Suggestion for the Feedback/Helpdesk Forum

blackwhite

There seems to be an awful lot of threads in both Feedback and Helpdesk from "lost" posters who've stumbled into the forum and have a general question looking for feeback on a school, or questions about dog kennels, or pyrite issues, or working at facebook.

Would it be worth having some sort of header image explaining what the purpose of each forum is, and directing new users to the Topics list at the top of the page. Something similar to how the flow chart used appear in the vbulletin version of the DRP ?

It's fairly obvious that these posters aren't noticing or spotting the charter thread before posting, so something like that might be more likely to be seen.

Spear

They're hitting a combination of Feedback, Helpdesk, and Forum Requests currently. Where they used to hit Newbies and FAQ constantly, that now seems to be mostly spared, but I don't immediately know why. It does seem to broadly correspond with the move to Vanilla, but given the site design hasn't changed that dramatically in terms of basic usage, I suspect that might be due to something less direct, such as the welcoming email links.

I'd be curious to see if there's any split between desktop and mobile users.

Spear

I was morbidly curious, so I had a very rough count of the nonsense threads:

N&F

2022 17

2021 77

2020 95

2019 72

Helpdesk

2022 36

2021 32

Feedback

2022 155

2021 160

So the junk threads half pretty much halved in N&F, but more than doubled in both Helpdesk and Feedback.

Username here

Perhaps renaming "Feedback" to "Site Feedback" or "boards.ie Feedback", or some other variation, might help?

It seems fairly clear from the questions being asked that posters think this is somewhere for them to get feedback / responses etc for whatever is on their mind, and have no awareness that the forum is intended for site feedback, so perhaps a more descriptive name would help.

Spear

We did already rename the overall category to specify Boards.ie Help and Feedback, but people clearly aren't seeing that. It's part of why I suspect that mobile users and their limited visibility of such details are a disproportionate source of these junk threads.

Dial Hard

I suspect I already know the answer to this question, but is it possible to require new thread starters to pick from a drop-down menu (or series of) along the lines of "What do you need help with?" and if their issue isn't in there, they're redirected/not allowed post?

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119043930#Comment_119043930

I would definitely prefer if new users were led by the nose during the creation of their first post. But that means consuming developer time, and I don't know if such a thing is even remotely possible given how functionally lacking Vanilla is.

Beasty

On opening the site on mobile the first 3 threads are Feedback stickies which I suspect draws new posters here. Then they can see "Help and Feedback" in the forum hierarchy - I suspect some people think "Yes I need some help" and new posters may simply stay in the "Talk to" section rather than heading into "Topics"

Dempo1

I completely agree with @Beasty , I only use the mobile site which I find quite good despite the moan and groans. But I can see new users getting flummoxed, trying to navigate and understand how the site works, dedicated forums etc.

I don't believe these are Junk Threads , more new users genuinely confused how the site works. "Help & Feedback" can mean different things to different people. I honestly don't know how Admin resolves this other than a clearer definition on site administration & help/support forums .

Spear

I only use the desktop version, but if that's the mobile experience, it would line up with what I'm seeing. Relabeling those entries should help. @Boards.ie: Niamh how feasible is that to do?