Spout Moderators

Feedback - Groups

Hey,

I am trying to round up some suggestions on ways to enhance our groups on Spout. I have gotten a lot of ideas from the general community, but as the people who have put the current groups to work for you, I am interested to hear your perspective.

A few things I am curious about and would like your thoughts:

-Adding people to groups

-discussions

-group creation process

-lists

-communication with group members

let me know what you think!

Re:Feedback - Groups

What I would like would be a feature that would let me easily see in one place which of my contacts were members of which of my groups.  And also an options to easily select a large number of people who invite to a group at the same time instead of have to visit each person's page and invite them one by one.  Also it would be nice to see a list of anyone who may have rejected an invitation in the past so I don't pester them by accidentally inviting them a second time.

Re:Feedback - Groups

I used to write on a political website and one very simple thing that they had was a link to each page of the discussion on the overview screen. I should be pretty easy

example: http://forum.protestwarrior.com/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=c6d61bd774ca5e5bae6f08ec4f3cf793

Similarly to spout, the most recently active topic is at the top of the list, but instead of having to enter the topic at the first page, you have the option to go directly to the last page or any page in between. They also show who the last post was from. That way you can see quickly, without having to  check your email if someone has responded to your last post.

Just suggestions, or nitpicking..........not sure.

Re:Feedback - Groups

csprague:

Hey,

I am trying to round up some suggestions on ways to enhance our groups on Spout. I have gotten a lot of ideas from the general community, but as the people who have put the current groups to work for you, I am interested to hear your perspective.

A few things I am curious about and would like your thoughts:

-Adding people to groups

-discussions

-group creation process

-lists

-communication with group members

 

let me know what you think!

   A live chat room would be cool.   Actually, I've had a couple of people ask me about this.   Ideally, you should have one for every group...   but I don't know if that is even possible.    It would certainly change the complexion of SPOUT and (I suspect) draw thousands of new people...

   Just a thought...

Re:Feedback - Groups

Risselada:

What I would like would be a feature that would let me easily see in one place which of my contacts were members of which of my groups.  And also an options to easily select a large number of people who invite to a group at the same time instead of have to visit each person's page and invite them one by one.  Also it would be nice to see a list of anyone who may have rejected an invitation in the past so I don't pester them by accidentally inviting them a second time.

I hear ya. The current method of inviting people to groups can be tedious. I have a proposal in the works to change invitations to being part of the group creation process. I also agree about being able to know who you have already invited to a group. I am sure I have harassed many a person unknowingly.

Re:Feedback - Groups

leeroy711:

I used to write on a political website and one very simple thing that they had was a link to each page of the discussion on the overview screen. I should be pretty easy

example: http://forum.protestwarrior.com/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=c6d61bd774ca5e5bae6f08ec4f3cf793

 

Similarly to spout, the most recently active topic is at the top of the list, but instead of having to enter the topic at the first page, you have the option to go directly to the last page or any page in between. They also show who the last post was from. That way you can see quickly, without having to  check your email if someone has responded to your last post.

 

Just suggestions, or nitpicking..........not sure.

Hey Leeroy711

I think I know what you mean. I guess the major difference with the example you pointed out is that it's built in php which is just super cute and clean and seems to be functioning as the standard for forums these days. Spout however, is written in asp which makes things a little more difficult in terms of creating forums that mimic the same standards of usability for php forums. With that said, I agree with you and I think we would do well to integrate some of the positive usability aspects from php into our future enhancements. Good thoughts.

Re:Feedback - Groups

Dr_Gor:

csprague:

Hey,

I am trying to round up some suggestions on ways to enhance our groups on Spout. I have gotten a lot of ideas from the general community, but as the people who have put the current groups to work for you, I am interested to hear your perspective.

A few things I am curious about and would like your thoughts:

-Adding people to groups

-discussions

-group creation process

-lists

-communication with group members

 

let me know what you think!

   A live chat room would be cool.   Actually, I've had a couple of people ask me about this.   Ideally, you should have one for every group...   but I don't know if that is even possible.    It would certainly change the complexion of SPOUT and (I suspect) draw thousands of new people...

   Just a thought...

 

I totally agree. It would be awesome to just be able to find a group that interested you and pop into the chat room for a quick movie recommendation, which is the main idea around here anyway. I also think that being able to tell who is online at the moment and having the option to live chat them would be nice. It would certainly be easier to just chat with you when I have a movie question rather than to write you a message and wait for your response. Plus, from a business-y site stand point, people might actually hang out around here and keep the site open in a tab all day and check back more often. hmmmmmmm........interesting........