussion started in a community where no one had posted since May!
If I had to guess, without actual numbers in front of me, I suspect the large majority of regulars are sorting by
new, not popular.Overall, I haven't seen a drop in activity for small communities since the feed change rollout. Our Activity feed also has a preference for smaller communities, and for newer stuff.
That being said, the activity sort is something we're constantly gonna be refining, and feedback about it really is appreciated, especially if it's specific.
I agree that the majority of regulars are sorting by new, it's the new people that just got here and have no idea what is going on that I'm worried about. I have two specific bits of feedback, the first one is kind of hard to explain, but basically, you know that scene in Office Space (yeah, I know, wonderful example to use, right?) where they hung a banner asking "Is this good for the company?"? I'd kinda like to see that banner at Imzy HQ, except it says "Did this get us through beta?". The point being I feel some of the recent changes (insert the whole people don't like change yadda yadda yadda here) are far enough away from what Imzy was a couple months ago, that I don't know if Imzy would be today what it is today if those changes were made a couple months ago. I know, that sentence should be taken outside and shot. What I mean to say is look back, and look what got us to this point. Would what we are doing now have gotten us to this point if we were doing it back in May? One of those impossible to answer questions, but something I'd like to see kept in mind.
The other specific feedback is (on topic!) regarding the default activity sort. I am not saying this is a bad idea (and I'm not repeating that because people in the past, right here on this very site, have claimed me stressing a similar point meant I really intended the opposite). It can be changed, and that is good. But it's not on an account level, so if you use different devices or don't save cookies, then it can appear to magically self-change back. Just like that other site that people have said they wish would stop doing that. And it was implemented too early.
Let me expand on that. I would not be saying a single word about it if it had been implemented AFTER a change that indicates a community has new posts. Hell, I would probably have left it set to the default myself in that situation. But as it stands right now, here is the user experience for a new user: See posts that have been deemed popular by whatever metric was used to make that determination. Do not see posts in community user joined if they do not pass that metric's standards because if they aren't deemed good enough to make the feed, there's no indication that community XYZ has new content, UNLESS of course user randomly clicks on that community. This is a very broken user experience.
Not trying to copy or mock you in any way in sort of saying the same thing you said, but without any actual numbers in front of me, my personal feeling, just using the site the way I normally do, there has been a decrease in activity lately. Now, there could be a billion posts per second in communities I don't follow, I'm not saying the site in general has less activity. I'm saying the way I've been using it, there seems to be less. This could very well just be due to the holidays. This could be due to a general "aw to heck with it" funk (this year has been very hard on everyone) that hopefully is temporary. Or it could be that some changes, the site just wasn't ready for. I really don't know. All I do know is like I said, I personally feel less motivation to post, and I personally see less posts.
Feel free to post on /glossopoeia if that's the case! :)
Great idea. The gift of posting.
Okay! I'm here! What next?
Oh, that's right, think of something interesting to say. (facepalm) ... still thinking.
I guess that's my stumbling block. Doesn't seem like there's much to say. I like real conversations, so how do we get one going?
Can someone come up with a list? I'd be ever so grateful!
I can't speak for everyone, but in my case, I have a pretty long list of communities I'm a member of. I don't feel like I have something to say about every one of those topics right now, but I do have something to say about some of them, even if it's just to ask a relevant question of the other community members. That's where I started, and I went from there. I also started realizing that as I go about my day, I'll often find myself getting into a conversation elsewhere about a topic relevant to some community or the other here, so I'll make a mental note to bring that topic up in that community the next chance I get. That sort of thing.
Basically, it took a bit of a paradigm shift in how I conceive of myself as using Imzy. Rather than viewing community leaders as primarily responsible for steering things and the rest of us mostly consuming content passively and occasionally commenting on it, I started feeling like we'll all be better off if ordinary members can make themselves jump in and post things on a regular basis too.
Nice! I've been wondering how to sidestep passivity, and not coming up with much. I like your paradigm shift. Thinking of questions to ask might be a way to go about it.
I'd like to be part of a community where members ask each other a question. Even a set question from a list. I'm not so sure AMA would be the right format. Maybe AMS - Ask Me Something. AMS&TTMII