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Re: Google+ vs Forum
Thank you, Destry. It is also my perception, but I could not express it until now.
In a few words:
It is not a matter of dos and don’ts, good or evil, black or white.
It is a matter of complementarity and point of view.
You are a user and you have a favorite place? Post and act on it.
You want to promote Textpattern and help people? Keep an eye on all places, because users are everywhere.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
Destry wrote
Who knows. Anybody ever conduct a survey with members about how they came to find Txp?
I remember in the early days a lot of us came from the Jon Hicks as he was getting a lot of visitors for his design of the firefox logo.
It would be good if anyone could tell us who are the top referrers now.
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
Destry wrote:
Ha-ha. You guys crack me up. Sound like a bunch of old fogies pissing about the good ‘ol days. As if.
It’s nothing to do with that, it’s to do with the forum being a better place to hold a discussion than the blink-an-you-miss-it nature of Google+. I agree a presence on both is the best way forward, for different types of audience engagements.
And yes, I do regularly use the Textpattern Twitter account too.
Should we be blogging/tweeting/shouting more? Probably.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
No argument there, Phil.
How a particular tool functions for someone is a perfectly valid reason for choice. And this forum is indeed better than G+ for the writing/editing task. Reading too, but that’s only been the last few days since the G+ UI changes (all the little scroll boxes are indeed a pain). But very little else. There are more advantages to G+ than otherwise, but it just happens that the writing/editing/reading tasks are rather important in this case.
One reason I stopped coming here so much is because post suscriptions don’t work for me anymore. They haven’t for a long time. I never get notifications for threads I subscribe to. And that really throws me out of the loop. It doesn’t appear to be a spam filter thing either because I’ve checked and rechecked. I can’t figure it out. That’s a deal-breaker for me as far as engagement goes. That’s more important than ease of writing and editing. I only find things here because I take a moment from time to time to actively hunt around. I don’t have a lot of time for that. Notification troubleshooting suggestions are welcome, but G+ notifications work flawlessly for me.
Browsing and searching content: This forum has as many problems as G+ when it comes to browsing. This forum could use a good content sand-blasting, in fact. Both use the same Google search so that’s a moot point, but in any case I’ve never had a problem searching for topics in G+. Where G+ really holds benefit for Txp over this forum (in terms of project exposure) is if Txp used it’s G+ Page better.
Spam. Both get it, but in G+ it’s quickly detected and easily removed and reported to Google with a single click. Can’t report spam to Google from the forum. In fact, spam handling is quite an overhead here. Always has been.
One last thing. Google has been really good at listening to G+ users (especially community owners/moderators) and making changes for them on a ‘majority feedback’ basis. I happen to follow where G+ reps hang out (the Community Moderators and G+ Discuss communities) and they do listen and interact with people there. It would be hard for anyone to see that who didn’t follow those places, but the new G+ UI does reflect a lot of improvements that were requested by users. It’s definitely not a copy of Facebook, or if it is it’s because users asked for it. I wrote a break-down of the new UI changes in context of communities, in case you’re interested. I have no doubt they will tweak the UI again to improve where people are having trouble. For me and many others, it’s the little fixed-height scrolling boxes now in thread posts/replies. They already know that’s a problem for people so I expect that to be one of the first things addressed.
I’m just pointing out that there’s more to think about than engaging with existing members. Potential members are important too. And threads like this tend to turn into witch hunts on other tools, and that would be wrong.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
The thing to do, ideally, is to create a simple social media strategy for the project and put it in with the other resources in development (style guides, visual brand identity, logo files, etc.). Btw, those resources need a better/visible home, and I hope that’s one of the content items for the new Txp site.
Such a social plan would concisely outline what the channels are and make recommendations for their use (post types and topics, etc). Txp representatives (core and other concerned individuals) would follow the use plan diligently—thereby encouraging everyone by their good habit—and others would hopefully catch on. Fruits of this labor would begin to be measurable, and that would be part of the plan too, how to measure progress.
One thing the G+ Community would be good for is coordinating/discussing any PR-related topics, and especially if it concerns G+ tools. E.g., I hinted to creating a survey about how people discovered Txp. That could be coordinated in the G+ community and then easily posted in the Txp G+ Page when ready as a survey post. That kind of thing.
Just trying to help. Ideas spur action, theoretically.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
Destry wrote:
The thing to do, ideally, is to create a simple social media strategy for the project
I thought we sort of had one
Personally I think we are diluting the online brand and possibly wasting energy with these 3rd party social media tools as the txp user base isn’t huge. I am a member of a WP framework g+ group with more than double the members. Plus their life can be ended at anytime myspace, Feedburner, Google Reader or their terms changed, like Facebook Pages ‘Reach throttle’ when launching ‘Promote Post’. Anyway there was talk that Google+ was just a google employee hangout ;)
Yes engage your audience in Social media and direct them to your main hubs, but build empires…. I don’t think.
I had noticed a few unanswered threads in the forum, tech questions which prior to the g+ social thing would have been answered fairly sharpish… I have no idea if the 2 are related or its the Northern Hemisphere summer, or North Korea threatening missile launches – but I think we all agree this doesn’t look good and I do appreciate that all answers are volunteered
It would be good if everyone was in the same boat and used the forum for txp tech, txp how to stuff and the Google+ for chat between users regarding general online techniques & strategies etc…. everyone on Google+ directs people to the forum for tech questions etc.
In an ideal world that would be great, I realise it isn’t all black and white with questions – but it would be a start.
Is there a txp social media rep? if not, then how about any txp mentions just get re-tweeted by any txp twitter users – I use it hardly, but could do that :)
Anyway – enoughs enough – its the weekend
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#38 2013-05-23 15:25:00
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- From: Hlapičina, Croatia
- Registered: 2013-01-17
- Posts: 124
Re: Google+ vs Forum
philwareham wrote:
Also, IMHO we should move the Textpattern project from Google Code onto GitHub proper. Promote the GitHub repo on the Textpattern homepage, encourage forking and pull requests etc.
+1
I know I’m old fashioned, but I’d also prefer having regular mailing list subscribed to the gmane (mail <—> news gateway), so that it’s possible to follow it via nntp news (my claws mailer does email/news/rss). That’s how I follow 98% of all the mailing lists.
As far as G+ is concerned, I was not even aware it exists and no interest in it at all.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
tye wrote:
I thought we sort of had one [a social media strategy]
Well, I wouldn’t exactly call a forum thread titled “G+ Community” a formalized social media strategy, but that is reference to consider in writing something more formal up.
I’ve talked about having a place in .com for guides, strategies, etc. That makes the most sense. I’ll certainly make a place in the magazine if nothing else comes up, a link in the footer to a community guidelines index or resources, or whatever.
It would be good if everyone was in the same boat and used the forum for txp tech, txp how to stuff and the Google+ for chat between users regarding general online techniques & strategies etc…. everyone on Google+ directs people to the forum for tech questions etc. … In an ideal world that would be great, I realise it isn’t all black and white with questions – but it would be a start.
I completely agree. And those are good ideas for going into a formal strategy doc. In the end, however, you can’t make “customers” use a specific channel. People use what they like or where they happen to spend most time. This is increasingly accepted anymore; more and more companies are adapting to it. Every successful CMS community does too.
Personally I think we are diluting the online brand and possibly wasting energy with these 3rd party social media tools as the txp user base isn’t huge.
On this point I don’t agree. For one thing, Textpattern has never had a strong brand. How many people still spell “TextPattern”, even in this forum, and nobody says anything (except Els and I). As long as there’s that lackadaisical attitude about product/project identity, then yeah, the brand will keep floundering in the quagmire it’s always been floundering in. If the brand is diluting, it’s because not enough people are trying to maintain it properly (some people do try, I can name them). Social media hasn’t got anything to do with it, on the contrary. As mentioned many times before, this is probably a money issue—nobody is being paid to look after the brand and PR.
Is there a txp social media rep? if not, then how about any txp mentions just get re-tweeted by any txp twitter users – I use it hardly, but could do that :)
Sign this man up! At the very least you should help draft the socmed strategy.
People do retweet things, but it’s a pretty half-focused affair. The more people giving it attention, the better. No doubt.
Plus their [socmed tools] life can be ended at anytime … or their terms changed…
True. But Textpattern could lose it’s hosting at any time too. Point is, the entire frickin’ web is volatile. Nothing is permanent. No social media tool, no web host, no power grid. And part of a good social strategy includes defining a contingency plan around that fact. But let’s be real, entities like Google and Facebook aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’ll likely last longer than this little hobby. (Well, hopefully not Facebook.)
Anyway there was talk that Google+ was just a google employee hangout ;)
Irony appreciated. ;) But maybe not.
And there’s more to think about than just G+. An official YouTube channel would be very useful. But the problem? No organization. No plan of action or strategy to follow.
build empires…. I don’t think.
Nope. That opportunity sailed in 2005. Txp is like 300 Spartans; now facing insurmountable odds but going down with a hard fight. That’s a pretty fitting analogy.
I had noticed a few unanswered threads in the forum, tech questions which prior to the g+ social thing would have been answered fairly sharpish…
A good observation, and a fair thing to bring up. But there’s probably many reasons that people’s questions get lost in the shuffle, not the least of which is … they just get lost in the shuffle. And to be fair, it can be hard knocks both directions. Many people ask questions that have been answered a zillion times in the forum or elsewhere already, and don’t even stick around or follow up with the people replying. That’s just the way it goes.
In the real world (a-hem), the more usable a product is (and the better it’s documentation) the less time/effort/money is spent on support calls, leaving more to go into productive things.
@Phil : I think I just read somewhere that Google Code is freezing because of mis-use anyway. Github seems like the right place to focus.
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
I am on the G+ diet as well but much prefer the full meal deal here on the forums. But then again they are two different platforms.
Big reason of why i like the forums is SEARCH. It’s funny but on the Google’s G+ Communities I have yet figured out how to search.
It’s like Groundhog Day… each day starts fresh.
…. texted postive
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
I guess I’m not the only one but I’m using Google+ (communities) only on my iPhone … searching new stuff concerning webdesign (HTML, CSS) … and I find lots of it … also in the Txp community … :)
Last edited by RedFox (2013-08-29 10:16:56)
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Re: Google+ vs Forum
shgalib wrote #279858:
I don’t think that google+ reduces the popularity of forum. Google+ is good but forums are better.
+1
I have spend an hour trying to find a post i made month or so ago. dam if i can fid it. I am not a fan of the +
…. texted postive
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