New Community Platform

Hi all,

 

Welcome to the newest version of your Community platform. I see that some of you are already posting away, and to those who may have experienced some hiccups earlier during the rollout process, thanks for your patience.

 

Let's use this discussion thread as a hub for constructive feedback and questions about the upgrade. Most of your day-to-day functions should remain the same, but if you can't find or feature, or want to know how to use some of the new ones, we'll help you out as best we can.

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Well, I'm never a huge fan of change but this isn't as bad as I feared.

 

It seems like autocorrect of text doesn't work, though, so expect to see a LOT more spelling errors on my end.

 

And should there be some information under Seller News/Announcements? Will the old Announcements section be moved there in future? 

 

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PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

 No summer camp 'participation' badges.

Treat us like adults.

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No no no no no no no!! I HATE this new platform! I never use the US boards because I can't stand their format! Please bring back the old format!! Or at least give us a choice to opt out.

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This new format looses so much space! What took one line in a post is now taking up to 3 lines here. Why does the posts are only occupying half the page? So much blank spaces everywhere... who taught it was a good idea? Seriously.

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I like the badges; I never had the opportunity to go to summer camp and I suck at sports so, for me, nerdlinger badges for loitering on the Discussion Boards as a shiftless-do-gooder are as good as it gets.

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Okay, here's a legitimate question:

 

What's a 'featured listing'?

 

Its link takes me to something unrelated.

 

 Screen Shot 2018-01-09 at 9.15.23 PM.png

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In theory, when you change something, it's for the better, right? In theory. So... challenge:

 

Please name 5 improvements the new board has over the old one.

 

We already know the spell corrector does not work, so that's -1 for the new board. I already said there is too much blank and lost spaces. I feel like I'm reading on a phone, and I hate it. -2.

 

I'm trying really hard to find improvements, but so far no luck.

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Anonymous
Not applicable

"Let's use this discussion thread as a hub for constructive feedback and questions about the upgrade. "

 

I constructively and positively disapprove of the new community format. I first notice this change yesterday and as I started navigating through the new forum...I got lost!...Hmmm, I knew I should have made a left turn at Albaquerquethinking

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Is there a way to change the colours at the top? The blue and purple banner is actually giving me a sick migraine because they are so intense! I really am serious, not joking. I have to cover up the colours when I open up the community pages. Please, can you lower the colour intensity? It is not pleasant.

 

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@lady.stark wrote:

In theory, when you change something, it's for the better, right? In theory. So... challenge:

 

Please name 5 improvements the new board has over the old one.

 

We already know the spell corrector does not work, so that's -1 for the new board. I already said there is too much blank and lost spaces. I feel like I'm reading on a phone, and I hate it. -2.

 

I'm trying really hard to find improvements, but so far no luck.


I'll play Devil's Advocate because no one else is doing it. 

 

Lack of spell check or auto correct is detrimental. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any reason to disagree with that but "too much white space" is subjective. Everyone hasd a different opinion on layout and design so "white space" cannot be construed as a negative point across the board.

 

Even some people may disagree that losing spellcheck and auto-correct in that message field is a problem. It could be construed as subjective too. Maybe there are linguist purists out there who think autocorrect speaks to the lowest common denominator; I'm not one of them, I am a terrible typist so my spelling appears to be atrocious as a result of that.

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@mjwl2006momcqueen wrote:

Well, I'm never a huge fan of change but this isn't as bad as I feared.

 

It seems like autocorrect of text doesn't work, though, so expect to see a LOT more spelling errors on my end.

 

And should there be some information under Seller News/Announcements? Will the old Announcements section be moved there in future? 

 


I'm VERY happy to hear that! I hope that many will feel similarly. We're technically on the same platform; so it was more of a version upgrade than anything else. But things do look very different which can be disorienting.

 

I'm still working with the launch team to ensure that all of the testing we did makes its way into production - the live product - so thanks for letting me know about the spellcheck. It SHOULD be working, so that will be on my list of things to let me know.

 

About the Announcements - yes, definitely! That is where I will be moving them from announcements.ebay.ca in the coming weeks, but first I want to make sure everything is as close to perfect as possible with the new platform. Once I start the transition to the new blog, I'll be communicating the change on the old Announcements blog so that people aren't left in the dark. 

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I'll try to answer the other questions and comments in this post, so please bear with me and offer a gentle reminder if I miss yours.

 

Badges: Some like them, some don't. The way the badges work is that they are programmatically assigned by "the computer" once you hit certain milestones. They're located in your profile, and if you like them, they can be interesting to look at. If you don't, you never have to! And you won't be required to "badge" other users or take any other actions related to badges if you don't want to.

 

5 improvements: Improvements are subjective, but here are what I would consider to be improvements (and the lack of spell check does not count as a detriment as I'll be fixing that onestuck_out_tongue_winking_eye):

 

1. Cleaner design

Another user mentioned a lot of "white space" on the new platform as compared to the old one.  I confess that part of my background is User Experience Design, so my gut reaction here is to say that it just looks better. But that again is subjective. At a core level, clean design is also accessible. This is really really important for members who may have disabilities that make low-contrast environments challenging to engage with. eBay has commited to making its site more accessible on the whole for all members. You can learn more about that here.

 

2. Integrated communications

Users have in the past referred to the Announcement Board posts we make as "snuck in", "quietly posted", etc. We don't mean for them to quietly appear without fanfare, but it's difficult when the Announcements live on a platform that's separate from the main site and the discussion boards, and we don't want to bombard members with emails or alerts they don't want in order to get their attention. Once I've tranferred the Announcements to this platform, it will be much easier for members to notice them, and they won't have to visit a bunch of different sites to get the latest news. 

 

3. Subscriptions

Related to the above, if you WANT to receive notifications when an Announcement is posted (or if something is posted anywhere else on the platform, such as in a Group or thread you're interested in), you can now Subscribe. On the right-hand side of a page, and within posts themselves, you'll notice an Options menu with three dots. If you open it there are a number of options, including Subscribe which will alert you if something new comes up in the area you're interested in.

 

4. Better metrics and moderation tools

This is not an immediate benefit to members, but it WILL benefit you. The eBay team now has access to much better metrics that allow us a holistic view of the Community's health. This means: are people happy; are people joining; are people leaving; are people finding Solutions and giving Kudos? It will be a much better way to learn whether we are running the Community effectively - after all, while I am sure many come to chat with their friends, many also come for a specific answer or help with an issue. If the metrics show that Community health is not great, we need to engage more.

 

Also, better moderation tools help us to more easily find your questions... we can do things such as merge duplicate threads and move posts (we won't do this without letting you know) so that users talking about a similar issue can have a bigger discussion and a greater likelihood of finding an answer. It also helps the eBay team more actively engage when things are condensed like this: this is a very big forum, and there are only a handful of us and thousands of you. We need all the tools we can to make sure we are in as many places as possible to help!

 

5. Employee engagement

As you've probably noticed from my post count (AND DISMAL LACK OF BADGES), I'm new around here. And since Raphael left, there have been a couple of other new faces answering questions and running the Weeklies. This is going to continue, and, in fact, improve. One of the consistent pieces of feedback I have seen while quietly lurking is that members generally want more involvement from the eBay team - not to monitor or "moderate", but to actively help solve problems and answer some of the trickier questions. We are going to put in place a robust and structured system of engaging in the boards with more "fingers on the keyboards" and we hope you will find it helpful.

 

6. Bonus improvement!!!

Guys and gals, it just looked old. You deserve a nice, clean interface that doesn't look like it was built on Windows 95. You're worth it!

 

For anyone who is disappointed, disoriented, or just plain hate the new version - I'm sorry. Change is hard in the best of circumstances, and I hope that after a few weeks it will become the "new normal". 

 

PLEASE keep feedback and stuff like the faulty spellcheck coming - I'll reply in this thread as much as I am able.

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@mjwl2006momcqueen wrote:

Okay, here's a legitimate question:

 

What's a 'featured listing'?

 

Its link takes me to something unrelated.

 

 Screen Shot 2018-01-09 at 9.15.23 PM.png


Hi there,

 

Had to step away after my last post to check this out. Hopefully, if you haven't currently got a Featured Listing set, when you click on it you're taken to your profile. In the profile information, there's a field where you can input the URL to a listing that you'd like to share with others. Then, when others click on that module in your profile, they would be taken to that particular listing. 

 

Whether you choose to set a FL or not, users will still be able to view your listings-at-large by going to your profile and clicking Listings under your username.

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@mjwl2006momcqueen wrote:

It seems like autocorrect of text doesn't work, though, so expect to see a LOT more spelling errors on my end.

 


Can you tell me more about this? It won't autocorrect the way, say, an iPhone does, but if you hit the spellcheck button after writing a post, it should underline any mispelled words. You can then click on any word with a red underline, and a drop-down menu should appear with alternate spellings to choose from.

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Anonymous
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Hmmm...interesting comments but what happened to the old adage..."If the bike isn't broke, why fix it?" I found the previous format very structured and easy to navigate through. And if it's "just plain old" then why not simply spruce it up a little without compromising any of the key dynamics?

 

Just my 2 centsgrin

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@Anonymous wrote:

"If the bike isn't broke, why fix it?"


I can totally appreciate that, and it definitely looks that way from a user perspective. From a hosting perspective, however, old code can be a huge problem.

 

When code gets old, it's harder for us to run fixes, updates, and changes. Kind of like the way my iPhone 6 is much slower now than it used to be: Apple is concentrating more of their efforts on the newer versions. (...and also has built planned obsolescence into the device, but let's leave THAT aspect out of this example as it's not the case here!)

 

As updates and fixes pile up over the years, it can be harder and harder to maintain them, and to fix or improve the product as a whole. The code in some past fixes can conflict with others and create brand new problems. Or some features may be so outdated that there are simply no fixes available at all, so that what you see is the best you're ever going to get... forever.

 

You might say, "Just don't run updates or fix anything then - it's fine the way it is!" Which is also a completely understandable response. However, there are some updates that need to be made that are not optional - like the need for improved accessibility, for example, or the transition to a secure HTTPS protocol. The internet and its associated technologies keep moving along, and sometimes we need to move along with it. Often, old versions of platforms are simply just not able to keep up with or support these changes, because the technology is outdated.

 

Simply put, upgrading to the most recent version of anything, whether it's a phone or an operating system or a discussion board, allows you to start over with a blank slate. It means that we now have many years ahead of us in which we can expect to fix things that are broken, or add new features that the Community may ask for. On an older platform, new features just aren't an option.

 

I hope my (probably too lengthy) reply makes sense!

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Anonymous
Not applicable

No I don't mind it being too lengthy...especially if it's needed to prove a point. And I agree with the internet and technologies  moving along...and quite frankly at blazing speeds!...lol but interestingly you mention about our cell phones...so this has me wondering if this change is to essentially appease those users? Quite honestly I do not read community forum posts on this device...just basically desktop, so I wouldn't be able to tell if this enhances their experience or not? But I sure didn't mind the previous platform.

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I no longer visit the .com boards because of their confusing format and the difficulty to find the relevant subject matter needed. I doubt I will visit the .ca boards much anymore now---too difficult to find anything and and simply not so user friendly. Change for the sake of change is not necessary. Keep it simple!

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@Anonymous wrote:

No I don't mind it being too lengthy...especially if it's needed to prove a point. And I agree with the internet and technologies  moving along...and quite frankly at blazing speeds!...lol but interestingly you mention about our cell phones...so this has me wondering if this change is to essentially appease those users? Quite honestly I do not read community forum posts on this device...just basically desktop, so I wouldn't be able to tell if this enhances their experience or not? But I sure didn't mind the previous platform.


Definitely not! I think the old version had a perfectly functional mobile version, so there would have been no need to make changes based on that aspect. In 2017, mobile visits to the Community accounted for only 35% of overall visits, so the desktop experience certainly remains high in our considerations.

 

It was just the most handy example to use for how older things can get slower and become less useable over time.

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