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Some Additional Suggestions Edited

Another week on our new CW site. Here’s some additional thoughts I’ve gathered from other Legacies & my own use:

1) “Ward B” Group is not showing up in Notifications. If we Subscribe to any Group, it should show up in Notifications & Feed.

2) Site is still too random for majority of readers (most current everything is same as random to a reader). It is impossible to keep track of our favorite threads. We Subscribe to Groups, but that is a superset of lots of threads. So we see ALL the most recent comments across ALL threads, no matter if we’re interested or not in all the posts/threads. And with no way to compress each entry, we have to scroll through pages & pages hoping to find something we might be interested in. Most members don’t have that kind of time, or patience.

In CW2.0, vast majority of members followed a handful of specific threads each, ones that many of us found most entertaining, thus clicked into a **couple times daily

**, thus building community. For example, the “Good Morning” thread, “The Story That Never Ends”, the “Famous Quotes” thread, “What’s Cooking Today” thread, our annual Secret Santa/Secret Easter Bunny, and more. We’ve tried recreating these here in 3.0, but it’s impossible to keep any kind of conversation going. They get pushed down too quickly, even when you do want to find them. So they’ve all basically died…& the majority of Legacies are NOT returning.

3) Would like to Like/Unlike Comments & Replies, too.

4) Would like to be able to re-arrange our own subscribed Groups in the My Groups tab so we can see those we value most.

5) Would like to see in Notifications when someone responds and/or Likes something we Post/Comment/Reply to.

6). We still think a Back button is needed after create a Post, Comment or Reply.

6.5). Related, really need this so we can easily return to CW after clicking a Feed or News link that goes offsite!

7). Still need a way to see a simple list of all possible Groups across the entire site, at any time (not just at signup).

8). Would really really like a way to see total # of entries for each member next to their name at each entry.

9). Would increase interactivity if members could Tag a GCC cigar in our entries, too. For example, I’m smoking a CAO Flathead as I type this. When I post it, it could be “Smoking a #CAO #Flathead Maduro 660 - awesome cigar! Making me reconsider Flatheads again!”. This would allow a ton of options:

9a). Searches for specific Tags.

9b). Display a Tag Cloud on website, to show visually the volume of text for each Tag.

9c). Could allow auto-linking to on-site brand reviews & info !

9d). Could allow multiple actions (“Click here to post your review of your #CAO #Steelhead, too.”) at the time of that post!

Possible Solutions:

1) The My Groups tab/link is a good example of a compressed view, with just the icons. Recommend allow members to see ALL our subscribed groups in this tab as icons, and, allow us to organize these in our own preferred order. [Yes, aware of the All My Groups tab, but that’s a Venn Diagram amalgamation of Notifications & Feed - too much detail in no order.]

AND

2) Recommend allowing members to subscribe to POSTS, too. These should then be shown in Notifications & Feed, listing our subscribed POSTS first, above subscribed Groups.

3) Another idea, if do both 1 & 2, you could change the All My Groups tab to instead be All My Subscribed (or All My Pinned, if you use that terminology) - same design in that tab, but instead showing everything we’ve subscribed to BELOW the Group level. So 1 tab for My Groups, and 1 tab for the individual threads we each care about. That lets us create structure ourselves, without breaking current design.

Doing 1,2&3 solutions above would allow returning members - new & Legacy - to start rebuilding a community again. We’ll be able to focus on key threads that make us … Ward B.

4). Some other ways to allow the majority of the above in your current design :

4a). Allow all/some/selected members to create new Groups.

4b). Allow Posts & Comments from ANY Group to be “pinned” (subscribed), so they always appear at top of Notifications & Feed & in those Groups for that member’s view.

I’ll offer again that we had 5 Legacy testers who are still willing to help. We are a mix of very-long time & newer CW Ward B members, IT and even web/user interface folks. We want to help; we want this to work, too!

So what does everyone think? LIKE if agree, Comments with more ideas.

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Comments

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    So I guess potential bugs aren’t critical.

    Nor allowing members to follow threads and other members... without using OFF-site methods.

    null

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    @Moose, @jamoose or @Cigar_Steve — plz contact me. I may have found a bug that I don’t want to publish here.

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    Mark, thank you for taking the time to write out our suggestions - and to other Ward B'ers for taking the time to try and help here. I had made a similar post about a month ago and received very little feedback or actions. You'll likely not find that post (without scrolling forever - imagine how much more difficult that will become as more posts are started), as this site is difficult...or rather clunky, to put it nicely.

    I try to stay positive...even optimistic, I don't mind change and I even started out trying to encourage others to get here. However, there was something I just didn't like about this new place. I couldn't figure out what was lacking, or why I wasn't excited about this change...then I read some things here that reminded me of what I feel is the main problem: "community". There is no "community feel", as this is not a forum. We can't follows things easily. We can't create threads that will last forever (without trying to find them every time we're back), we can't post photos in comments, we can't really follow our friends - new or old, and the list goes on and on. Others have written them here and elsewhere. Then Moose said in a comment here, "it functions like Facebook" - BOOM, it then hit me, that's why I don't like this change! I don't need another Facebook! I realize he was referring to the Groups feature...but I feel that this is yet another, water downed version of something that already exists.

    In trying to keep my two cents short, we don't need another "Facebook like place"...there are thousands of cigar related groups on Facebook - even a Ward B. We needed a forum...a community, as we once had. I had been an active member of the old site since 2003...the same as many others. But, until some positive changes are made here, I'll drop back "into the basement", both in regards to posting and making future General Cigar Co. purchases.

  • Member Avatar
    (4 years ago)

    Make links clickable - in the old forum, we could insert links as a URL so you could just click on them and not have to copy the link, open a new tab, paste the link, etc. This would be especially helpful when using on mobile!

    Pull posts to top when they have activity - it was nice in the legacy forum that posts with most recent activity would be pulled to the top of their category. When I click on the "Ward B" or "The Lounge" groups, I should see the posts at the top with the most recent activity.

    I like the tags idea from Mark - a hashtag function would be awesome to tag themed posts, and being able to tag people specifically would be nice to pull attention to a post.

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    Great points Mark, well written.

    I think the thing that would help the most is letting everyone who comments on a post get notified, not just the original poster.

    Also I would reiterate that Ward B is not showing up in notifications.

    • Member Avatar
      (4 years ago)

      Hi Jeffk,

      I would check the main 'Groups' page

      https://www.cigarworld.com/groups/

      recent activity feed. We just tested by me commenting on Jen's post Do you have a Favorite Ashtray - and she got a notification that I commented on her post - https://www.cigarworld.com/groups/ward-b/do-you-have-a-favorite-ashtray/

    • Member Avatar og
      (4 years ago)

      Moose,

      I realize that you get notifications for your own posts. I am saying anyone who contributed to that post by commenting should be (or have the option to be) notified of all other comments on that post.

      This way it is a group conversation, instead of a bunch of people just talking to the original poster.

    • Member Avatar og
      (4 years ago)

      Oh, I just got notified what I just posted. I didn't realize that you meant you had just done an update. 🌝

      Thanks for the update.

    • Member Avatar
      (4 years ago)

      Subscribing to all comments if a post is something we are looking in to.

      The reason we don't notify everyone in the post on every comment is that as the site grows and there are more and more posts and comments you would have possibly hundreds of notifications and could be extremely annoying.

      Additionally in the new CW the comments have a direct way to 'reply' to a specific comment as I am doing here to your comment, and is why you are getting a notification. Since this is directed specifically towards you, some other users may not find this reply helpful to them. Maybe not this exact reply but say if someone goes off tangent in a more direct personal way.

      Hope this helps explain some of our thought process.

    • Member Avatar og
      (4 years ago)

      I think I got it now. I agree that automatically subscribing to all comments for every post you comment on could be annoying. It's good to hear that you are looking at an option for subscribing to comments though. Thanks for walking me though it all.

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    Thank you for putting out all the helpful suggestions!

    I've resigned myself to "the scroll", and after looking through my feed, I will go find the Good Morning thread and the What's Cooking thread and read and post there, but it is frustrating to have to look for them every time.

    I'm hanging in there with this new format/space, but Mark's recommendations would make it more satisfying for me and to stay connected with The Legacies.

  • Member Avatar
    (4 years ago)

    Great comments! Thank you for the time to layout this feedback and put some thought into it. Moose has identified some points. We need to go back and figure out what needs to be added, what needs to be changed, and what needs to be made more clear because its there but not straight forward.

    I really appreciate you and the others helping to make this site the best it can be.

    • Member Avatar og
      (4 years ago)

      Steve, when you say "We need to go back and figure out..." who is the WE that you are referring to? Is it GCC or the gang in Ward B?

      If it's GCC, then I assume you are somehow connected with GCC or the industry? If you are, please introduce yourself to the Ward B gang so we can have a better idea of your connections and who you are.

  • Member Avatar og
    (4 years ago)

    I don't have much to add, just like to be able to find the threads l like without scrolling everywhere.

  • Member Avatar
    (4 years ago)

    Also not sure why you have trouble going back a page as this is just a website. Going back a page functions the same as any other thing you are viewing on the web.

    If you are on iOS check out https://www.google.com/amp/s/9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/how-to-go-back-on-iphone/amp/

    If you are on Android - https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079644?hl=en

    Chrome help docs https://support.google.com/chrome/?hl=en#topic=9796470

    Safari help docs

    https://support.apple.com/safari

    Firefox help docs

    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox

    Microsoft Edge help docs

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hub/4337664/microsoft-edge-help

  • Member Avatar
    (4 years ago)

    So a lot of this we already have and as to notifications if someone 'comments' on 'Your' group post - one you started, you are notified. Just check your notifications (the bell or right side of screen on desktop). Also there is a groups specific notifications feed on the groups page. There is also a link on that page to see 'all groups' as well as 'my groups' to link off to the ones you are a member of.

    Specifically for # 9). Would increase interactivity if members could Tag a GCC cigar in our entries, too. For example, I’m smoking a CAO Flathead as I type this. When I post it, it could be “Smoking a #CAO #Flathead Maduro 660 - awesome cigar! Making me reconsider Flatheads again!”.

    You can already do this! On your 'Feed' or simply viewing the CAO flathead, you can click 'Now Smoking' and post your review if you would like as well. On your feed to post a review or check in a cigar as Now Smoking - press the 'What's Happening' button and you can then leave a review or check in your cigar.

    Hope this helps.

    • Member Avatar og
      (4 years ago)

      What has got us perplexed is how to recreate the long threads we had on the previous version. For example there were threads of hundreds/thousands of posts on a topic created by a member, e.g., “What is cooking for dinner” or “Good Morning” or “A thread that never ends.” Those threads built and maintained community amongst BOTL and SOTL. They weren’t always related to smoking, but related to our lives and common interests. Somehow, under “The Lounge” or “Ward B” there needs to be a way for a user to create an enduring thread that others can continue to post to for dozens/hundreds/thousands of times.

    • Member Avatar
      (4 years ago)

      Hi Ranger

      These groups are structured differently than a typical 'forum' and the way the old CW was. The closest example of how our 'groups' function is like Facebook Groups. Users can create a topic 'post' and then users can comment/discuss etc. There is nothing stopping someone from going back to a post though and continually commenting on it. If you reply to someone's comment they will get notified and the original creator of the topic will also get notified that there is a new comment as well.

      We are looking to make more enhancements for groups in the future. One thing we have added recently is Pinned posts, check out the punch brotherhood group for an example. Currently only moderators can pin a post though.

      Right now we are just trying to prioritize everything and determine what will come first.