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Contributor Monthly Log - August 2018


Elea

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At the beginning of a new month, someone from the Contributor group will post a topic providing a summary for discussions that were discussed in the Contributor section during the previous month. This is to allow the community to be more informed and have a better understanding of the Contributor group. If you have any concerns or suggestions that you would like to be brought to the attention of the Contributor group, message any of the Contributors.

 

You can see our previous logs here.

 

GENERAL UPDATE

Due to the summer vacation, which was a typically quiet period, there were few significant discussions worth including this month. However, we are inviting you to provide your thoughtful feedback upon any of our previous chat logs listed here: https://feedback.xat.chat/monthly-contributor-logs/.

 

ONGOING DISCUSSIONS

Spoiler

After a few weeks of preparation, the official Feedback chat (approved by Admins) is now ready to set sail on her maiden voyage. The chat is based on an idea by Lemona (220341852) and the discussion was revived in order to gather fresh ideas about improving and promoting the chat. If you have any thoughtful ideas of your own, please post them below. 

 

CONCLUDED

Spoiler

A poll was opened in last month's log to decide whether the comment section should be left open for future logs. 22 users voted Yes and 4 users voted No. The comment section is now open, and we look forward to reading your opinions. But please ensure they abide by the forum guidelines.

 

 

 

 

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RE: Feedback chat

 

What is the purpose of this chat? How is this an effective way to gather feedback (a live chatting environment)? Doesn’t the forum suggestions section provide a means to give feedback via suggestion threads?

 

p.s. your copy paste introduction still states that these threads will be closed. 

Edited by Daniel
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17 minutes ago, Daniel said:

RE: Feedback chat

 

What is the purpose of this chat? How is this an effective way to gather feedback (a live chatting environment)? Doesn’t the forum suggestions section provide a means to give feedback via suggestion threads?

 

Not everyone has a forum account and the chat is international, so users can speak in any language they want. 

 

The idea is that we'll take suggestions on the chat and raise them in the appropriate place (in the Suggestions or Contributors section of the forums) with credit to that user. 

 

Live chatting has its advantages too. We're able to ask users about their suggestions very quickly without having to draw it out over a forum topic. Also, users can pastebin any highly detailed ideas if they wish. 

 

The chat will probably evolve once we get a feel for it. 

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2 hours ago, Crow said:

Not everyone has a forum account and the chat is international, so users can speak in any language they want. 

And even less people know about this chat, so it’s a moot point really. Promoting it won’t make a difference either, have you seen the activity of promoted chats? Promoting will also provide nothing towards the actual goal to the chat, having 10 users from the xat homepage isn’t going to bring any constructive ideas. 

 

You’ll also run into the same problems that many other international chats have. You might claim that they can speak any language, but you’ll struggle to get users to moderate and you’ll end up with English, Spanish and Portuguese speakers and have no means to forward other suggestions that are not in those languages. 

 

If anything the forum is vastly superior in this respect as threads don’t disappear in 20 messages and users have more time to dechiper posts that use Google Translate. If you want international suggestions you should spend your time helping translate suggestions on the forum instead of creating Official chats. 

 

2 hours ago, Crow said:

Live chatting has its advantages too. We're able to ask users about their suggestions very quickly without having to draw it out over a forum topic. Also, users can pastebin any highly detailed ideas if they wish. 

 

The chat will probably evolve once we get a feel for it. 

I don’t find forum topics ever “draw” out and suggestions that have been suggested recently or don’t follow the guidelines get fished out very quickly. 

 

I can quite comfortably state that this idea will fail. Good luck. 

Edited by Daniel
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Feedback Chat: I agree that there is a place where ideas can be discussed before being a suggestion and have an opinion or quick response.

 

But by discussing live chat the history will be deleted and other people will not be able to see the suggestion to also make an opinion, the only way to see it is that the chat logs are open to the public and only keep these discussions.

 

I think it would be excellent to make an entry explaining specifically how this would work, I would clarify many doubts. Good luck with the project, I hope this works.

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On 9/2/2018 at 4:13 PM, Daniel said:

RE: Feedback chat

 

What is the purpose of this chat? How is this an effective way to gather feedback (a live chatting environment)? Doesn’t the forum suggestions section provide a means to give feedback via suggestion threads?

You do have a point and I think it's going to take awhile for this chat to be fully implemented properly.

 

Some ideas for everyone to consider:

  • Because there is a monthly log, it might make sense for contributors to focus on a certain area regarding xat each month to gather data/feedback on (ie: the mobile app, ticket support, user satisfaction etc). This could not only just be feedback on the chat, but also statistical data such as surveys that could be used around the whole community. At the end of each month, contributors could host some sort of event that reveals all the feedback/data they received that month along with later creating a report about it with potential solutions that is then made public. 
  • Some users might feel disappointed if their ideas or feedback don't get implemented, and should be reminded that they may not necessarily always be implemented the way they wish. Thus, the end of the month event hosted by the contributors should have some sort of small thank you or reward for the users who participated that month.
  • Since it's a Feedback chat, it's important that it's not just the "official" chat users voices that are the only ones being heard. Potential work-arounds could be either putting the chat on auto-promotion with hopes it can gain a broad variety of users or contributors interacting with a large amount of the community(ie: even going to random chats), or contributors having a monthly newsletter reporting back about data/feedback they've received with a link to the monthly survey etc (I mean.. what is this?)
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2 hours ago, Daniel said:

Any updates on Feedback chat, given that it's almost been a year? Any suggestions been posted from the users who can't find the forum (but can find this chat with no active staff members)? Time to retire the idea?

 

Feedback is still serving its own unique purpose on xat, just like Help, Trade, Game, Contests and Loja. We are the dedicated chat for users to provide their ideas and suggestions for xat. The chat is open to all users in every language, and we ensure that all opinions are accounted for, at all levels on xat, whenever we are needed. Our chat provides a platform for users, and we ensure that all voices are heard - no registration required!

 

The chat won't be retiring or closing, even if the Contributors vote to remove its official status in the future. The chat was originally proposed as tribute before admins granted it official status, which we went with (as anyone would). I'll continue with the project, amongst my other responsibilities (unless I'm forced out by Contributors), and I'll try my best to keep the chat functioning. 

 

We've only had a few suggestions so far, which include creating a rule on the forums to stop people bumping old topics with "@admin ??", the creation of an independent emerald pawn (not attached to Everypower), a gorilla smiley power (which I had already suggested myself in the past and has now been implemented) and an update to HTML5 chats regarding the powers display - but these ideas were not shared due to irredeemable flaws I found with the ideas.

 

We have a very good foundation for users to suggest ideas, better than any chat in existence, but it may indeed be the case that users simply aren't interested or they have no ideas to share that haven't already been proposed before. As I sometimes say, we can lead the horse to the water, but we can't force it to drink.

 

Active staff is a problem, of course, and I've been thinking hard about ways to create incentives for users (which may include paying my staff as a last resort). It's definitely a problem when I can't motivate enough people to sit online, and I've been working to address this and find solutions. The staff that actually are active are brilliant though, and I can't thank them enough for their time.

 

I should also mention (as a minor point) that my translator app on the chat hasn't been working for some time on both Flash and HTML5 ("Please login"), and I was unable to clear my cookies/cache for personal reasons, which meant I couldn't promote the chat internationally. That was frustrating!

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42 minutes ago, Crow said:

we ensure that all opinions are accounted for

 

42 minutes ago, Crow said:

we ensure that all voices are heard

 

42 minutes ago, Crow said:

these ideas were not shared due to irredeemable flaws I found

 

Edited by oj
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1 hour ago, Crow said:

Feedback is still serving its own unique purpose on xat, just like Help, Trade, Game, Contests and Loja. We are the dedicated chat for users to provide their ideas and suggestions for xat. The chat is open to all users in every language, and we ensure that all opinions are accounted for, at all levels on xat, whenever we are needed. Our chat provides a platform for users, and we ensure that all voices are heard - no registration required!

 

[...]

 

Active staff is a problem, of course, and I've been thinking hard about ways to create incentives for users (which may include paying my staff as a last resort). It's definitely a problem when I can't motivate enough people to sit online, and I've been working to address this and find solutions. The staff that actually are active are brilliant though, and I can't thank them enough for their time.

How can you say it's serving its purpose and then say active staff is a problem? The truth is that if a user goes to the chat, they will be met with no active (or non afk, since you like to idle there, not counting today as you've clearly given a few people a little nod ;)) staff members, and be therefore unable to submit their idea. Whereas the forum is open 24/7 with users active all hours of the day, and Google Translate also..

 

1 hour ago, Crow said:

The chat won't be retiring or closing, even if the Contributors vote to remove its official status in the future. The chat was originally proposed as tribute before admins granted it official status, which we went with (as anyone would). I'll continue with the project, amongst my other responsibilities (unless I'm forced out by Contributors), and I'll try my best to keep the chat functioning.

Seems unfair, as when other official chats become dead the chat manager doesn't get to keep it as unofficial. They are redirected to other, more popular chats and the chat manager is all but included in the decision. Petition to redirect Feedback to https://forum.xat.com/forum/7-suggestions/?

 

1 hour ago, Crow said:

We have a very good foundation for users to suggest ideas, better than any chat in existence, but it may indeed be the case that users simply aren't interested or they have no ideas to share that haven't already been proposed before. As I sometimes say, we can lead the horse to the water, but we can't force it to drink.

 If users simply aren't interested and the chat is unused, then why waste resources and time? Official chats that do not serve their purpose (as mentioned above, and as shown after almost a year of nothing coming from it) should be redirected so that if users go to this chat they be redirected somewhere they can actually share their idea, as creating a chat called Feedback is clearly not as good as an idea as you thought.

Edited by Daniel
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23 minutes ago, oj said:

 

 

You'll appreciate that I can't petition for an idea that's already been suggested or that'll get ripped to shreds on here. We do listen to users and talk through their suggestions with them, and we'll explain if we're unable to take the idea further - although I do try to improve suggestions and make them workable where possible.

 

19 minutes ago, Daniel said:

How can you say it's serving its purpose and then say active staff is a problem? The truth is that if a user goes to the chat, they will be met with no active (or non afk, since you like to idle there, not counting today as you've clearly given a few people a little nod ;)) staff members, and be therefore unable to submit their idea. Whereas the forum is open 24/7 with users active all hours of the day, and Google Translate also..

 

If there's nobody on the chat, the user can wait for a staff member to come online (Elea or I if nobody else), post on our blog, post in the main chat, or even PM me on mobile if they truly wish (I will be available during breaks at work). I'm looking to address the staff issue, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

 

If users wish to post on the forums, I'd encourage it. But Feedback is useful for users who aren't willing to post on the forums, for whatever reason. I myself didn't have a forum account until 2014, because I was intimidated by more experienced users like yourself who would scrutinise and interrogate everything I posted.

 

23 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Seems unfair, as when other official chats become dead the chat manager doesn't get to keep it as unofficial. They are redirected to other, more popular chats and the chat manager is all but included in the decision. Petition to redirect Feedback to https://forum.xat.com/forum/7-suggestions/?

 

That's for Contributors to vote on if they want to open a discussion about it. I would respect whatever decision they reach.

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1 hour ago, xLaming said:

Still dead.

 

It's not that simple, and it's not completely black and white.

 

There's still activity there at peak hours, usually from myself, Elea, DJCrazy, Valstein and Xhoni (give or take a person). Mia and Amyy will usually pop in and out too, and then there's Arthur and Blacky. I'm there almost every day, and it's not neglected. But yes, it's not as busy as other traditional official chats such as Help, Chat, Assistance, etc.

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