Hi,

I am a supporter at http://ubuntuusers.de/. On our last team meeting we discussed ways to help users find the right place for their topics. As you have the guided posting utility in productive use for some month now, I would like to hear if you consider it a success, both from a user and team (mods, admins etc.) point of view. I find it noteworthy that there is, apart from a few posts on missing applications, little discussion about this feature but am not sure if it is a good sign (no furious complains) or if it is just not used.

So here are some questions for users:

• Do you use it?
• Does it get in the way with your use of the forum?
• Do you feel more confident finding the right place for your question?
• Do you think your posts get more readily addressed than before?

and for the team:

• Did the amount of threads you had to move change?
• Did the amount of new threads change?
• Did you receive complains on the guided posting feature?
• Did you receive applause on the guided posting feature?
• Are there technical issues?
• Does it get in the way with the staff activities you have to perform?

If you can think of anything else for the guided posting utility you want to comment on, please do so.

Thanks.

HmpfCBR wrote:and for the team:

• Did the amount of threads you had to move change?
• Did the amount of new threads change?
• Did you receive complains on the guided posting feature?
• Did you receive applause on the guided posting feature?
• Are there technical issues?
• Does it get in the way with the staff activities you have to perform?

If you can think of anything else for the guided posting utility you want to comment on, please do so.

Thanks.

It is hard to tell, as we have no control mechanism for the guided posting, so from a team perspective we can't tell much. There are still missplaced threads, though it is unsure if they come from those missing applications or just from a missuse/non-use of the guided posting.
But at least i can tell, technically there are no problems. It just works (tm)
Users might be better to answer this. If it is useful, fine. Just another tool to try to make the use of this forum easier (hopefully).

Thank you for your answer neverendingo. It is nice to know that it just works. However if a similar tool would be implemented for ubuntuusers, that would most probably be a rewrite since the plattfrom is not a phpBB board but Inyoka was build by our webteam.

In my opinion the guided posting wizard is a tool which has the potential to be very helpfu,l when looking for the right spot to post. Especially for new userd, which might be overwhelmed by the large amount of subforums. On top of this it is graphically appealing.

Users who already know their way around will probably still use the 'New Topic' button in the (hopefully) appropriate sub forum most of the time, since it might be quicker.

A pity that this are just assumptions which I can not back up with any numbers.

Thanks again for your answer.

Hmm, i could try to give a number. guided.php was called 2822 times the last 5 days (simple grep in the server log), while we have around 10000 visitors a day. But considering not every visitor posts or is even human the number is not that bad.
Hope that helps.

Thanks.

neverendingo wrote:But considering not every visitor posts or is even human the number is not that bad.

On the contrary, it is astonishingly high. I guess the number of submitted posts in the last five days was way lower, something in the low hundreds probably? And then most of those would be answers to topics already existing.

The average posts per day is indeed only 160.01, that includes opening a new topic, which are 33 new ones a day.
My guess is guided posting gets opened but likely not used every time.

Oh, and i forgot, not every menu point of the guided posting points to guided.php
So i can't count any access. One point directly leads to brainstorm, two others directly into the correct forum.

I wonder were those 2822 calls come from, even assuming that all 33*5 (oversimplification yes) new topics were created with the wizard, that would be only 5.3% of the users who want to post, actually do it. Any other source which might trigger the call to guided.php?

Bots?

I see. Thanks again.

HmpfCBR wrote:I wonder were those 2822 calls come from?

Ajax calls?

Wizard wrote:

HmpfCBR wrote:I wonder were those 2822 calls come from?

Ajax calls?

Indeed, you are true, that is another point.