Re: Forums Activity and User Support

I agree, John, even if I can't find the time lately to provide replies
to t.o/forums lately, personally.

This feature request added more than 2 years ago would help a lot for
this purpose, imho:

https://dev.tiki.org/item5458 - "New option to include 'Threads with no
replies yet' to Daily Reports and to Notification digests"

My 2 cents

Xavi

On 02/26/2017 10:03 PM, jmorris wrote:
> Dear folks, I was wondering. I peruse the tiki.org forums regularly, and
> there seem to be many questions and issues with zero replies.
>
> If a new user comes into tiki, and asks a question for trouble shooting or
> how to do something, often times there is never an answer given. While I try
> to do my best to get in there and help, my knowledge of tiki at this time is
> still very small. But we have many knowledgeable folks here, that if they
> visited the forums for a bit each day if possible, and lent some support to
> the folks over there, I think it would be a really great step in user
> retention.
>
> I run an online community forum for woodworkers, we have been live on the
> web since 2010, and one of the rules I have for my forum hosts, is, there
> should never, ever be a forum topic posted by a user that is showing a zero
> reply status for longer than 24 hours.
>
> The reason is, folks hate being ignored, and I know nobody here is ignoring
> the forum users, but that is how a potential user, or potential tiki fan
> would take it.
>
> I know sometimes we talk about user retention, somewhere I saw a comment
> made about the thousands of downloads of tiki software, but converting those
> downloads to users who come back, is a different animal all together, and I
> think a step in the right direction would be to have some stellar support at
> the tiki.org forums.
>
> Since I started using and testing Tiki over a year ago, the forums have
> gotten better, I remember when I first logged in at tiki.org, it was not
> uncommon to view a forum category with over half the topics, with zero
> replies. It has improved. 
>
> Here is one of many examples of a topic that was posted almost a month ago,
> with not even a single reply to it.
> https://tiki.org/forumthread62818?topics_offset=34
> This could be an easy answer, perhaps? It could be either yes or no, but I
> am not sure myself, as I stated, I am pretty green at Tiki. But if I had to
> venture an educated guess, I'd tell the user CMaster, my answer would be no.
> Maybe? I think someone with more experience could give him a better answer
> than my, "maybe".
>
> If I were CMaster, and if I were a new user, I would move on, because you
> cannot work with Tiki, without some sort of support.
>
> Now that being said, I also understand that open source software forums
> should be peer to peer support, but truthfully, the peer to peer is not that
> robust if at all on the tiki.org forum. Why?
>
> Whether or not what I just stated is true or not, it is the appearance of
> the forums with zero replies that is not a good thing to have.
> If a new user, or potential user happens upon a support forum where there
> are many zero replies, they are likely to move on, and find another
> software. 
>
> The bottom line is this, Tiki is one of the biggest, baddest, greatest,
> nicest, awesomest pieces of cms/wiki open source software applications on
> the market today, but to a new user, without support, none of that matters. 
>
> My solution:
> Hosting assignments. We could assign a host(s) to a specific forum, and then
> a topic or comment is posted to that forum, the host is notified, and the
> host should reply or answer within 24 hours, at the most 48 hours. I think
> beyond 24 hours you are pushing the patience of the new user, they are more
> than likely ready to walk away at that point.
>
> If we can retain new users, if we can have a user base that matches the
> downloads rate, this community would be one of the most vibrant open source
> user communities on the web.
>
> There are many things that set Tiki apart from the other guys. I have one of
> the most important items of all time that would really set Tiki apart from
> the other guys, great customer service! None of the other open source wiki
> software, has a customer support, or forum structure that is lively, and
> engaging. We should be different.
>
> If we had a robust and lively forum experience for our users, I guarantee
> you the retention rate would skyrocket, engagement would skyrocket,
> involvement would follow, and quite possibly some very happy users could be
> converted to donors as well.
>
> Customer support is the most important of all aspects of any organization or
> company, that deals with the public. I don't care if the product allows the
> user to teleport themselves across time-zones, without customer support, it
> won't sell. 
>
> I know we have user manuals, they are great, but they are often times
> confusing and intimidating for a new user, or experienced user for that
> matter.
>
> Forums, we need them live and robust, and engaged, thanks for reading my
> ramblings today.
> John
>
>
>
>
>
> -----
> John M.
> Just learning enough Tiki to be dangerous!
> --
> View this message in context: http://tikiwiki.1073613.n5.nabble.com/Forums-Activity-and-User-Support-tp37907.html
> Sent from the TikiWiki - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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