Feedback Forum for the Beta Test Group

[J.]

This forum is dedicated to feedback and discussion by those invited to participate as Beta Testers of the AidSource network. 

Please share your suggestions, comments, and complaints in the thread below. Feel free to respond to and discuss entries made by other beta testers.

We promise to take seriously every suggestion, comment and complaint. We do not necessarily promise to implement every suggestion.

[AidSource]

There are few things we love more than hearing that members love AidSource!

To your questions, yes, kind of, and yes. We do have the ability to adjust the placement, size and level of detail (number of HTML characters) displayed in the 'latest activity' feed. I can also tell you that we've been back and forth on this, among a number of other design issues. Don't want to disappoint, but we're unlikely to change the current configuration of this feed, at least for now.

However, you do have the ability to customize this feed on your own page ("My Page" in the upper left corner, on the navbar). (Actually, you can customize nearly every element visible on your "my page"!). From inside your own "my page", you should have an "edit" option in the upper right corner of every feature element, including the latest activity feed: click on that to see your options.

Also note, that you can simply click/drag feature elements to wherever you want them on your page. Ping me on skype if you have trouble!

~J.

[Carol Jean Gallo]

Sounds perfect. Thanks!

[LB]

Hey J! Thanks for gathering our thoughts here. A couple from me after poking around the site a bit:

- Love the concept and think there's lots of potential here!

- Also love the "Events" page. Great resource!

- In terms of the feel of the site, it just feels too crowded. I'm never quite sure where to go for what I want, and I feel like there are multiple "asks" in terms of what the site wants its viewers to do. A bit confusing.

- And I agree with some others here that the font and style of the layout just feels a bit dated. 

BUT, all that to say, with a few tweaks here and there,  you'll be well on your way to a $5 billion IPO, my friend. 

[AidSource]

Hey LB - yep, no question, there is a LOT going on on the main/home page. There is a LOT available in AidSource and it's not easy to know which things to feature out front, and which to bury in sub-tabs.

We'll keep tweaking and adjusting, of course, but just so that you know, the theory behind the current layout is:

Left column: stuff that we (the admins) want you to know about and read. Not particularly urgent, but get to it when you can.

Center column: the main substance of what makes AidSource AidSource. The groups and discussions, the top content (automatically generated), things the admins want to feature (right now is the videommercials), etc. Things in this column should represent the key places for our awesome members to get involved.

Right column: external integration and activity feed (which does/can integrate externally). Our twitter, Facebook, etc.

As for the potential outdatedness... well, I haven't really haven't listened to truly new music since about 1981...

[Sarah Davitt]

thinking: when moving stuff/splitting discussions, can the topic that is being discussed be put as a header and the reason for the split?  Because right now, as I see it, there is a new group and in the email there is reference to the old stuff, but the oldstuff doesn't shift.  Sometimes it seems to ask a new question.

(I think)

Anyway, Thanks for all this, I think its going to be super cool!

[AidSource]

Sarah, thanks - good question(s). 

So, first - I'm not sure that we have totally figured out the rhyme and/or reason to which email notifications end up where. Thanks for your patience on this one!

The decision to split a discussion can be ad hoc and perhaps more art than science. As you know, any member of a working group can create a new discussion within that working group, and the creator of a discussion has the ability to name it, set the tags, define the purpose and logic, etc. So your suggestion is very good (and we agree with you), but in the end it'll depend a lot on members who begin new discussions agreeing with us :)

The creation of a new discussion in the "Gender & NGOs" working group (which is what I assume is prompting your comment here) was more an attempt to move the convo out of the comments thread in the working group (the purpose of a comments thread there is somewhat unclear), and into an actual "discussion" (so that it can be specifically followed, tagged for cross-referencing, made to show up in the "Top Content", etc.).

If you or another member would like to suggest an alternative name or new description to the discussion "Are We Just Re-creating History?", I'm happy to make the modification (and as I write this, I see that my attempt to copy/paste from the comments thread into the description didn't take... give me a sec on that).

Cheers,

~J. (on behalf of the admins)

[Sarah Davitt]

To clarify: it was a bit like;
------------
Please note a new discussion related specifically to Sarah's comment below.

http://aidsource.ning.com/group/ngos-gender-pretty-on-paper/forum/t...
------------

And when you go to the link -- there is no description so to those who haven't participate/received the mail about the context around the move, the only thing is that "are we recreating history"  which on its own and without trackbacks/links is pretty ominous-- it doesn't leave any context for the uninitiated.  :-))  Thanks!

[AidSource]

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