EN Forum Clean Up Task Force 👊
Team, time to get to work on tidying up the forums.
There was a great deal of good feedback regarding the forums, including:
- Cleaning up the forum Categories and layout to make it more accessible.
- Creating a "this week" or "announcement" forum instead of the dashboard. AKA killing the Dashboard and moving the start page to the Forums. Maybe create a weekly/monthly forum called Dashboard, What’s New This Week or something so we know to look there for new members, pics of our dogs, etc. A fun place to throw up anything we want? Pin it to the top.
- Creating a "forum best practices" document to teach folks how to use tags, search, Subscribe to threads, use the mobile app.
Members: Right now we have @Al Truscott And @Janyne Kizer Who are involved.
Would love some input form other folks especially WSMs like @Jeremy Behler @John Withrow @Jenn Edwards @tim cronk And others...no limits.
First step here is to determine steps. I propose they are:
- Refine existing forum categories.
- Create the "up to date" space in the forums, including advising P on how to manage site communication, etc.
- Creating a forum best practice resource (maybe video?) to get things rolling?
Deadline for STEP FEEDBACK is Thursday 2/28 EOD in the comments below....let's do this team! 💪
~ Coach P
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Comments
Thanks @Coach Patrick and @Al Truscott ! I'm excited to help. I certainly hope that some people who have been around EN longer than the few months I've been here will chime in.
Here's a shared document that we can use for this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wdS07fpxOS2dh1dddrKLdUEiO3w9uBeNNFXfVZnY55Y/edit?usp=sharing
Or I can paste my comments in here if that's easier for everyone.
Sorry for the bold. For whatever reason, when I type in this thread, everything is bold no matter how I format it :-(
I'm in, happy to help. I think step #1 would be to eliminate the dashboard and just "pin" announcements to the top of the forums with the forums on or as our home page. That way people see the announcement AND can comment on it in one place. Actually I think you could do that tomorrow and it would have a large impact and "automatigcally" keep the "dashboard" relevant. Exciting!
I like the pinned post idea, @Jenn Edwards !
Honestly, I get bogged down by the different forum categories and end up just looking at the Recent Posts. I'm sure that there is some history there but I don't know what it is.
For example. right now I have a question about setting up my watch for my marathon. Is that a Marathon question? If I put it there, will anyone see it? Is that a Race Execution question? Or should I just put it in Q&A? Or just punt and ask in GroupMe? 😉
Maybe break it down into fewer, more general categories:
I'm assuming that Q&A is configured as in a special way because of the whole accept answer/unanswered questions thing there and that it is a useful tool for the team.
I'm not sure where I'd put the running categories but I would at least combine Run Durability and Marathon & Half Marathon into a single running forum. Include Ultra here? Or put the running in general training?
I'd get rid of the Women category. Women are people too. I mean, I get that women wear bras and use different saddles but at the same time, men feel free to post about male specific things in the general forums.
@Janyne Kizer I think is is critical that someone with fresh eyes like yours helps us streamline the forum. I also concur with your strategy of keeping the top-level categories to a manageable number - 6-7 is perfect in my mind. There is some good research that shows this number is best for things like (a) The size of small working groups, (b) characters in a sequence, like phone # or airline confirmation code, (c) Maximum bullet points in a presentation (although 3-5 is actually best), etc. Apparently our brains can hold no more than 6 or 7 items in our working memory at any one time...
I'm going to give this some concerted thought this evening after I'm done with workouts. I will ponder re-naming, and deciding which forum sub-categories go into which top-level category. After that, I'll go onto @Coach Patrick 's second and third bullet points in the top post in this thread. I can either be scatter-brained or methodical. Here, I'll opt for the latter...
Question & Answer was an attempt a year or so ago to "solve" the same issue we are working on here - how to structurally encourage more forum participation by a broader base. It may be redundant to maintain it.
Finally, why is everything BOLD in this thread???
Because bold is AWESOME!
OK, Here are today's thoughts, specifically on forum categories.
• There are currently 37 categories, in 12 major headings. First question: do we keep this nested structure, or coalesce into fewer major headings. I think there should be the following major headings: Training, Racing Strategy and Execution, Races, Special Interests, Community, and Coach Threads....I believe Endurance Nation is first and foremost a collection of athletes who are seeking help and support in training and racing endurance sports, primarily longer-distance triathlons.
• Training (Maybe it needs a better name?) includes: Swim, bike, run, gear, nutrition, medical, power, pace. Should each of these have a separate sub-category, or all be lumped together? This question applies to most other categories, and may be answered differently for each.
• Race Strategy and Execution is a core competence and key differentiator of Endurance Nation, and should receive emphasis commensurate with that. Race reports, race selection, race planning, race data analysis, et al.
• Races: This would include all those threads Brenda just created for each of the individual races. Should each race get a separate sub-category, or simply its own thread?
• Special Interests: Ultra-running, Running (5K >> Marathon), Bike Racing/events, Short course triathlon, Aquabike, Duathlon, Epic events, Camps, Boomers, Women (I'm certainly not gonna be the one to suggest that disappears!) This runs a risk of partially overlapping with Training, but "we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"
• Community: Club House, Trial members, (?) Q&A Central, Admin, Challenge, Classifieds, WSM, Sponsors, Podcast/Coach Talks etc.
• Coach Thread
Tommorrw
I suggest that we get rid of the nested structure and go with fewer, larger categories without sub categories. Think Slowtwitch here. I'm definitely thinking threads, not sub groups. I think that @Al Truscott suggested 6-7 categories so let's try to stick with that.
Overall, I like @Al Truscott 's categories: Training, Racing Strategy and Execution, Races, Special Interests, Community, and Coach Threads.
The one that I am not sure about is Special Interests. I'm not sure that I'd know what to put there. If I have a question about running do I put it in Special Interests or Training. If it is a running question and I am prepping for a tri does it go in a different place than if I am prepping for a half marathon? I'm still not sure about the ultra stuff. Should it be General Training or something else?
Although there is not a lot of traffic in this area, I do think that classifieds are a separate thing than most of our discussion. Challenges I can go either way on. If you think that it belongs in General or Clubhouse, that's fine.
This is what I'd do:
Anyway, that's not a whole lot different that what I suggested.
Random rumination about the forum threads. If we could show a "preview" like our e-mail of 3-5 lines I think that would help drive engagement.
For example, rather than just seeing line item title: "JOS Bike Week" by Ralph, if we saw "JOS Bike Week" then the first few sentences: " Vo2 Focus continues as we increase the interval length to 3 min @ FTP + 15% on Tuesday and a mix of 30 sec and 1 min intervals on Thursday at, you guessed it, My favorite Max Sustainable Effort There have been lots of posts about changing the bike workouts to Zwift rides or Sufferfest or whatever..."
That little peek behind the curtain may drive folks to dive in and comment / read etc because they don't have to invest the time to click in to see what it's about.
/Random Rumination .
🤣
Love it!
@Janyne Kizer @Al Truscott @Jenn Edwards I think fewer categories could work as long there is an explanation under each to guide people what to put in that category. Remember that we let our members post in the forums, so if we have clear guidelines on what sort of content we want in those categories it will make it easier for them to decide where to put their forum post.
e.g this thread is for posting questions on blah blah blah
Races - this category is for posting questions on races , posting race reports, posting race rehearsal etc...
Am I making sense?
I love @Jenn Edwards idea of a preview. That would be very helpful. I like the idea of fewer groups/subgroups, etc., but would that hinder searching later? Looking at what is listed to be included, that general training section would be a monster (kinda like it is now). I guess I’m not sure what the answer is, and maybe this is just a trade off we decide to make, but I at least wanted to raise the question.
@Brenda Ross: Yes, we definitely need to have some guidance on what to post where.
@Scott Giljum: I thought part of the reason that we want people to post in the forums is so that we could search for stuff? Do you feel there is a problem with the search function? Or do you mean searching within each category as opposed to searching the whole forum? To me, the search problem that I encounter most often is that the Coach Threads are included. That feels like it clutters up the search findings but that could just be me feeling like I am looking through someone's windows when I see someone else's Coach Thread.
I know the search function on the old site was no bueno but I believe has been resolved when we moved to the new forums (coaches thread issue aside). I guess I was wondering if we could create a set of tags, hashtags, whatever, that if I know I just want to see what’s there on a certain topic, I can peruse without feeling totally overwhelmed.
As an example, I’m a gear junkie. Sometimes I would like to just look through all the topics in the gear forum (under the current structure) and read up on whichever grabbed my attention. Under the proposed structure, that would be mixed in with a ton of other topics and harder to navigate. Again, probably just a small trade off, but if the search function can allow, and we can create a set of predefined tags for people to choose from, I might be able to more easily search even if I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for.
I also was thinking of the dashboard. Do we need it in any form? I know we probably should to accommodate the most people, but my experience is that most things posted in the dashboard in the past are now posted in GroupMe (new ftp, workworks, I raced with x today, etc). Again just a thought, and maybe a bridge too far right now, but I do see GroupMe as a legit replacement for how the dashboard was used in the past. Team announcements would be a likely exception, or we would need a strong calendar function people are comfortable checking (so I know when coach calls are etc.)
just a few ideas (that may just need to hit the scrap heap) to consider.
@Scott Giljum Tags are available now. I just posted this morning and tagged it marathon and garmin. I was also going to tag it running but I saw that would be a new tag and that dissuaded me. Maybe it shouldn't have? The issue with tags is getting people to use them. I guess just model good behavior? I'm not sure how you search for tags but if you click on the tag in a post, it'll bring up all of the other posts with that tag. (marathon tag example: https://endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com/discussions/tagged/marathon)
Regarding the dashboard, I'm with you there. I see the announcements, which @Jenn Edwards suggested could be pinned posts, and then use it to log into the General Discussion where I look at recent posts. I guess it's notice that we have the birthdays and Strava feed there. I do scroll through the Team Feed sometimes.
Questions:
@Janyne Kizer - keep going with the re-organization...don't worry about the dashboard just yet.
I like the idea of a Forum Dashboard, and folks will just "go there" vs homepage in the future....but there will likely be a "static page" that new folks go to in the interim...bare bones, etc.
Trials will be fine, no worries.
Forum descriptions already in place....we could put more there if you wanted... Like this...
comment on @Janyne Kizer 's comments about nested structure. in the Vanilla forums one can click on the "recent threads" button and see all threads that are recent regardless of where they fit in the nested structure. I think once all is done we need a good "how to use EN technology" FAQ.
so it would seem you can already get the Slowtwitch type of listing built in. I think it's also valuable to browse by topics at times. Lots of good stuff in here, Love the energy and mojo going on!!!
@scott dinhofer, I always use the Recent view now so I get that. The issue is with participation. If you want to post something ,where the heck do you put it?
Category names...to help clarify and specify where to post:
Instead of "Training", how about "Long Distance Triathlon" (HIM & IM). This is probably the primary reason that better than 95% of people join up with Endurance Nation. If you've got a question or observation about any aspect for preparing for LDT, it goes here. The OutSeason is specifically designed to help prepare for LD training, so those threads would go here, IMO.
"Special Interests" might be clearer if it were "The Wide World of Endurance Sport". Training for an ultra, for a sprint or Oly, and everything in between and around, goes here.
"Community" could be described as "anything you want to share with or learn from the EN Community, other than racing and training."
The Coach Threads, and Racing categories are pretty clear, I hope.
Sounds good. Can we call it Wide World of EN instead?
HEY, the BOLD is off!
@Janyne Kizer "Racing" would be two separate categories: Strategy and Execution, (+Reports, Planning, Analysis) is one, and Races (all those race-specific threads) is another, on my mind.
Amalgamation: Wide World of EN-durance
Ok...I have an email into Vanilla support with some of your questions.
Before I can execute the edits, I'm going to need a final outline or maybe a call... #wanttogetthisright
Are we going flat (my vote) or doing sub groups/nested structure?
I never posted about pork products. ^^ ^ Just saying
OK, @Coach Patrick & @Janyne Kizer , here goes...
• I'm pretty indifferent to nested vs flat, but if I had to choose, I;d vote for flat in the spirit of trying to simplify the forum
• I'm sticking with the following categories:
Long Distance Triathlon, Racing Strategy and Execution, Races, Wide World Of EN-durance, Community, and Coach Threads.
I could try my hand a 140 character-long descriptions of each, if that would help...
Works for me.
Ok. @Janyne Kizer I need that set of flat forums in a sheet with the ones to be nested (temporarily) under them. For example it Race Reports is under racing it should be there so I know what to move where.
@Al Truscott send those over and we go live.
Likely bested first to confirm before I move all the threads.